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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 25, 2000)
Judge allows lawsuit over state refusal to let gays adopt 1 MIAMI — A gay man in Oregon who wants to adopt the 8-year-old foster child who has been in his custody for years can sue Florida over its law ban ning homosexuals from adopting, a federal judge in Miami ruled. Florida is the only state in the nation that prohibits gays from adopting. Homosexuals in the Sunshine State, though, can serve as foster parents. “We think this is a significant step forward,” said Michael Adams of the American Civil Lib erties Union Lesbian and Gay Rights Project in New York, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Steven Lofton and other gays hop ing to adopt children in Florida. “The judge made it clear these folks will have their day in court,” Adams said in a telephone inter view Monday from New York. Lofton is a former Key West res ident who last year moved to Port land with the 8-year-old boy and two other Florida foster children he has legal custody of. Lofton’s 1996 adoption application to Florida’s child welfare agency was denied on the basis of a 1977 . state law that denies gays the right to adopt. There was no immediate re sponse to a message left on his home answering machine. Several other gays and lesbians who hope to adopt are named in the lawsuit. However, only Lofton has submitted an application to the Florida Department of Chil dren and Families. Janitors accept new contract, ending 3-week-old strike 2 LOS ANGELES — Thousands of striking janitors over whelmingly approved a new con tract Monday, ending a 3-week old walkout at Los Angeles-area office buildings. The janitors were headed back to work Tues day. About 88 percent of janitors voting at union headquarters ap proved the three-year contract, ' which will increase their pay by 26 percent for workers downtown and 22 percent for those in outly ing areas. Union leaders praised the agreement, even though it fell short of their original goal of $1 an-hour increases each year. “It met our primary goal of lift ing our members out of poverty,” Mike Garcia, president of the Ser vice Employees International Union Local 1877, told cheering janitors at union headquarters. “We have reinvented labor’s most powerful weapon — the strike,” he said. 'Millionaire* game show has first black player 3 NEW YORK — After 84 shows and 192 people in the hot seat, “Who Wants to Be a Mil lionaire” had a black contestant sitting across from Regis Philbin for the first time Sunday’s program marked something of a milestone for tele vision’s most popular program, which has been criticized for its overwhelming number of white male players and even issued an on-air plea for more diversity in February. Steven Maurice Clark, a Har vard-educated surgeon from Aiken, S.C., walked off with $32,000 after guessing wrong on a question that could have earned him $250,000. “To me, it shouldn’t be an issue, and I think if I had been on in No vember it wouldn’t have been an issue,” Clark said in an interview Monday. As the months wore on, though, the lack of black contestants had become an annoyance for the pro ducers, who have slightly modi fied the way the show selects con testants in order to minimize what are perceived as advantages for white men. Only 26, or 13 percent, of the 195 people that have been in the hot seat through the end of Sun day’s show were women, accord ing to ABC. Philbin took the unusual step on Feb. 1 of appealing to women and minorities to dial the toll-free telephone number for a quiz to qualify for the show. Before that date, only 12 percent of the hot seat contestants were women; since then, it has been 17 percent, ABC said. Including Clark, there have been six blacks among the 855 people who made it onto the show. Each program begins with 10 players, and just a few get to play for a million dollars. Rescue teams pinpoint location of gunmen, hostages 4SEMPORNA, Malaysia — Rescue teams searching southeast Asian seas on Monday zeroed in on a band of heavily armed assailants, who had stormed one of the world’s top diving resorts and sped off with 20 hostages. An American couple escaped by refusing to swim out to the kid nappers’ boats and then hiding overnight in nearby bushes. Philippine Muslim rebels who are seeking the release of militants jailed in the United States claimed responsibility Tuesday for the kid napping. But Philippine officials quickly expressed skepticism over the statement. Defense Minister Najib Tun Razak said Monday that an air-and sea search team had determined where the hostages—half of whom were foreign tourists—were being held, following their abduction the previous evening on the lush Sipadan Island in eastern Malaysia. “We now know their exact loca tion,” Najib said without giving details. The Philippine and Malaysian navies were coordinat ing the rescue effort. Malaysian police said they sus pected “political motives” were behind the attack. “We believe a foreign element is involved,” In spector General of Police Norian Mai said. The attack began when six masked gunmen, carrying AK-47s and a rocket launcher and speak ing a Philippine language, grabbed tourists and workers and confiscated their cash and jewel ry, Norian said. Russia to display fragment of Hitler’s skull at exhibition 5 MOSCOW — An exhibition opening Wednesday to mark the end of World War II will feature what officials claim is a fragment of Adolf Hitler’s skull that was kept in a secret archive for decades. The fragment — with a bullet hole through it — will be dis played at the Federal Archives Service in an exhibition called “The Agony of the Third Reich: The Retribution” to mark the 55th anniversary of the end of the war. The authenticity of the claim has been in question since Moscow first announced it had the fragment in 1993. A Hitler bi ographer Werner Maser said that the fragment was a fake. The director of the exhibition hall, Aliya Borkovets, insisted Monday that “no doubts remain” about the authenticity of the skull fragments. Officials said Monday they also had Hitler’s jaw, but it was too fragile to put on display and just a photograph will be displayed. Vladimir Kozlov, head of the Federal Archives Service, and of ficials from the Federal Security Service — the main successor to the KGB — did not say at a news conference Monday how the skull fragments came to be in Moscow. The exhibition will include documents on Soviet work to identify the remains, the archives service said in a statement. It will also display materials from a So viet investigation into Hitler’s sui cide, some of his belongings and items from his bunker. The Associated Press Calendar April 25 The Spring Equipment Swap will be held in the EMU Ballroom at 7:30 p.m. Environmental Issues Committee Meeting: 11 a.m. - noon. EMU Umpqua Room. For information, browse darkwing.uoregon.edu/~eic or call 346-1738. Sociology Lecture: Eileen Barker, London School of Economics, dis cusses “And the Wall Came Tumbling Down: Religion and the Rise of Na tionalism in Eastern Europe." Noon. Room 228, Chiles Business Center. Free. For information, call 346-1169. InterSEXions Conference: Brown bag presentation by Kate Sullivan, Women’s Studies graduate student, on TransGendering Monstrosity. Noon. Suite 34, EMU. Free. For information, browse darkwing.uoregon.edu/~program or call 346-1134. InterSEXions Conference: Lecture by Susan Stryker on “Transexuality in the Field of Vision: The Cultural Poli tics of Transgender Presence in Un derground Films from the ’60s.” 4 r 7777777777 p.m. Alumni Lounge, Gerlinger Hall. Free. For information, browse da rkwi ng. uoregon.ed u/~progra m or call 346-1134. InterSEXionsConference: Lecture by Daphne Scholinsky on “What’s All the LOCO-motion? Art Sanity and Gender.” 7 p.m. Alumni Lounge, Gerlinger Hall. Free. For information, browse darkwing.uoregon.edu/~program or call 346-1134. Ethnic Studies Lecture: Jose Saldivar, University of California, Berkeley, discusses “In Search of the Mexican Elvis: Border Matters in American Subaltern Studies.” 3-5 p.m. EMU Fir Room. Free. For information, call Patty Starks-Smith, 346-0901. Classified staff meeting with admin istrators: University President Dave Frohnmayer, Oregon University Sys tem Chancellor Joe Cox and other administrators will take questions from the Classified Staff Training and Development Advisory Commit tee and the Office of Human Re sources from 10 a.m. to noon in the EMU Ballroom. Refreshments will be provided. YOUR place for new/, clawified/, me/zaje board/, reader/ poll/, ODE archive/ and mote... 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