United States Ship

The auctioned luxury liner S.S. United States left for a refurbishing in Turkey after 23 years of sitting idle at a Newport News, Va., dock. The ship, which set a transatlantic speed record on its maiden voyage in 1952, was towed from a downtown pier as several thousand people watched. A Turkish-backed group bought the vessel for $2.6 million at a public auction in April. The group plans to restore the vessel and make it a cruise ship. The liner was taken out of service in 1969.

The auctioned luxury liner S.S. United States left for a refurbishing in Turkey after 23 years of sitting idle at a Newport News, Va., dock. The ship, which set a transatlantic speed record on its maiden voyage in 1952, was towed from a downtown pier as several thousand people watched. A Turkish-backed group bought the vessel for $2.6 million at a public auction in April. The group plans to restore the vessel and make it a cruise ship. The liner was taken out of service in 1969.

She was the fastest, largest, most luxurious ocean liner America ever built, 12 stories high, five city blocks long, a red, white and blue advertisement for a nation that settled for nothing less than supremacy and excellence. When she pulled into Le Havre, France, in 1952 on her maiden voyage from New York, 1,700 passengers danced and raised toasts on her decks. The United States had made the transatlantic crossing in a record three days, 10 hours and 40 minutes. The record still stands.

She was the fastest, largest, most luxurious ocean liner America ever built, 12 stories high, five city blocks long, a red, white and blue advertisement for a nation that settled for nothing less than supremacy and excellence. When she pulled into Le Havre, France, in 1952 on her maiden voyage from New York, 1,700 passengers danced and raised toasts on her decks. The United States had made the transatlantic crossing in a record three days, 10 hours and 40 minutes. The record still stands.

Authorities were investigating the disappearance of a Florida woman from a cruise ship sailing along the coast of Italy, relatives said. Family members identified the woman as Elizabeth Kay Galeana, 22, of Naples, Fla., reported missing Tuesday from Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas. Royal Caribbean confirmed only that the missing woman was from the United States. The ship was en route to Naples, Italy, from the port of Civitavecchia, near Rome, according to the cruise line.

Transcisco Industries Inc. announced that it signed a joint venture agreement with the Soviet Union to provide heating systems for train tank cars. Under the agreement signed in the Soviet Union, Transcisco will make its Uni-Temp heating systems in the United States and ship them to Finland, where they will be installed in Soviet tank cars. The company said it expected to make the heating systems in the Soviet Union under license in a few years.

The British powerboat Virgin Atlantic Challenger foundered in 12-foot seas off England's southwestern coast Thursday, less than two hours away from setting a record for the fastest surface crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. A spokesman said it was not immediately clear if the $2.1-million vessel had sunk, but "we believe it had." Voyage spokesman Alan Hughes said the nine crew members got onto two life rafts and were picked up by the British cargo ship Geestbay.

Cities, agencies and organizations throughout the county are approving proclamations and making promises to remember the original Thanksgiving Day at the request of Los Amigos of Orange County. The community activist group passed out more than 100 pledge sheets urging organizations to remember the holiday so people will realize that everyone in the United States, with the exception of Native Americans, comes from immigrant backgrounds.

Hanns Kornell, a pioneer winemaker who got out of a Nazi concentration camp and eventually made his way to the United States, where he was to bring sparkling wine to the Napa Valley, has died at his home at age 83. The German-born Kornell, third generation of a Rhine Valley wine-making family, had been in ill health for the last six years, since suffering a serious head injury while working in the winery he founded in 1958.

A convicted cocaine trafficker told Congress Wednesday that he helped the Nicaraguan contras smuggle drugs into the United States and ship automatic weapons and explosives to Central America. George Morales, who is serving a 16-year federal prison sentence in Miami, also said he made payoffs to officials in Cuba and the Bahamas--countries he said were used to transship drugs and launder money. Panama was another money-laundering point, he said.

I have read your editorial (Dec. 13) on auto import quotas and U.S. car prices, and I think you have given Ford a bad rap. You compare an average car sold during the midst of the recession with the upscale cars purchased during a record economic expansion. You also claim that our support of Japanese auto export restraints was calculated to keep car prices high. Since 1985 we have held price increases on small cars to less than 5%, while Japanese producers have increased prices by 23% as exchange rate misalignments were corrected.

U.S. and European negotiators agreed Saturday on a procedural compromise designed to head off a new salvo of European tariffs Monday in the escalating trade skirmish over Europe's ban on hormone-treated American beef. The plan provides for a 75-day cooling-off period in which a high-level joint U.S.-European task force will try to hammer out a solution that enables the United States to ship to Europe some beef that has not been treated with growth-inducing hormones, while Europe accepts U.S.