Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 26, 1995 TAG: 9501260117
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
LONG BEACH, Calif. - Torpedoes, mines and missiles couldn't sink America's battleships, but they couldn't survive the end of the Cold War. They lasted a century. Now they're gone for good.
The world's last battleships - the Missouri, New Jersey, Iowa and Wisconsin, all mothballed - have been stricken from the Navy's register of ships.
Navy Secretary John Dalton has cleared the way for the dreadnoughts to be scrapped or used as museum ships.
The cost of maintaining them outweighs their value, said Navy Lt. Dave Albritton. The decision to scrap them came after a review of costs and operational requirements, the same forces that prompted the ships' retirement. They had cost $80 million annually to operate, more than half of which went to pay the crews of 1,500 per ship.
- Knight-Ridder/Tribune
City marks 50 years of better teeth
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - For 50 years, it's been called everything from a communist plot to a carcinogen. But putting fluoride in public water hasn't caused anything but a decline in tooth decay, officials said Wednesday, the 50th anniversary of the day Grand Rapids became the first city to do it.
The city's test eventually showed that people who drink fluoridated water when they are young have 20 percent to 40 percent fewer cavities, said Dr. Linda Niessen, former president of the American Association of Public Health Dentistry.
The city plans a monument to the experiment, to be unveiled in September.
Now, 56 percent of the U.S. population receives fluoridated water, according to the American Dental Association. The ADA hopes to increase that to at least 75 percent by 2000.
- Associated Press
by CNB