Across The Nation

Ed Rollins back on campaign trail, aiding Senate hopeful

ALBANY, N.Y. - Political hired gun Ed Rollins is back on the campaign trail after shooting himself in the foot while managing the New Jersey gubernatorial race last year.

Bernadette Castro, Republican U.S. Senate candidate in New York state and the heiress to the Castro Convertible sofa-bed fortune, said yesterday she has hired Rollins as one of three campaign consultants.

Rollins, a former Reagan political adviser, looked like a genius when Christie Whitman defeated incumbent Gov. James Florio last year.

Then he boasted that one of the ways the GOP pulled off the upset was to pay $500,000 to suppress the black vote, setting off a furor. Rollins later swore under oath he had made up the story.

"I'm confident that Mr. Rollins would never make that kind of mistake again," said Castro.

Lawmakers call for criminal probe of tobacco industry

WASHINGTON - Seven members of Congress yesterday asked the Justice Department for a criminal investigation into the tobacco industry's activities for the last 40 years.

The lawmakers contend cigarette companies may have committed fraud and perjury beginning in the 1950s by allegedly hiding evidence that cigarettes were hazardous.

And they said the chiefs of the nation's seven largest tobacco firms may have perjured themselves when they testified before Congress last month that they had no evidence nicotine was addictive.

Confidential industry documents and information from congressional hearings now indicate that testimony was false, wrote Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., in a letter mailed to Attorney General Janet Reno.

"Failure to hold cigarette companies and their executives fully accountable for such criminal activities would allow them to continue criminal activities that ultimately cause massive numbers of premature deaths," Meehan wrote in the letter.

Ex-legislator, troubled son, lieutenant killed in shootout

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - A former state legislator, his son and a sheriff's lieutenant were killed yesterday in a shootout that erupted when authorities tried to take the son in for a mental evaluation.

Killed were Lt. Bill Sibrava, Republican state Sen. Joe Mercer, 57, and Mercer's son Stephen, 30.

The elder Mercer, a candidate for governor in 1986, was apparently killed in crossfire between his son and deputies who were trying to serve the son with papers requiring him to submit to a mental evaluation.

"We aren't sure who shot him. We believe it was his son. We're not sure at this time," said Bernalillo County sheriff's spokesman Ernie Watson.

The younger Mercer had been involved in a seven-hour standoff with Albuquerque police last week and had held off police for 45 minutes on Thursday, Watson said.

"There were a lot of deputies serving the order because there was a propensity for violence," he said.

Litigant kills pregnant lawyer, man at deposition

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - A man involved in a lawsuit opened fire in a court reporter's office yesterday, killing a pregnant lawyer and a man giving a deposition.

The shooting suspect was identified as Julio Mora, 68. After the 15-shot pistol Mora was using jammed, he ran and was chased down by the owner of the court-reporting firm where the shooting occurred.

The people killed were identified as lawyer Karen Marx, 30, of West Palm Beach, who was four months pregnant, and Clarence Rudolph, 56. Maurice Hall, 44, a lawyer and retired judge from West Palm Beach, was in critical condition.

The shooting occurred in a sixth-floor office where Rudolph was giving a deposition in a civil case that Mora had filed against the American Association of Retired Persons.

"Fifteen minutes into the deposition the gentleman pulled out a gun," said Bret Tannenbaum, owner of Coastal Reporting Services. "He fired six shots, two into each person. The gentleman's gun jammed. He ran out.

"This was a preplanned thing," Tannenbaum said. Mora "said some pretty weird things yesterday."

88 rabbits mysteriously killed at miniature golf course

PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. - Police in this Great Smoky Mountain tourist town are baffled over the slaughter of 88 rabbits at Bunnyland Mini Golf.

The miniature golf course, with a big sign advertising "Live Bunnies Running Loose!" remained open after the most recent attack that left 15 rabbits dead sometime between late Wednesday and early Thursday.

Less than a week before, 58 rabbits were found dead on the eve of the course's seasonal opening. Many were skinned and mutilated. At least some appeared to have been bludgeoned to death.

Bunnyland employees reported 15 dead rabbits about two months ago, but police couldn't say for certain whether that incident was connected to the more recent ones because they didn't see the carcasses.

"I'm so weary and I'm so angry," said Jayne Vaughn, director of the Sevier County Humane Society. "My main concern right now is the welfare of the rest of the animals left at Bunnyland."

Orlando man convicted of threatening to kill Clinton

ORLANDO - A federal jury yesterday convicted an unemployed limousine driver of threatening President Clinton's life.

Ron Barbour, 45, faces up to five years in prison for telling neighbors he wanted to kill the president and then traveling to the Washington, D.C., area with a gun. U.S. District Judge Anne Conway did not immediately schedule a sentencing date.

The Orlando man hated Democratic policies and wanted to kill the president to embarrass the administration, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Glazebrook said. Barbour stayed in a Virginia hotel in January and traveled to Washington several times in hopes of spotting Clinton jogging, the prosecutor said. He returned to Florida only after learning the president was out of the country at the time, Glazebrook said.

Barbour told investigators he planned to use the gun to kill himself in Virginia, his birthplace.

`Manson murders' mansion torn down; villa to replace it

LOS ANGELES - The mansion where followers of Charles Manson murdered actress Sharon Tate and four other people in 1969 has been torn down, and a new home is under construction in its place.

The Benedict Canyon home was rented by Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski, when the murders occurred Aug. 9, 1969. Polanski wasn't home at the time.

Property owner Al Weintraub is building an 18,000-square-foot Mediterranean villa on the site. It was to be completed early next year.

"We'll try to sell it and if we don't sell it, I'll move into it," Weintraub said this week, adding the asking price for the home and 3 1/2 acres of land would be $12.5 million.

5-year-old killed as bleacher collapses at baseball game

HOUSTON - A 5-year-old child playing under a high-school bleacher was crushed to death yesterday and 17 other people were injured when the structure collapsed at a baseball game, authorities said.

The unidentified child died of severe head wounds. The injured among the 200 people sitting in the bleacher were treated for minor injuries at hospitals. Witnesses said the bleacher appeared to collapse in "slow motion" during the second inning of the baseball game.