NATaIoN/WORLD

The Michigan Daily - Thursday, February 2, 1995 - 5


'Friend' claims Simpson

AP PHOTO
This is an aerial view of Warcq, a willage in northeastern France. The majority of the inhabitants were evacuated
yesterday after the nearby Meuse River flooded its banks. Much of western Europe is suffering similar flooding.
*Dam crumble asswolle
ivers ravagte N etherlands

dreamed of
Los Angeles Times that Ship
LOS ANGELES - A former po- bloody gi
lice officer and self-described friend lice, Ship
of O.J. Simpson testified yesterday rectly at
that the defendant said he dreamed O.J.... re
about killing Nicole Brown Simpson, Los A
an allegation that Simpson's lawyers Court Juc
denied and that legal experts criti- at that, w
cized the judge for allowing into evi- Simpsona
dence. gard thec
Late in the day, defense lawyer As th
Carl Douglas began his cross-exami- clear whe
nation of the former officer, Ronald opportun
G. Shipp, portraying him as a liar with the alleg
a drinking problem and suggesting Simpson'
that he had manufactured the conver- argued th
sation in order to boost his acting be admitt
career. Douglas also questioned by Ito.
whether Shipp really was a close friend Shipp
of Simpson, and at one point Shipp stand, fir
admitted that he considered himself to a 1989i
more of a "servant" than a confi- beat his
dante. said he t
Speaking softly and often looking O.J. and1
directly at Simpson, Shipp said his the wake
friend of 26 years had spoken to him point me
about the murders on June 13, the day scribe for
after the bodies of his ex-wife Nicole a batterer
Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald After
Lyle Goldman were found slashed bons, ofte
and stabbed in Brentwood. Simpson Shipp the
has pleaded not guilty. alleged co
"He kind of jokingly just said: the murd
'You know, to be honest, Shipp ... Shipp
I've had some dreams of killing her,"' tational c
Shipp recalled Simpson saying. Douglas'
Under questioning from Deputy ficer an a
District Attorney Christopher A. close frie
Darden, Shipp said Simpson did not Shipp ref
specify how often he had had such "servant"
dreams but stressed that Simpson had the forme
used the plural "dreams." According ended, Shi
to Shipp, that conversation occurred having su
after 10 p.m. at Simpson's house June lem.
13. Although Douglas suggested other Shipp
witnesses will testify Simpson was he had fa
asleep by that time, Shipp did not sation bet
budge from his testimony. ing his in
Throughout his time on the stand, prosecut
Shipp sought eye contact with with Sim
Simpson, who mostly avoided him, repeatedl
huddling with his attorneys or jotting ure to dis
notes as Shipp answered questions lie, a des
posed by the attorneys. Once, when but never
one of Simpson's lawyers suggested at least p

killing
pp told Simpson where a
love had been found by po-
pp directed his answer di-
the defendant: "This is sad,
ally sad."
Angeles County Superior
dge Lance A. Ito interjected
arning Shipp not to speak to
and asking the jury to disre-
comment.
e court day began, it was not
ether Shipp would get the
ity to testify, at least about
ed conversation regarding
's dreams. Defense lawyers
at the testimony should not
ed, but they were overruled
p spent three hours on the
st describing events related
incident in which Simpson
wife. The former officer
ried to intercede between
Nicole Brown Simpson in
e of that incident, at one
eting with Simpson to de-
r him the characteristics of
r.
detailing those conversa-
en over defense objections,
en told the jury about the
onversation on the day after
ers.
was subjected to a confron-
ross-examination in which
wrested from the former of-
admission that he was not a
nd of Simpson. At one point,
ferred to himself more as a
"who ran police errands for
er football star. As the day
hipp also acknowledged once
offered from a drinking prob-
further acknowledged that
iled to mention the conver-
:ween him and Simpson dur-
itial meeting with police and
ors, as well as in an interview
npson's attorneys. Douglas
y characterized Shipp's fail-
sclose that information as a
cription that Shipp resisted
rtheless acknowledged was
artly true.

ex-wife

The Washington Post
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -
The vaunted system of dikes and
earthen dams in the Netherlands be-
gan crumbling yesterday in the face
of rampaging rivers that have caused
Europe's worst floods in this century,
forcing Dutch authorities to speed up
> evacuations that have left more than a
quarter-million people homeless.
Even as rivers swollen by a com-
bination of melting Alpine snow and
elentless rains began to recede in
France, Germany and Belgium, the
Dutch were bracing for the worst as
dikes were overwhelmed by surging
floodwaters that are not expected to
2 reach their peak until early Friday.
"It will be a severe problem very
quickly," said Ton Jansen, spokes-
-man for the emergency center in
Nijmegen, in the central Netherlands.
In the eastern and central parts of
the country, villages and farming com-

munities were transformed into
ghostly, sodden landscapes. Tens of
thousands of people who live near the
Waal and Maas rivers were told to flee
their homes yesterday as rising waters
seeped through saturated dikes. Police
were ordered to forcibly remove any-
one who remained in threatened areas.
Roads all over the country became
clogged with caravans of cars, trucks,
tractors and bicycles in numbers not
seen here since since World War II.
More than 200,000 people had already
abandoned their dwellings since the
weekend, seeking shelterinpublic build-
ings, auditoriums and warehouses.
Some people insisted, however, that
they would brave the waters. "I'm ab-
solutely not going to leave," Paul
Gremmen, who owns a furniture fac-
tory in the Waal town of Wamel, told
the Associated Press. "Ifthewaterbreaks
through, I have to save the expensive
computer-controlled machinery."

Barge traffic has been shut down
across Europe, stranding much of the
continent's oil deliveries. The water-
ways are critical to Europe's freight
system. The Waal, forexample, serves
as the main artery between the world's
largest port in Rotterdam and the
German industrial heartland, and the
closing of traffic will severely crimp
commercial exchanges for weeks if
not months.
The floods claimed their first ca-
sualty here when a woman drowned
after she slipped off adike andplunged
into a churning mass of water. At
least 25 other people have died in
France, Belgium and Germany.
The Dutch Finance Ministry said
yesterday that if the flood waters per-
sist for several more days and con-
tinue to inflict serious damage to the
country's system of dikes and dams, a
worst-case scenario would put the
estimated cost at $46 billion.

Russia, U.S. prepare for historic rendezvous in orbit of Earth

Death-defying cosmonaut is crew's lucky charm

Equipment failure delays
Discovery launch one day

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP)
- On his first trip into orbit, Russian
cosmonaut Vladimir Titov almost
crashed into a space station. Five
months later, he was catapulted off an
*exploding rocket. Another time, he
had to abort a spacewalk when a
. wrench broke.
Who would
want to fly with
this guy? Five
NASA astronauts
for starters. They
consider Titov a
good-luckcharm.
After all, he's still
around to talk
about his space
misadventures. Titov
The six are scheduled to blast off
aboard Discovery tomoorw afternoon
on a mission to rendezvous with the
Russian space station Mir. Titov will
become only the second Russian to
fly on a U.S. space shuttle.
"All the time I said I have good
luck because we have two times for
bad accident," Titov said. "Is good
luck or bad luck? OK, bad luck if

crew has died. That's bad luck."
Titov, 48, a cosmonaut since 1976
and a Russian Air Force colonel, has
been waiting for this moment for more
than three years.
Titov and Russian cosmonaut
Sergei Krikalev moved to Houston in
1992 to train at Johnson Space Center
as part of an astronaut-cosmonaut
exchange. Krikalev flew on Discov-
ery in February 1994; Titov was his
backup.
Titov will talk via radio to the
three cosmonauts aboard Mir as Dis-
covery flies within 35 feet of the 100-
ton station. NASA wants the practice
before space shuttle Atlantis docks
with Mir in June; that will be the first
of seven Atlantis-Mir dockings.
During the eight-day flight, Titov
will use the shuttle robot arm to re-
lease a science satellite and move two
spacewalkers around the cargo bay.
Titov has far more experience than
his American crewmates: He has spent
368 days in orbit, 366 of them on a
single mission.
"He does not push anything of his
experience on us. We have to actually

draw it out of him," said astronaut
Michael Foale.
Titov admitted he'd feel better if
Discovery had an escape system like
the one that saved his life in 1983.
"But if not, OK, I will feel myself
like American astronaut," he said, smil-
ing.
His first close call occurred in
April 1983 during a docking attempt
with the Soviet Salyut space station.
Lacking rendezvous radar, Titov had
to rely on his eyes and ground radar.
His spacecraft closed in so fast that
Titov, fearing a collision, swerved
and aborted the rendezvous.
On his next launch attempt, in
September 1983, fire erupted at the
base of the Soyuz rocket one minute
before liftoff because of an open fuel
valve. Burned wires prevented the
automatic escape system from kicking
in, forcing launch controllers to acti-
vate the system via radio commands.
Titov said Russian doctors have
restricted him to missions of one
month or less to limit his exposure to
space radiation. Titov doesn't mind.
In fact, he said, he's grateful.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP)
- A critical navigation unit aboard
space shuttle Discovery failed yester-
day and forced NASA to delay the
Russian rendezvous mission by one
day.
NASA was about ahalf-hour away
from pumping fuel into Discovery's
external tank for an early-morning
liftoff this morning when shuttle man-
agers halted the countdown. The
launch was rescheduled for tomor-
row.
The navigation unit, called an in-
ertial measurement unit, failed when
workers tried to turn it on, said NASA
spokeswoman LisaMalone. The other
two navigation units worked fine. All
three must work for launch.
Technicians quickly began the

tricky job of replacing the failed unit
with a spare; each unit is about the
size of a microwave oven. NASA has
never switched an inertial measure-
ment unit so quickly, "but we think
we can do it," Malone said.
"It's going to be tight," she added.
A similar problem on space shuttle
Columbia in 1993 resulted in a two-
day delay.
Tomorrow's liftoff time is set for
12:22a.m. EST. Good weather is fore-
cast.
The cause of the failure was not
immediately known. The units mea-
sure the shuttle's position and speed.
Discovery is supposed to rendez-
vous with Russia's Mir space station
during the eight-day flight as practice
for the first shuttle-Mir docking in June.

I I


ADAM SANDLER
This idiot's going back to school...
4*6 Way back.

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