Week In Review A Look Back At The Top Stories From The Last Week

COURTS Trial and error

The news of the week was dominated by bombing trials. Two years after 168 women, children and men were killed in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Timothy McVeigh went on trial in Denver. The government still cannot place McVeigh at the site of the explosion and cannot place in his hands the ammonium nitrate used in the bomb. Federal prosecutors also have no confession, despite the leak of several reported McVeigh “confessions.”

COURTS Case fizzles

In Spokane, a mistrial was declared on eight felony counts of bombing and robbery against Charles Barbee, Robert Berry and Verne Jay Merrell after 11 jurors failed to persuade the 12th juror that these were the guys that set off bombs and robbed a U.S. Bank branch in the Spokane Valley.

By the end of the week, federal prosecutors were talking about a new trial in Spokane and picking a jury in Denver.

SCIENCE Great genes

On Monday, researchers at Case Western Reserve University and Athersys Inc. announced the creation of the first working artificial human chromosome. The new technology offers scientists a powerful research tool for investigating fundamental questions about the chemistry responsible for human heredity.

COURTS Hard lesson

On Tuesday, a Spokane County jury awarded a Gonzaga University graduate $1.1 million in damages, saying the university had violated his civil rights when it passed on unverified rape allegations against him to state investigators.

SPORTS Opening day

On baseball’s opening day, the Seattle Mariners beat the world champion New York Yankees in a game that saw Ken Griffey Jr. hit back-to-back home runs on his first and second at-bats of the season. The next day it was M’s as usual, when former Mariner Tino Martinez answered Griffey with three home runs in a 16-2 rout.

WORLD International incident

Foreign envoys in New York threatened to leave and take the United Nations with them when the city announced a new policy of not recognizing diplomatic immunity for parking violations. The decidedly undiplomatic scofflaws, it seems, would rather go on a peacekeeping mission to Bosnia than ride the New York subway.

HEALTH Smoking gun

On Thursday, those secret papers from the Liggett Group tobacco company started leaking to the media. A 1978 document concluded: “The habit can never be safe.” The memorandums, letters and reports also confirm that some Liggett executives knew then that cigarettes were addictive and deadly and included 16-year-olds in their marketing plans.

LAW ENFORCEMENT Demoted

Dave Peffer, the assistant police chief who was arrested for drunken driving after being pulled over by a state trooper, was demoted to captain by Spokane police Chief Terry Mangan. Peffer didn’t take the demotion too well, saying he was “deeply disappointed.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MEMO: The week in review is compiled by News Editor Kevin Graman. For more information on these stories, see Virtually Northwest, The Spokesman-Review’s online publication, at www.virtuallynorthwest.com.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by News Editor Kevin Graman