Copyright 2000 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
St.
Louis Post-Dispatch
January 7, 2000, Friday, THREE STAR EDITION
SECTION: NEWS, Pg. A12
LENGTH: 643 words
HEADLINE:
NATION
BYLINE: From News Services
BODY:
EAST
WASHINGTON
Study finds many women off welfare lack coverage
A study
of mothers leaving welfare found that one-third of those who took jobs weren't
covered by health insurance.
The number lacking
health insurance was even higher among women who left welfare
but didn't work, even though many of them should be eligible for Medicaid.
Nearly half of these unemployed women didn't have insurance a year or more after
leaving welfare, according to the study to be published Monday in the journal
Health Affairs.
Children previously receiving welfare
fared better when it came to keeping insurance, the study showed. Of those
included in the study, 47 percent were covered by Medicaid, and 29 percent were
covered by private insurance. But another 29 percent were
uninsured. Families that leave welfare can still keep Medicaid
if they meet certain income or medical criteria.
WASHINGTON
Census Bureau looks for part-time workers
The Census
Bureau launched an effort Thursday to hire a half-million part-time workers to
conduct the national head count.
"Our goal is to have a pool of local
people who are familiar with their communities and committed to a successful
count in their own neighborhoods," Census Director Kenneth Prewitt said.
His agency has 520 offices across the country, with each needing to hire
800 to 1,000 people for four to six weeks around census day, April 1. He said
the agency will spend $ 9.5 million on help-wanted advertising.
WASHINGTON
Bond decries brevity of OSHA's public input period
Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., is calling on the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration to extend the period for the public to comment
on proposed new ergonomics standards for businesses.
Bond wants people
to have about eight months, from now, as instead of the current 60-day schedule,
which ends next month and is simply not long enough given the complexity of the
proposed changes, he said.
He made the request Thursday in a letter to
OSHA. He said under the proposed regulation, employers, by inspecting an
employee's home, will have to determine whether an injury was caused, or
contributed to, by workplace exposures to risks.
===
MIDWEST
CHICAGO
Religious group protests grant
for video game firm
A group of 20 people calling themselves Christian
peacemakers marched on City Hall on Thursday to protest a $ 2 million grant that
Chicago gave to the maker of the violent video game "Mortal Kombat."
The
group of Mennonites, Quakers, Methodists, Roman Catholics and members of the
Church of the Brethren want Mayor Richard Daley to cancel a grant to induce
Midway Games Inc. to stay in the city.
"Public money should not be going
to companies that sell violent war toys for children," said Erin Kindy, a
spokeswoman for the group. Most of the demonstrators were from the Chicago area,
but some said they traveled from as far as Vancouver, British Columbia.
===
WEST
FRESNO, Calif.
Teen-agers who stole explosives face prison
Prosecutors are seeking
prison time for five teen-agers accused of stealing a huge cache of explosives
from a police bomb squad bunker in a New Year's heist that sent jitters through
California.
"There's an assumption that this was a few naive teen-agers
... (but our) view is that this appears to be more serious than that," said Bob
Ellis, Fresno County senior deputy district attorney, on Thursday.
The
suspects, four 18-year-olds and one 17-year-old, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to
charges of second-degree burglary and possession and transport of a destructive
device. The five friends were arrested Sunday by police operating on a tip,
about one week after the theft of more than 200 pounds of explosives from the
rural bomb squad storage bunker was discovered.
LOAD-DATE: January 7, 2000 
