American Notes LAWSUITS

After three acrimonious years, Republican Presidential Hopeful Paul Laxalt and the McClatchy Newspapers last week finally settled the lawsuits each had brought against the other. So who won? While Laxalt dropped his $250 million claim that the McClatchy-owned Sacramento Bee libeled him in a 1983 story about a Carson City casino-hotel his family once owned, the former Nevada Senator declared that pretrial investigations found no evidence of illegal skimming. And while Bee President-Editor C.K. McClatchy dropped a $6 million countersuit, he maintained that his paper had never reported there had been skimming -- only that IRS agents suspected it. Said he: "We have not retracted, we have not apologized, and we have not paid any damages." Laxalt, who admitted that the prospect of a trial had hindered campaign fund raising, is now free to devote full energies to his presidential bid.