Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 3, 1994 TAG: 9411030101
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
SAN FRANCISCO - In a reversal of fortune, New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm was cleared Wednesday of libel in a case brought by a psychoanalyst who had accused her of making up quotations.
In a trial last year, a jury had found Malcolm libeled Jeffrey Masson by putting words in his mouth, but it deadlocked on the issue of damages, requiring a whole new trial.
In the retrial, the federal jury deliberated for three days before ruling that two of the five challenged quotations were false. But the panel also found that Masson failed to prove Malcolm deliberately or recklessly falsified the statements.
The verdict Wednesday came after a 10-year legal odyssey that included a review by the U.S. Supreme Court. The case exposed writing practices said to be common at magazines - practices some called unethical.
- Associated Press
San Francisco papers shut by strike
SAN FRANCISCO - Empty newsstands and bare doorsteps greeted readers Wednesday after 2,600 employees of the city's two major dailies struck for the first time in 26 years.
Tuesday's walkout virtually shut down distribution of the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner, managers said. The two newspapers have a combined weekday circulation of about 600,000.
At the core of the contract dispute is a company plan to streamline distribution, eliminating 150 delivery driver jobs and 400 youth carriers. The newspapers plans to eventually replace all 900 youth carriers with adult drivers.
- Associated Press
Barry promises to quit if addiction returns
WASHINGTON - Marion Barry, heavily favored to regain the mayor's seat in the nation's capital, promised Wednesday to step down if his addiction to alcohol or drugs resurfaced. But he said he would not take random drug tests.
``I took the citizens through enough in 1990,'' Barry said. That was the year Barry, in his third term as mayor, was arrested in a downtown Washington hotel after he was videotaped smoking crack cocaine.
Barry was convicted of misdemeanor cocaine possession and was sentenced to six months in a federal prison. In 1992, after his release, Barry was elected to the D.C. Council to represent the poorest of Washington's eight wards.
- Associated Press
Clinton signs bill to help Gulf veterans
WASHINGTON - Declaring that a lack of diagnosis should not block efforts to help, President Clinton on Wednesday signed legislation allowing compensation payments to Persian Gulf veterans suffering from mystery illnesses.
The new law gives the Department of Veteran Affairs the authority to compensate any Persian Gulf veteran suffering from a chronic disability that became evident during service in the region or a specified time thereafter.
Since the 1991 war, some veterans have complained of fatigue, joint pain, hair loss, memory loss and heart and respiratory problems. Among suggested causes have been fumes from oil fires, pesticides or chemical warfare toxins.
- Associated Press
by CNB