F-16 pilots eject safely before crashes in 2 states
YUMA, Ariz. (AP) -- Two Air Force F-16 fighter jets from military bases in Arizona and Georgia crashed during training exercises, but the pilots in both managed to eject safely.The accidents involving the $20 million aircraft occurred Wednesday. Both were under investigation.
In Arizona, Maj. Anthony Barrell, from Luke Air Force Base near Glendale, was flying over the Barry M. Goldwater bombing range in southwestern Arizona near Yuma.
Barrell was flying as part of a four-jet formation. But before the start of an aerial engagement, Barrell radioed he had a problem and turned the jet toward the Gila Bend Air Force Auxiliary Field to recover, a base spokesman said. He ejected en route to Gila Bend.
At Luke, the world's largest F-16 training base, all F-16s were grounded until a cause for the crash can be determined. Wednesday's crash was the eighth since the fall 1998 involving a jet flying a mission from base west of Phoenix.
Brig. Gen. John Barry, of Luke, said that with availability of the vast 2.7 million-acre Goldwater Range, Luke flies its planes the way they are flown in combat.
"So, if they're going to start showing the cracks someplace in the system, they're probably going to show here," Barry said.
In Georgia, two pilots managed to eject safely from an F-16 jet from Moody Air Force Base on Wednesday night.
Maj. Charles B. Kearney and 1st Lt. Christoph Hutchins were participating in night-vision goggle training when they were forced to eject, said 1st Lt. DeDe Halfhill, a base spokeswoman.
The F-16 crashed in Donalsonville, about 90 miles away.
The pilots were transported back to Moody by helicopter for medical evaluation, Halfhill said.
Broadcast lobby attacks plan to create new FM stations
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's broadcasting lobby has asked an appeals court to set aside a rule adopted by federal regulators to create hundreds of new low-power FM stations.
The petition filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia contends that the decision last month by the Federal Communications Commission to authorize the stations is "arbitrary, capricious and otherwise contrary to law."
The head of the National Association of Broadcasters, which made the appeal, said the FCC's plan would cause significant interference to existing FM stations. Broadcasters have opposed the idea since its inception, saying their testing showed serious harm to the sound of existing stations.
The FCC says its own tests demonstrate that low-power service can be introduced without harm to FM radio. Last month, it adopted rules so that it could begin by summer awarding noncommercial, educational licenses to groups that want to operate 100-watt and 10-watt stations. That's far less than the 6,000 watts to 100,000 watts at which most FM stations now operate.
Fear of hackers prompts shutdown of EPA Web site
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Environmental Protection Agency has temporarily shut down its Internet connection after a House committee chairman complained that hackers could penetrate the agency's secure computers through its publicly accessible Web site.
"Virtually all of (the EPA's) computer data and systems may be highly vulnerable to penetration, misuses or attack by unauthorized users via the Internet," Rep. Thomas Bliley, R-Va., chairman of the House Commerce Committee said Wednesday, citing a not-yet-released report to his committee about EPA computer security problems.
Bliley said investigators from the General Accounting Office in December were able to penetrate sensitive areas of the EPA computer system through the agency's public Web site and gain access to sensitive material not generally available to the public.
The report was to have been presented at a hearing Thursday, but Bliley abruptly canceled the hearing on Wednesday and, instead, released a copy of a letter he had sent to EPA Administrator Carol Browner, urging her to shut down the EPA's publicly accessible Web site.
Late Wednesday, Browner directed that the EPA's Web site be temporarily shut down because of concern that the attention brought to the issue might prompt hackers to attack it. An EPA spokesman, David Cohen, said additional security measures were being developed and would shortly be in place. He said the site would then be reopened.
Bust of King soon to grace White House's main floor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A bust of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will soon grace the main floor of the White House, marking the first time a black American is so honored, President Clinton said Wednesday.
"In a few days . . . for the first time in the 200-year history of the White House, there will be on the main floor a bust of an African-American, the Rev. Martin Luther King," Clinton said as he accepted an award from the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO).
Clinton received the award for "his commitment to keeping the doors of opportunity open" for U.S. blacks, said Henry Ponder, president and CEO of NAFEO.
In emotional remarks to NAFEO, a group that represents the nation's 118 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), Clinton urged Americans not to become complacent with the economic boom the country is enjoying.
"I have waited 35 years and some months for my country to be in a position to build a future of our dreams for all our children. We dare not blow this," a choked-up Clinton told a silent crowd.
Ex-U.S. health official rejects conflict-of-interest charges
CHICAGO (AP) -- The former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's HIV vaccine unit approved an $8 million grant for research on a vaccine whose manufacturer hired him months later, the Chicago Tribune reported Thursday. He denied any wrongdoing.
CDC and VaxGen Inc. officials confirmed Wednesday that Dr. William Heyward played a key role in earmarking $8 million for AIDSVAX trials in October, the Tribune reported. He became VaxGen's vice president for international clinical studies in January.
AIDSVAX, the only HIV vaccine undergoing advanced testing, is designed to control HIV infection by generating a type of protein that may be able to prevent the virus from attaching to immune cells.
VaxGen and CDC officials said Heyward had cleared his role in the grant allocation with CDC attorneys.
In an interview with The Associated Press today, Heyward insisted there was no conflict of interest.
Heyward said the CDC funded only six of the 60 research clinics where tests on the vaccine are being conducted.
In addition, he said, other CDC officials also approved the agency's participation, and his own decisions on the trials had nothing to do with his impending departure to work for VaxGen, a vaccine maker based in Brisbane, Calif.
"I made no decisions myself that dictated where something would be done or not," he said by telephone from his home in Georgia. "My advice was that CDC should be involved in this trial. But I don't care what vaccine it was, I would have said the same thing."
Don Francis, VaxGen's president, said he and Heyward had discussed the possibility of Heyward's employment with VaxGen for about two years, but he said they halted negotiations before the October decision to avoid a conflict of interest.