President denies affair, electricity costs jump: News Journal archives, week of Jan. 21

"Pages of history" features excerpts from The News Journal archives including the Wilmington Morning News and the Evening Journal.

Jan. 23, 1998, The News Journal

President denies claim about affair with intern

President Clinton, firmly denying all accusations, sought Thursday to calm the firestorm over allegations he had an affair with a White House intern and then urged her to lie about it.

His friend Vernon Jordan acknowledged trying to find the young woman a job — and taking her to see a lawyer when she came under scrutiny.

The former intern, Monica Lewinsky, meanwhile, received an indefinite reprieve in having to decide whether to stand by her earlier assertion in an affidavit that she did not have an affair with Clinton, take the Fifth Amendment or change her story.

A federal judge in Little Rock, Arkansas, postponed a deposition scheduled for today for Lewinsky, 24, to testify in Paula Jones’ sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton. Lewinsky remained secluded, telling CBS News by phone that she had no comment.

With Yasser Arafat at his side in a surreal moment of White House diplomacy, Clinton made his firmest denial yet to Lewinsky’s claims in taped conversations with a friend, Linda Tripp, that Lewinsky had an affair with Clinton and that he and Jordan asked her to deny it to Jones’ attorneys….

Also from Jan. 23, 1998, The News Journal

Unabomber will get life in prison

In a deal that averted the spectacle of the government pushing to execute a mentally ill man, Theodore Kaczynski pleaded guilty to being the Unabomber on Thursday in return for a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Kaczynski sat unflinching as a prosecutor recited in detail the horror of his 17-year reign of terror — bombs that killed three men and injured 29, including one who had his arm blown off….

The 55-year old mathematics professor-turned-hermit entered the last-minute plea on the day a jury was to be sworn in an opening statements were to begin. The agreement avoids the possibility of his execution. Had Kaczynski been convicted, he could have faced death by injection….

Jan. 24, 1974, The Morning News

Report ties Delaware prison ills to poor management

Poor management is the basis for the innumerable problems of the Delaware prison system, according to a report by the Delaware Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

The 100-page report charges that prison policies often are uncertain and fragmented, with various employees making various policy decisions.

Charges also are made that prisoners’ legal rights are violated and that punishment within the prisons often is arbitrary….

Major recommendations include:

Untried inmates should be placed in separate housing, apart from all sentenced inmates, as required by statute….

No inmate should be transferred from one institution to another unless the inmate has received advanced notice and notifications have been made to family, next of kin or other outside contact….

Each inmate should be given a medical examination before being placed in isolation and a weekly medical examination while in isolation. A psychiatrist should examine each inmate in isolation once every two weeks.

Inmates in isolation should be permitted to smoke and have reading material….

Sufficient funds should be appropriated for Sussex Correctional Institution to employ a doctor on a half-time basis and two medical technicians.

Sufficient funds should be appropriated for the women’s prison near Price’s Corner to employ a registered nurse or medical paraprofessional full-time….

State Prison Director Paul W. Keve … who did not become director until five months after the inquiry, said, “The substance of the report is derogatory of the state correctional system and in the main, it is true. Many details could be challenged, however. Many other details have been negated by improvements since the inquiry took place….”

Jan. 25, 2006, The News Journal

Cost of electricity likely to jump 40%

Delmarva Power customers could see their electric bills jump more than 40% this year after price caps are lifted in May, the company’s president said Tuesday.

Last year, Delmarva President Gary Stockbridge warned consumer groups and businesses that when price caps end in the final phase of deregulation, electricity rates could rise between 30 and 40%. Tuesday, Stockbridge said recent changes in the market for wholesale electricity made him increase his estimate…

Delmarva officials say the potential increase is the result of rate caps that have been in place since 1999 amid steadily rising prices for the major fuels that are burned to generate electricity: coal, natural gas and oil. The company has had only modest price adjustments since the rate caps went into place, while the cost of generating electricity has skyrocketed….

Jan. 27, 2004, The News Journal

One storm down, two to go

Most Delawareans made it through the first wave of a three-part winter storm without much trouble Monday, but officials worried the worst may arrive today.

Forecasters are calling for an icy mix of snow, sleet and rain for early today and tonight….

The first wave of the storm hit Sunday night into Monday morning, dropping 3 to 6.5 inches of snow across the state, slowing commuters and closing schools and most government offices….

Reach reporter Ben Mace at rmace@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Clinton affair, electric costs jump: News Journal archives, Jan. 21