Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 1, 1995 TAG: 9507060004
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
NEW YORK - Perched atop a skyscraper where falcons live, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said Friday that the world's fastest bird is no longer endangered - but the laws that saved it are.
``The battle to save the falcon has been won,'' he announced cheerily, only to follow up with a warning that Congress was messing with Mother Nature by rewriting environmental laws that already work. ``The radicals are in charge of Congress.''
Babbitt is among environmentalists rallying to support the 1973 Endangered Species Act, under fire by conservatives who hope to revise it extensively in the Republican-controlled Congress.
Babbitt stood atop the 50-story Bank of New York building, where falcons have nested since 1985, to announce plans to remove the bird from the endangered species list after a 60-day public comment period. The building is now home to a pair of falcons.
At least 12 falcon nesting pairs are in New York City. Nearly 1,000 nesting pairs are believed to be in the continental United States, with another 300 in Alaska and more in Canada and Mexico.
- Associated Press
Food stamp fraud costs $1.7 billion
WASHINGTON - Americans collected $1.7 billion in food stamp benefits they did not deserve last year, according to a federal survey. It blames the loss on mistakes by local welfare caseworkers and recipients who provide inaccurate or fraudulent information about their incomes.
According to the Agriculture Department, 7.65 percent of the $22.7 billion in food stamps paid out last year went to people who either were not entitled, or collected more than they should have.
Thousands of other low-income Americans were denied $608 million in food stamps that they should have received because of mistakes in welfare offices across the country.
Nearly 27 million Americans get help with their grocery bills from food stamps.
- Associated Press
Tobacco documents to be made public
SAN FRANCISCO - The University of California will release documents allegedly showing how the nation's third-largest tobacco company hid knowledge of nicotine's addictive qualities, a university lawyer said.
The documents will be made available on the Internet and in a university library beginning today, university counsel Christopher Patti said Thursday.
The state Supreme Court cleared the way for the release Thursday by denying Kentucky-based Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.'s request to review a judge's decision allowing the university to release all of the approximately 4,000 papers.
The documents include internal memoranda from Brown & Williamson and other tobacco companies, as well as reports on research done on the companies' behalf.
The tobacco company, which makes Lucky Strike and other cigarettes, has fought to keep the papers secret, claiming they were stolen in 1989.
Brown & Williamson sued in California after learning the university had gained copies of the documents, sent in May 1994 to UC-San Francisco Professor Stanton Glantz.
- Associated Press
by CNB