The Week January 1-7

By Kathleen Adams, Melissa August, Lina Lofaro, Lawrence Mondi, Alice Park, Michael Quinn, Jeffery Rubin, Alain Sanders and Anneke Tryzelaar

NATION

The G.O.P. Congress Opens

For the first time in 40 years, Republicans took control of both chambers of Congress. Pledging to strive for bipartisan cooperation, Newt Gingrich took up the Speaker's gavel and, as promised, immediately plunged the House into a marathon session devoted to enacting sweeping rule changes. Among the many provisions adopted (with Democratic support): committee staff reductions and the elimination of some committees and subcommittees; the opening of more committee meetings to the public and TV; and the imposition of limits on how long a member may serve as Speaker or committee chairman. The Representatives also voted to require a three-fifths majority in the House for passage of tax increases and approved and sent to the Senate a measure imposing on Congress the same labor and antidiscrimination laws imposed on other employers. In the Senate, Democratic proposals to make it easier to break a filibuster and to ban gifts from lobbyists failed.

All Smiles for Now

After a brief vacation in his home state of Arkansas, President Clinton returned to the White House to meet with the Republican congressional leadership. Both sides called the meeting constructive and said there were many issues they could probably agree on. The work, however, will clearly be in the details. A day later, Democrats said they would try to link passage of a G.O.P. balanced-budget amendment to the adoption of a highly specific plan for meeting the goal. Republicans promptly rejected the idea.

McCurry to the White House

* In a widely anticipated move, President Clinton named Michael McCurry, the State Department spokesman and longtime Democratic operative, to become his new White House press secretary.

A Whitewater Preview

Setting the stage for the next round of partisan jousting over Whitewater, Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee issued conflicting reports about last summer's hearings. The Democrats concluded that "no law or ethics standard" had been breached when Treasury officials and White House aides discussed an investigation of the S&L at the heart of Whitewater. The Republicans, to no one's surprise, disagreed, characterizing the same discussions as "serious misconduct and malfeasance" and accusing former Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman of having "lied to Congress" about the talks.

Abortion-Shooting Case

Massachusetts, Virginia and federal authorities worked to untangle the maze of charges each has brought against John Salvi, the 22-year-old hairdressing student captured in Virginia and accused of killing two abortion-clinic employees in the Boston area. Salvi was returned to Massachusetts, where he faces murder charges. In a bizarre statement denying guilt and alleging discrimination against Catholics (by Freemasons, no less), Salvi said that if convicted, "I wish to receive the death penalty," but if acquitted, "I will become a Catholic priest."

Florida's Great Escape

Outwitting embarrassed prison authorities, five convicted murderers staged a spectacular escape from Florida's Glades Correctional Institution. The inmates got away by meticulously digging a tunnel from the prison chapel (which they devoutly attended) to a spot just beyond the prison fence. At week's end the dangerous and presumedly armed men were still at large.

The Simpson Case

The defense team in the O.J. Simpson murder case did two prominent about- faces. The attorneys dropped their pretrial challenge to the admissibility of key DNA blood tests that might link the football star to the crime scene. (The lawyers will probably try instead to challenge the reliability of the tests once they are admitted in the trial.) And the defense also agreed that the intense publicity surrounding the case merited sequestering the jury. Judge Lance Ito concurred, issuing a sequestration order to take effect this coming week.

A Moot Question

Did Jesse Jacobs shoot Etta Urdiales to death in 1986? Or was his sister the triggerwoman? Texas prosecutors first proved to a jury that Jacobs committed the murder, then later, in a second trial, maintained before another jury that his sister did so. Voting 6 to 3, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to stay Jacobs' execution despite the trials' inconsistencies. And so Jacobs was executed by lethal injection on Wednesday.

Campaign '96

One week into 1995, the 1996 presidential elections claimed their first presidential casualty. Former Bush Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said that "after careful consideration" he had decided not to run for the office. Republican sources predicted that former Housing Secretary Jack Kemp might soon become the next dropout.

WORLD

A Quagmire of Their Own

Russia remained bogged down in its attempt to defeat the Chechen rebellion. A Russian legislator visiting the capital of Grozny termed the assault "a complete military catastrophe for the Russian army." Russian fighter jets attacked the presidential palace in Grozny less than a day after Russian President Boris Yeltsin made his second broken promise to halt air raids on the capital. But despite Grozny's near complete destruction and the death of hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians, the rebel forces remained decidedly unbroken -- with the Russians suffering casualties in the hundreds. "Our slogan is 'Freedom or Death,' " said a soldier guarding the presidential palace, which was set ablaze at week's end. "If there is one Chechen left in the world, then he will be free."

Yeltsin in the Hot Seat

The Chechen war placed Russian President Boris Yeltsin under fire from critics both at home and abroad and left some observers muttering darkly about a Russian military coup. Democratic political leaders in Russia withdrew support from the President, leaving him to move visibly to the right by appointing a communist parliamentarian as his new Justice Minister. Although many Western leaders were eager to wash their hands of the situation and declare the Chechen rebellion an "internal affair" of Russia's, the 15-nation European Union announced that it was holding up completion of a trade accord to protest Moscow's intervention.

Investors Pan Mexican Rescue

Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo's plan to restore stability to his country's wounded economy was rejected by investors for its lack of specific remedies, causing the peso to fall to a record low against the dollar by week's end. Zedillo's plan depends heavily on Mexican workers' willingness to accept a lowered standard of living by receiving pay raises that will be less than the annual inflation.

Mideast: New Year, Old Agony

The New Year opened with the fatal shootings of one Israeli and 10 Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and a largely fruitless effort in Cairo to revive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin ordered a Jewish settlement in the West Bank to stop construction of a 500-unit apartment complex at a disputed site. But the suggested replacement site was rejected by Palestinian protesters as unacceptable.

Bosnia Truce Weakens

The five-day truce in Bosnia showed signs of slipping at week's end, as fighting continued fitfully in the northwestern enclave of Bihac. A Bosnian Serb delegation walked out of truce-implementation talks at the Sarajevo airport to protest Bosnian government dawdling in vacating its troops from a declared demilitarized zone.

Labor Party Pains

Israel's ruling party was in an uproar last week over a report published in TIME's daily online news summary about the results of a secret poll commissioned by the party. According to Labor sources, the survey indicated that if general elections were held now, Labor's share of the 120-seat parliament would shrink from 44 to 27. The opposition Likud's share would jump from 32 to 47. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin vehemently denied such a poll was conducted. He did acknowledge that the party's standing was in jeopardy. Independent pollsters have also shown Labor in sharp decline.

BUSINESS

Orange County: More Bad News

After their government's spectacular bankruptcy just before Christmas, residents of Orange County, California, are still a long way from saying Happy New Year. County officials confirmed that there would be a budget shortfall of at least $172 million for the current fiscal year and as much as $160 million for the next. Already, one large school district is considering selling its headquarters and asking parents to volunteer as janitors. "The loss is absolutely real and far deeper than anyone previously anticipated," said a county official.

SCIENCE

Return of the Wolves

Wolf prints will soon dot the snow again in Yellowstone National Park and areas of central Idaho. A Wyoming judge rejected a request filed by farmers and ranchers to halt the government effort to restore the wolf population, arguing that because the natural predators prefer wild game to livestock, they will not decimate sheep and cattle populations. The wolves were removed from the region in the 1920s to clear the way for livestock, but now they are needed to control deer, moose and elk that are reaching record numbers.

THE ARTS & MEDIA

Grammy Nominees

Veterans excelled in many categories. For Album of the Year: Tony Bennett's MTV Unplugged; The 3 Tenors in Concert 1994 (starring Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti); Eric Clapton's From the Cradle; Longing in Their Hearts by Bonnie Raitt -- plus an eponymous album by comparative newcomer Seal. Five nominations each went to Babyface, Sheryl Crow, Elton John, Bonnie Raitt and Bruce Springsteen.

SPORT

Nebraska Tops Penn State

The college-football championship was won not on the playing field but at the polls. The Nebraska Cornhuskers, with 13 wins and no losses, swept both the Associated Press and the USA Today/CNN poll. But the final New York Times computer rankings put the Penn State Nittany Lions, also undefeated, on top.