This is the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and Connie Chung.

 

Good evening. Dan is off tonight. One month before South Africa's first-ever, multi-racial election, bloody violence erupted on the streets of Johannesburg. It began with a march by thousands of Zulus opposed to those elections. By the time it was over, at least thirty-one people were dead. We caution you that some of the pictures are graphic in our report from correspondent Barry Peterson.

 

Zulus opposing the election brought their protest to the heart of Johannesburg, and with them came violence. The first shots were near the headquarters of Nelson Mandela's African National Congress Party, widely favored to win the election. Instantly, the main business district of South Africa's largest city was a war zone, snipers and protesters exchanging fire. The police, clearly caught off-guard, tried desperately to restore order and paid the price, like everyone else. And then it spread down the streets and into city parks. Police fired tear gas and special grenades that are noisemakers. Protesters, city dwellers, local businessmen... all sent fleeing. The events brought quick condemnation from the Zulu leader, who said his people only want a separate homeland.

 

Innocent people meant no harm to anyone except to take a stand with their king and to demonstrate their loyalty to their king.

 

Anything close at hand was a good enough weapon to maim or kill. African National Congress leaders said the motive for violence was clear.

 

To make it impossible to hold free and fair elections, which will clearly demonstrate whom the people of South Africa want as their government.

 

The elections are only a month away. Supporters wonder if the transition from apartheid to democracy can go ahead if the violence continues. Barry Peterson, CBS News, London.

 

In this country, the spring of ninety-four has taken a deadly turn. Violent weather ripped through the American Southeast with wind, rain and killer tornadoes. Georgia and Alabama have taken some of the heaviest hits, and the wild weather isn't over yet. We have two reports, beginning with correspondent Reed Galin.

 

Charlotte, North Carolina looks like Aconee County, South Carolina – looks like Lumpkin County, Georgia. The same broken wreckage. The same dazed reactions.

 

We're still thankful to God. I mean, it's sad, and it hurts. But as long as we're alive, that's what counts.

 

As the system swept through the southeastern states, more than forty people were killed – most by tornadoes. This is the result of warm and cold air colliding. One big front, but a thousand local stories. In unlucky communities throughout the South, the weather report turned tragic.

 

Well, I was sailin' through the air. Just picked me up off of that couch and just whirled me all through the air.

 

We call them twisters.

 

I thought the world was comin' to a end, 'cause it sounded like a big train comin' through the house… uh… with a whole lotta whistlin' 'n rumblin'.

 

Twisted wreckage, twisted lives and many more local stories to come about the pain of rebuilding. Reed Galin, CBS News, Miami.

 

This is Diana Gonzales in Goshen, Alabama, where a shaken Kelly Clem returned to the place where her church used to stand before the Palm Sunday tornado.

 

Just pulling bricks off of people. Trying to pull people out, my own child included.

 

The Reverend's two-year-old daughter Sarah survived, but four-year-old Hannah was crushed to death beneath a pew. All day, survivors came. Some just to look. Others trying to salvage something from the rubble. Franklin Woods searched for the offering plate and church records. Vancel Johnson looked for his wife's eyeglasses. She's recovering in a nearby hospital.

 

I still felt like I was in a dream, that it wasn't true. It couldn't have been true.

 

It seems everyone in this close-knit rural town has been touched by this tragedy.

 

I've lost a brother-in-law, a nephew, a great-nephew, a great niece.

 

Lost my brother.

 

While the community of Goshen has been devastated by this tornado, which ripped apart its church and claimed nearly twenty lives, there was one thing it did not destroy.

 

It… it hasn't shattered my faith. I'm holdin' onto my faith. My faith is holdin' me.

 

You like food. You get heartburn. You take Maalox. Ahh, life is good.

 

And the people of Goshen are holding onto each other, along with the hope that soon they'll be able to rebuild. Diana Gonzales, CBS News, Goshen, Alabama.

 

Still ahead on the CBS Evening News, the Midwest after the Great Flood. The water is gone, but the fear lingers. And the fear of crime in America spreads 'round the world.

 

When it comes to great resorts, nothing beats a Carnival cruise. All your daytime fun, all your nighttime shows and entertainment. And all your food's included, too, in one low price. Reeg, what are you doing here?

 

You have to ask?

 

I think I do have to ask, yes.

 

You mean that after all these years of "If they could see me now, puh-puh-puh, puh-puh-puh"?

 

Must be working, huh?

 

Working on me.

 

Take a three, four or seven-day vacation on Carnival, the most popular cruise line in the world.

 

You're right, Kathy. It's a fun ship.

 

Israeli soldiers say they killed six armed Palestinians today in Gaza. It was the deadliest incident in the occupied territories since last month's massacre in a Hebron mosque. In Hebron today, Palestinian students stoned Israeli troops, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Meanwhile, Israel says it is near an agreement with the PLO on security for Palestinians there. In Tokyo today, America's Ambassador issued an extraordinary apology to the people of Japan from President Clinton and the people of America, all in an attempt to ease fears about the violence in the United States that has again claimed Japanese lives. Correspondent James Astori… Hattori has this report.

 

Japan is learning another painful lesson in senseless American crime today, in the wake of a Los Angeles carjacking that left two teenagers dead. Takuma Ito, a Japanese national, and Go Matsura, a US citizen, were shot in the head as they got out of a car in the parking lot of a supermarket Friday night. Police have no leads on the gunmen. Today their parents chose to disconnect life-support systems. "My son's dream was destroyed in America, the country he loved," Matura's father said.

 

This is the saddest day of my time here as Ambassador.

 

US Ambassador Walter Mondale today publicly apologized and tried to counter mounting criticism here of America's crime problem.

 

They give an entirely distorted picture of life in the United States. Uh… most everyone lives a safe and fulfilling life in the United States.

 

But it was a familiar picture for these Louisiana high school students visiting Japan. They're friends of Yoshi Hattori, a Japanese exchange student shot and killed by a man who mistook him for a burglar two years ago.

 

People just are too irresponsible with guns and… and… and our crime problem has gone way too far.

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After this last incident, Japan is advising citizens to be more aware of the dangers of traveling abroad. But with only about seven hundred murders reported each year to the Japanese, there's almost no place safer than home. James Hattori, CBS News, Tokyo.

 

By contrast, Americans know only too well that gun crime kills thousands every year in this country, and more and more Americans are demanding action to stop it. Case in point? There's a new push today for nationwide gun control, and it's the toughest proposal yet. Correspondent Jim Stewart has that story.

 

New national gun control legislation was announced today that would require all future handgun owners to get a permit.

 

It'll have fingerprints, and on the back will be a magnetic strip, and you'll have to apply and get one. It works as simply as a credit card.

 

The second major gun control bill introduced this year, today's measure also seeks to cut down on the number of gun dealers by hiking license fees.

 

There are more gun dealers in America than there are grocery stores or gas stations.

 

Major provisions of today's bill require handgun owners to take a safety course, raise the fee for a gun seller's license from two hundred dollars to three thousand dollars and prohibit gun sales – except in licensed stores. A similar bill, introduced last month, goes further, requiring guns to have child-proof safety locks and barring certain types of firearms.

 

...situation is much like you have to get a license to drive a car, and you have to undergo safety training, getting a car or a license, and you have to undergo registration. We want to do the same thing to handguns.

 

Small, so-called kitchen table gun dealers would be driven out of business, which explains why some large storefront gun dealers are cautiously embracing the bills.

 

We're talkin' about life and death. If you can't spend three thousand dollars for a license, there's an old saying: "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."

 

Such proposals would not have stood a chance in Congress a few years ago, but gun-control advocates say all that is changing. As polls consistently show, Americans want more, not fewer, controls over the nation's two hundred and twenty million firearms. Jim Stewart, CBS News, Washington.

 

There's a new study out tonight on the health risks from chewing tobacco, and if you thought chewing was any better than smoking it, listen to this. Researchers found that men who chew tobacco are almost one and a half times more likely to die of heart disease than those who don't use tobacco in any form. Stay with us for more of the CBS Evening News, including a drug raid gone wrong and how an elderly minister paid the price.

 

Wherever you're wakin' up, there's freshly brewed coffee by the cup. Folgers Coffee Singles is ground-roast Folgers in its own filter for one great cup anywhere. The best part of wakin' up is Singles in your cup.

 

Why not? Now that he's switched to Fixodent, he can go from morning 'til night and still eat like that. Even the hottest liquids. When other adhesives stop holding, Fixodent holds stronger and longer. For the strongest and longest hold, Fixodent and forget it.

 

V-8. It tastes like…

 

Uh… It's different.

 

Woo… Tasty.

 

A little bit spicy, but not too spicy.

 

It's a taste o' subtlety.

 

V-8 tastes like V-8.

 

What subtlety.

 

Very good.

 

I can't open it. Just kidding.

 

Very veget-abooly.

 

Is veget-abooly a word? Uh… I don't know, but…

 

Tomatoes, celery, carrots…

 

A union of vegetables.

 

V-8 got more flavor than tomato juice.

 

I'd rather have a girl.

 

I don't think it's possible.

 

It tastes like…

 

V-8.

 

That's it.

 

This camel's system is so adaptive it can travel fifty miles in desert heat without taking fluid, making it one of the world's most dependable animals. This automobile's system is so adaptive that, if necessary for your safety, it is engineered to travel fifty miles in desert heat without a single drop of coolant, which might also tell you something about its dependability. The Seville STS with the Northstar System by Cadillac, creating a higher standard.

 

Food loaded with fats, and tips on eating leaner and lighter and money news about your IRA… tomorrow on CBS This Morning. Breakfast for your head.

 

President Clinton took some time off in California today. His Whitewater troubles did not. Among other things, Mr. Clinton had to come to the defense of another close friend and top advisor who is now under fire. White House correspondent Rita Braver has the latest.

 

On vacation in San Diego, President Clinton could not outrun the Whitewater controversy, but he expressed hope that he's beginning to get ahead of it. Mr. President, your polls are up. Does that mean Whitewater's behind you?

 

It's in good shape.

 

How about George? He's in good shape? George, of course, is George Stephanopoulos, top aide to President Clinton. He's been subpoenaed by the Independent Councilor investigating Whitewater. And this weekend, he acknowledged calling the Treasury Department last month because he was upset after learning that former United States Attorney Jay Stephens had been appointed to conduct a government investigation of the savings and loan, pointing to the Clintons. Stephens was critical of President Clinton after he and other Republican US attorneys were fired. And former Reagan-Bush Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater was sympathetic to Stephanopoulos.

 

I can understand George blowing off steam or getting angry about somebody that they fired being named as a prosecutor… uh… but the question of whether not he interfered or whether not he was just blowing off steam is one they'll have to… they'll have to investigate that.

 

Stephanopoulos insists that he did not attempt to have Stephens fired. And a source familiar with the investigation told CBS News that of greater concern to Special Council Fiske is whether Stephanopoulos or outgoing White House Council Bernard Nussbaum obstructed justice by attempting to keep a Clinton appointee, Deputy Roger Altman, from recusing himself from the savings and loan probe. Both men have denied any improper conduct and, on another touchy front for the Administration, sources say the White House is now trying to decide whether to release more information on money Mrs. Clinton invested in commodities futures trading in the late nineteen-seventies since questions have been raised about the hundred thousand dollars in profits she made, Connie.

 

Rita, what impact is all of this having on the White House?

 

Well, people here are trying to say that it is not… it is not bogged them down, although sometimes it feels like it. But I talked to Chief of Staff Mack McLarty today. He pointed out that the President's "Goals Two Hun… Two Thousand" education bill was passed over the weekend, and he says that health care and the crime bill are moving through Congress, Connie.

 

All right. Rita Braver at the White House. Thank you. They're counting the votes tonight in Italy's most important election since World War II. Exit polls give the lead to the right-wing Freedom Alliance led by Silvio Berlusconi, a multimillionaire media magnate. Projections show the Alliance will capture a Parliament majority. Russian President Boris Yeltsin made his first public appearance today after a vacation on the Black Sea. He was at the Kremlin to welcome the visiting leader of… of Kazakhstan. During Yeltsin's two-week absence, there were reports that he is seriously ill and persistent rumors that his political enemies were plotting another coup. An announcement is due from Japan tomorrow about how it will open its markets to more American goods to head off a possible trade war. Today, two big Japanese car makers, Toyota and Mitsubishi, said they plan to buy more US parts. Interest rate worries drove stock prices down for the third straight session. The Dow lost more than twelve points.

 

When I was a kid, Mom was always after me to eat right.

 

And that's what mothers do.

 

Now I'm looking out for her with Ensure. More than a vitamin supplement, Ensure is a delicious drink with all the nutrients adults need to help stay healthy, active, be energetic. Drink Ensure as a meal. Or in-between.

 

You know, dear, Ensure is even recommended number one by doctors as a source of complete balanced nutrition.

 

Ensure. To your health, Mom.

 

Uh-uh. Our health, dear.

 

The new Accord EX Coupe. There's more horsepower. Handling and comfort are perfectly balanced. It has dual airbags and antilock brakes. We've taken it about as far as you can go. The new Accord EX Coupe from Honda.

 

It's ten am in Boston, and we're just coming out of surgery. In Milwaukee, it's nine, and we're in physical therapy. In Charlotte, we're going for a morning walk. And in Santa Clara, we've been up all night. We're Interim Health Care. Every day we take care of more patients in hospitals and at home than practically anyone in America. And we thought if the time ever comes when you need a nurse, you might want to know where we are. Interim Health Care, temporary heroes.

 

You like milk, and it shows. You like milk, and it shows. You like milk, and it shows. You feel loved and alive. You got energy and drive, yeah. You like milk, and it shows. Milk. It does a body good with calcium for healthy teeth, riboflavin to help release energy and protein to help build muscles. When you drink milk, it shows. You like milk, and it shows. It does a body good.

 

Could a simple test reveal whether you or your loved ones will live or die? Find out on an all-new 48 Hours, Wednesday.

 

In Los Angeles, Rodney King was back on the witness stand today. This time, King went to court in his lawsuit against the city for millions of dollars in damages. He testified that he could hear his own bones crunching and heard police laughing as they beat him three years ago. King said that he thought he was going to die. Police in Boston are investigating one of their own operations, a bungled drug raid that led to the death of a Methodist minister. He had retired to Boston to study the Bible after a lifetime of work in the Caribbean. Boston's mayor and police commissioner expressed their profound regrets, but that may not be enough. Correspondent Jacqueline Adams reports from Boston.

 

A trusted informant had told Boston police that they would find high-powered guns and drugs near the bathroom, the warrant said, in apartment 3-L, inside this building. By mistake, though, the thirteen-man SWAT team broke into an unmarked second-floor apartment and chased what turned out to be a seventy-five-year-old retired minister into his bedroom. As police were handcuffing Reverend Accelynne Williams, who spent a career preaching against drugs, he collapsed in a pool of vomit and died of heart failure.

 

Accelynne treated people with dignity, and he was accustomed to being treated in a dignified, respectful manner. And that just blew him away.

 

His friends say the irony is bitter. A teetotaler, almost a recluse, Reverend Williams rarely left his apartment, so concerned was he about drugs and violence in the neighborhood. Yet it was here that he died amid his books, and his stamp collection, and his Bible.

 

The bad guys always get away. The good guys are the ones that get stuck with it.

 

So obvious was the mistake Boston's Police Chief took the unusual step of apologizing to the widow.

 

I extend the Department's deepest sympathies to her and to her family and express our apology and re… and regret for this tragic mistake.

 

But the family has hired a lawyer.

 

The family is going to be looking for more than an apology.

 

The one tragic fact which is clear at this time is that Reverend Accelynne Williams was an innocent victim in the continuing war on drugs.

 

Both the white and Black communities here are united in their dismay. All are awaiting the results of the Police Department's internal investigation. Jacqueline Adams, CBS News, Boston.

 

The US Supreme Court today let stand a Montana law that bars insanity by itself as a defense in criminal cases. Idaho and Utah have similar laws, but today's Supreme Court action, while not a ruling, could open the door for more states to end or modify use of the insanity defense. Coming up next: Eye on America. Tonight, the Midwest in a race against time and Nature.

 

Fat. For years, people have tried to hide it, stuff it, even burn it. Well, Skippy came up with a whole new idea. We cut it. Introducing Skippy Reduced-Fat Peanut Butter with thirty percent less fat plus the delicious Skippy taste you crave. So now you can spread it, devour it and just plain love it., New Skippy Reduced Fat Peanut Butter. Cut the fat. Don't cut out the Skippy.

 

Enterprise Rent-a-Car. Look to us for special delivery. Call us. We'll arrange to pick you up at your home, office or repair shop. That's special delivery. That's Enterprise.

 

It was one am. I'm hurting. I can't sleep, and I'm worried about taking something. Is it okay? What am I gonna feel like in the morning? Finally, I take Tylenol PM. It stops my pain. It helps me sleep. And next morning, I'm up with the sun and feel great. Poor old Ralph can't even keep up, and I'm thinking it's gonna be a beautiful day.

 

Rest easy. It's Tylenol PM.

 

1847. And innovation from Siemens makes it possible for written words to be electronically transmitted over long distances. That was then. This is now. Today the ingenuity of Siemens' people is breaking new ground in communications and in medicine, in transportation, in energy and in automation. At sixty manufacturing sites in America, Siemens' inventiveness continues to open doors to the future. Siemens. Precision thinking.

 

Attention heartburn sufferers.

 

If antacids work, why do I keep getting heartburn?

 

You know, frequent heartburn may be a sign of a more serious medical problem. Your doctor has treatment plans that can help.

 

Frequent heartburn. Isn't it time you talked to your doctor?

 

Seeing pictures of the storm devastation in the Southwest today brought back some horrible memories for Midwesterners. Many are still trying to recover from their own run-in with Nature. Nine months after the Great Flood, fears are running high that it could happen again. Correspondent Frank Currier looks at the flood watch of ninety-four in tonight's Eye on America.

 

I think about it all the time.

 

It's a big concern around here.

 

Every time it rains, they worry about another flood.

 

We lost everything.

 

In little towns like Hermann, Missouri this spring, living near the river means living on the edge.

 

Our levees are broke. It's like we don't have a chance.

 

Memories from last summer's Midwest flood still haunt the countryside.

 

It was a big scare.

 

When historic rains overpowered levees and turned the Missouri River basin into a huge inland sea.

 

It's the quiet times, you know. On a… on a rainy night, you get to thinkin'… well, what are we gonna do if it happens again?

 

It's Jay Gorley's nightmare, captured on home video. After losing a million dollars in sales to the river, he knows the threat of another flood this spring is real, depending on rain and snow melt.

 

We were so saturated from the summer and fall that we can't handle anything else.

 

The risk is higher, experts say, because seven hundred levees across Missouri are still broken and the Corps of Engineers is tied up with bigger flood repair projects.

 

There's been a culture that's built up along agriculture in this Missouri-Mississippi valley that it'd be very devastating if those levees weren't repaired.

 

It's the talk of the town in Hermann and front-page news every time the river rises.

 

People still are paying attention.

 

They like the river stages.

 

You have a couple of inches of rain, and the river jumps up just overnight. There's nothing that can hold it back.

 

Already this spring, the river's hit flood stage, but short of last summer's record-setting high-water mark.

 

Came up, and then it would go down, and then it would come up, and then it would go down.

 

Most of Hermann has been up and down, trying to put last year's loss behind them. At the Stone Hill Winery, they're making wine again. At Steven Manufacturing, they're building toys again, working out of a warehouse until the company moves to higher ground.

 

We're on the side of a mountain this time, so… uh… if we're underwater, the rest of the US will be underwater this time.

 

Hoss Block's engine repair shop also sits high, and Block's back in business sharpening chainsaws but cynical about weather forecasts.

 

When they say it's gonna flood this year, it might, and it might not. We might have a drought this year.

 

Predictions don't matter anymore in Rhineland, Missouri, Hermann's nearest neighbor, now a ghost town. Swamped in July by eight feet of water, residents have vowed never to return.

 

If the water comes back, it comes back.

 

Victims like Sheri and Larry Englert are among fifty families here who will relocate their houses to a nearby hilltop.

 

It's depressing, but at the same time, we feel like we… we're… we're gonna be okay 'cause we're gonna get to move.

 

The scars from last summer's disaster are deepest here along the Missouri River bottoms, where nervous farmers fear that another major flood this spring is all but guaranteed. Brian Lensing and his Caterpillar are in a race with Nature, trying to rebuild a levee that once protected his farmland.

 

We really don't have much choice.

 

His fields are buried under two feet of sand dumped by the river.

 

I don't know whether we'll plant a crop. It's just day-to-day. It's impossible to make decisions.

 

Fertile bottomland is now a moonscape, and many of Lensing's neighbors have fled, their deserted barns and houses stretching miles along the floodplain.

 

We're pretty well assured of flood. It's just a matter of how high it is and how much damage it does.

 

The hopes and fortunes of so many this spring are on hold and rest dangerously close to the river's edge. In Hermann, Missouri, Frank Courier for Eye on America.

 

And that's our news. Coming up tomorrow on CBS This Morning: How the IRS is going after tax cheats. I'm Connie Chung, in New York. I'll see you tomorrow night. And for Dan Rather and all of us at CBS News, good night.

 

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