ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, August 7, 1996 TAG: 9608070064
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
WASHINGTON - The government has come up with an estimate for the cost of car crashes in terms of wrecked property and medical bills.
The total was $150.5 billion in 1994, Transportation Secretary Federico Pena said Tuesday.
That's $580 for every man, woman and child in the country.
The department calculated that less than one-third of the costs of a crash are paid by those involved. The balance is spread among the general population through higher insurance premiums, government payments, charities and other sources. - Associated Press Ore. Congressman under fire pulls out
WASHINGTON - Pressured by GOP colleagues as well as Democratic critics, Oregon Rep. Wes Cooley said Tuesday he was ending his bid for re-election in the face of allegations he lied about his war record and other parts of his background.
State officials are investigating whether Cooley falsely claimed to be a Korean War veteran. Military records indicated Cooley never left the United States during his service.
In addition, the federal Veterans Affairs Department is looking into whether Cooley's wife, Rosemary, improperly received veterans' survivor benefits while she and Cooley lived together before their marriage. Rosemary Cooley qualified for benefits after the 1965 death of her first husband, a Marine captain who was killed in a fighter jet crash in California. - Associated Press TV detective has rare form of cancer
LOS ANGELES - Robert Urich, who played a tough Boston detective in TV's ``Spenser: For Hire,'' has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.
Doctors discovered the synovial sarcoma, a soft-tissue cancer, after a routine physical last week, his spokeswoman Cindy Guagenti said Tuesday.
Urich, 48, will undergo chemotherapy for several weeks at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and ``the prognosis for recovery is excellent,'' said Dr. Gerald Rosen, the actor's physician.
Synovial sarcoma tends to be near a joint, but in rare cases is in the joint itself, said Dr. Jeffrey Eckardt, an orthopedic surgeon and surgery professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. It can spread to the lungs, but with aggressive treatment, doctors can get good results, he said.
The 6-foot-2 Canadian-born actor stars as the title character in the syndicated Western ``The Lazarus Man'' and is expected to return to the TV show, which is on summer hiatus, when the chemotherapy is completed. - Associated Press
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICS CONGRESSby CNB