Banner Graphic, Volume 13, Number 97, Greencastle, Putnam County, 30 December 1982 — Page 2
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The Putnam County Banner-Graphic, December 30,1982
Telephone bills going up Jan. 1
" WASHINGTON (AP) - Starting in January, consumers will see their telephone bills rise by as Uncle Sam begins collecting more tax. I Under the terms of a tax bill passed by Congress last August, all telephone companies must begin levying a 3 percent excise tax on their customers’ bills Jan. 1. The current tax is 1 percent. -Officials at the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. and the United States Independent telephone Association estimate the 2 percent hike will generate an extra $1.3 billion next year for the government. Instead of collecting about $630 million from their customers for Uncle Sam, the nation’s roughly 1,500 telephone companies will collect a total of about $1.9 billion in 1983, according to AT&T’s Pic Wagner and Hank Wieland of USITA. They said the tax applies to all telephone service, both local and long-distance. Thus, even if a customer doesn’t place any long-distance calls, he will still pay the 3 percent tax on his
■ Banner-Graphic . "It Waves For All” USPS 142-020) Consolidation of Ths Daily Banner Established 1850 i The Herald i| The Daily Graphic Established 1883 t Telephone 653-5151 I Published daily except Sundays and holidays by LuMar Newspapers. Inc. at 100 North Jackson St., Grsencastla. Indiana 4(ft3S. Entered in the Post Office at Greencastle. Indiana, as 2nd class mail matter under Act of March 7,1878. Subscription Rates Per Week, by carrier ‘I.OO Per Month, by motor route '4.55 Mail Subscription Rates R.R. in Rest ol Rest ol Putnam County Indiana U.S.A. 3 Months *13.80 *14.15 ‘17.25 6 Months *27.60 ‘28.30 *34.50 1 Year *55.20 *56.80 *69.00 Mail subscriptions psyable in advsnce . . . not accepted in town and where motor route service is available. Member of the Associated Press The Associated Press is entitled exclusively to the use lor repubiicstlon of sll the local news printed in this newspaper.
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local service charge. The telephone increase is part of a massive SIOO billion tax law that affects a variety of other areas like cigarette taxes, medical deductions, airline travel and interest and dividend withholding. First implemented during World War I as a “temporary” measure, the excise tax has ranged as high as 25 percent on long-distance calls and 15 percent on local service. The tax stood at 10 percent for almost 20 years, then began a scheduled phase-out by falling 1 percent annually over the past decade. It had been been scheduled to expire this year. The new law specifies the percent rate will remain in effect through 1985. “We had really hoped that this would have been allowed to expire,” said Wagner. “Simply put, this tax directly increases the cost of telephone service to our customers. But we recognize the government has financial problems, too.”
More rain for water-treading Louisiana
By JUDY GIBBS Associated Press Writer Rains returned today to the coastal waters off Mississippi and Louisiana and threatened to move inland where rising rivers forced 375 new evacuations and sent two rockladen barges ramming into a railroad bridge. The National Weather Service predicted more rain would fall today on flood-ravaged areas of the two states where more than 2,600 people have been driven from their homes, including 375 rescued by civil defense officials Wednesday in Columbus, Miss. The flooding is the worst in Louisiana in 20 years and the worst in Mississippi in 10, the
Tacoma, Wash., resident Todd Bond is glad he spent Christmas at his parents' home. When he returned to his house, he discovered that a mudslide had turned the home into a "split level." One half was
National Weather Service said. By week’s end, forecasters said, the floodwaters will move into southwestern Louisiana, where two barges full of rocks intended for roadfill tore loose from their moorings on the swift Calcasieu River on Wednesday and battered a Kansas-
world
City Southern railroad bridge so badly it had to be closed. No one was injured, but residents were advised to take precautions for expected flooding. Elsewhere, power knocked out in a Midwestern blizzard that ended Tuesday was restored as the area continued
precariously perched on a muddy slope, while the remainder had slid down a steep hill. Relatives and fireman helped Bond salvage his possessions. (AP Wirephoto).
to dig out from under heavy snowfall, some places in subzero temperatures. In Minneapolis-St. Paul, where 16.5 inches fell Tuesday, most main roads had been cleared, but side streets remained clogged. Bus operations were limited
Soviets try verbal attack on Vatican
MOSCOW (API - The Soviet Union, in a stinging attack on Pope John Paul 11, has accused him of being a rigid anticommunist who cloaks political rhetoric in prayer. The unusual personal attack carried Wednesday by the official news agency Tass also accused the Roman Catholic Church of carrying out subversion in Poland and other East-bloc nations. There was no explanation for the attack, which denounced the Vatican for using the “cover of religion" to engage in “anticommunist propaganda on a broad scale.” Condemnations of the church typically have been distributed by the government-run media by quoting articles written in other Eastern European publications and focusing on the church’s role in Poland’s chronic unrest. The Polish-born pope was cited by name in an article Tass said appears in this month’s edition of the journal Political Self-Education, published by the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee. Tass said the journal takes note that Vatican policy is influenced by “the growth of
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Second day of violence * hits Miami's Overtown i
MIAMI (AP) Uneasy calm returned today to a sealed-off black slum after a second day of racial violence that left 21 people injured when black youth gangs attacked motorists, set fires and hurled rocks and bottles, authorities said. The death Wednesday evening of 21-year-old Nevell Johnson Jr., whose shooting Tuesday by a Hispanic officer triggered a riot, apparently failed to cause any further outbreaks. The Justice Department said the FBI would investigate the shooting. City officials late Wednesday declared the Overtown district “secure and calm.” with no injuries and only one arrest between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. On Tuesday, an alleged looter, 17-year-old Alonso R. Singleton, was shot and killed by a policeman. Riot-equipped police officers still ringed a 192-square-block area early today, and about 50 other officers gathered in a park five miles to the north in Liberty City, where racial violence claimed 18 lives two years ago. Sporadic throwing of rocks and bottles was reported and at least one business was looted in Liberty City, police said. “Nothing is really happening right now,” a Miami police spokeswoman who identified herself only as S. Dalton said after midnight. City Manager Howard V. Gary ordered police to stop using tear gas because of fears that it had incitd new violence Wednesday. He said it had not been necessary to impose a curfew Wednesday night.
in Denver, still recovering from the heaviest one-day snowfall in its history Dec. 24. “It’s the pits,” said Kathy Joyce, spokeswoman for the Regional Transportation District. At Stapleton Airport, airlines were trying to deal with a pile of unclaimed baggage including undelivered Christmas presents and thousands of dollars’ worth of ski equipment. Unseasonably warm temperatures that have delighted many Easterners were wreaking havoc on the New England ski industry, where expensive man-made snow was melting into mud on the slopes. The series of storms that began Christmas Eve has claimed at least 28 lives.
aggressive designs of imperialism and the stepped-up activity of the opponents of detente,” catchwords for the United States. “Unlike his predecessors, the present head of the Catholic church ... has taken a much more conservative and rigid position vis-a-vis the socialist world,” Tass said. “It goes without saying that the present ‘executor of St. Peter’ prefers ... to speak the language of Christian prayer,” Tass said. But it said the pope’s statements are of a political nature and “the real thrust of his statements is clear.” It said the crisis in martiallaw Poland was “born not in the wave of disorders that swept the country in 1980, but in the Catholic church.” Poland’s martial-law government decreed martial law Dec. 13, 1981, after 16 months of strikes and challenges' to the ruling Communist Party by the independent Solidarity union, which was formally outlawed in October. Polish military rule will be relaxed at the end of this month, but many of the emergency decrees over the year have been entrenched in law.
Police used gas during the day to disperse gangs of black youths roaming the run-dowp neighborhood, tossing rocks and bottles, overturning and torching cars. At least 21 people were injured in the two days of violence, Ms. Dalton said. A total of 36 have been arrested. Among the victims were an elderly w'ho was badly shaken when a gang attacked her car Wednesday and snatched her purse. A policeman received minor injuries w'hen a rock was hurled through his windshield and a motorist w'as hit in the face with a chunk of Crete, authorities said. In Tallahassee, a spokeswoman for Gov. Bob ( Graham said the National Guard had been , alerted in case conditions worsened. Other cities in the Dade County area had their forces on standby. „ _ The disturbances came during Orange Bowl; week celebrations and the beginning of the wirv’ ter tourist season. All Orange Bowl events remained scheduled, but subject to cancellation depending on the severity of the disturbances, said Ed Goss, publicity chairman for the Orange Bowl Committee. The huge Orange Bowl parade is scheduled Friday night and the parade route would take it within three blocks of Overtown. The district was reopened to traffic Wednesday, but then sealed off again, with police ' called back in, after residents and business owners called to demand protection.
Snowless holiday weekend ahead in NEski country c. 1982 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK W’ith the New' Year weekend approaching and not a flake of snow on the ground. Maurice Dennis decided it was time to do his dance. Dennis, a 74-year-old Abenaki Indian and a lifelong resident of Old Forge. N.Y.. donned headdress, mukluks and other traditional garb and led a large crowd to the Christmas tree in the center of the community, whose economy depends on an annual influx of skiers and snowmobilers, where he called on the Great Spirit. “I did a snow dance,” he said. “I played my tom-tom and sang ancient songs I learned from my father. “Unfortunately, it only rained a little. But I’ve agreed to try again. It’s important for the town. And I happen to be a skier myself, as a matter of fact.” Dennis was one of thousands of skiers in the region who have been praying for snow and resigning themselves to the likelihood that it will not arrive by New' Year’s Day. The holiday weekend is normally one of the busiest of the season. This year, however, with high temperatures in the 50s and 60s during much of December, many ski areas in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are shut and most others are offering drastically limited skiing. “In New' York, only 14 out of 70 areas are now open. ” said Ken Hunter, a spokesman for the State Department of Commerce. Connecticut resorts were closed or devoid of skiers as the last traces of snow melted away. At Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks Wednesday, the temperature reached 59 degrees, topping the record of 57 for the day. “If it gets cold enough, the areas will be making snow' like crazy,” Hunter said. However, even resorts with extensive snow-making equipment such as Hunter Mountain in the Catskills require at least 48 hours to spread a thin cover over the majority of their slopes. Might the expected change in temperature induce skiers to change their minds and head north 0 “I haven't given up hope entirely,’’said Cheryl Epstein of Bloomfield, Conn. “Maybe there will be a sudden blizzard But as of now, I guess we’re bombed-out.” Some skiers who said that although they did have other things they would do. they were not at all happy about doing them. “I’m moping around, sleeping, eating and getting fat,” said Marla Kirschener, a 22-year-old college student from Jericho, N.Y. “I should be getting into shape now by skiing. I spent a fortune on new ski clothes, too. I w'as supposed to be away from Christmas through Jan. 2. Now, my whole vacation is wasted.” Heading West has not been the answer to every skier's problems. “I was supposed to go skiing in Colorado last week,” said Greg Edwards, a Manhattan photographer. “I was in Minneapolis and I had reservations to fly to Denver from there. But Stapleton Airport was closed because of the big snowstorm. I waited around for days.” Finally, he gave up and rturned to New York. “I figured I could at least get on a bus and head north. All I wanted was to go to some small town and hear sleigh bells. I guess it just wasn’t in the stars.”
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