THE WEEK
By KATHLEEN ADAMS, MELISSA AUGUST, NICK CATOGGIO, MICHAEL LEMONICK, LINA LOFARO, MICHAEL QUINN, JEFFERY RUBIN, ALAIN SANDERS, SIDNEY URQUHART
NATION
BALANCED BUDGET? ME TOO!
Embracing the Republican brand of balanced-budget politics, President Clinton went on national TV to unveil his version of a no-deficit plan. The key elements: a balanced budget by the year 2005 (three years later than the G.O.P. proposes); $1.1 trillion in spending cuts, including sizable bites out of Medicare and Medicaid (but far smaller than the G.O.P.'s); and targeted middle-class tax cuts, especially for families saddled with college costs (also smaller than the G.O.P.'s tax breaks). Jubilant Republican leaders cheered the President's political turnabout, then carped that his plan fell short. Congressional Democrats, many of whom have struggled to fight the cuts-and score valuable political points in the process -- were decidedly not pleased.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION BLOCKED
In a watershed decision, the U.S. Supreme Court sharply restricted the ability of the Federal Government to fashion affirmative-action programs. By a 5-to-4 vote, the Justices ruled that racial preferences may be allowed "only if they are narrowly tailored measures that further compelling governmental interests." In a separate case that seemed to indicate a similar impatience with ambitious desegregation mandates, the same 5-to-4 alignment of Justices ruled that a lower court's desegregation order for the Kansas City, Missouri, schools was too broad.
FREE MARKET, UNFREE SPEECH?
Brushing aside Clinton Administration concerns that the measure could create invincible media giants and hurt consumers, the Senate passed, 81 to 18, a sweeping measure that would deregulate the telephone, cable and broadcasting industries and allow companies to enter one another's fields of business. The bill also seeks to stamp out high-tech smut. One provision would impose tough penalties on people who transmit obscene or indecent materials over computer networks.
TARGETING THE N.R.A. AND AARP
Two of the nation's most powerful lobbying groups came under unwelcome government scrutiny. The National Rifle Association said the IRS had begun an aggressive audit of its finances. And Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson launched a series of hearings on the political and commercial practices of the American Association of Retired Persons, accusing the seniors group of straying from "any reasonable description of a nonprofit organization."
A TENUOUS LIAISON
Seeking to reopen its channels of communications with alienated homosexual voters, the Clinton Administration announced the appointment of a liaison adviser on gay and lesbian issues. But the outreach effort was somewhat soured when a delegation of gay elected officials was admitted to the White House by guards who were wearing rubber gloves, apparently because of an unwarranted fear of contracting aids.
IF THE GLOVE FITS ...
The O.J. Simpson murder trial turned briefly, but memorably, into a Cinderella-like spectacle as prosecutors sought a fit for the case's famous bloodied gloves. "They're too small," said Simpson as he struggled, at prosecutor Christopher Darden's behest, to pull the allegedly incriminating gloves over his hands-a turn of events that was widely perceived as a blunder for the prosecution. Darden quickly suggested Simpson was faking his difficulty, then solicited expert testimony that the blood-soaked leather gloves had shrunk.
OFF THE HOOK
The search for "John Doe No. 2" ended as the man depicted in the sketches (tattooed, heavyset, wearing a baseball cap) turned out to be Army Private Todd Bunting, who happened to visit the Ryder truck agency in Junction City, Kansas, on the day before prime suspect Timothy McVeigh did. Bunting has been ruled out as a suspect, but the search for other accomplices in the Oklahoma City bombing continues.
WORLD
RUSSIAN TOWN HELD HOSTAGE
Two days after Russian troops captured Shatoi, the last rebel stronghold in Chechnya, scores of Chechen fighters drove into Russia and terrorized the quiet provincial town of Budyonnovsk, killing as many as 100 people and gathering some 2,000 hostages in the town's three-story hospital. The rebels' commander, Shamil Basayev, rejected an offer of safe passage and said that only a Russian pullback from the breakaway republic would save the hostages. Russian troops twice stormed the hospital on Saturday; but after both attempts had failed, the authorities resumed hard bargaining with the rebels.
BATTLE FOR SARAJEVO BEGINS
The Muslim-dominated Bosnian army launched its largest offensive in the war against secessionist Serbs, combining forces with Bosnian Croats to attack Serb troops who have besieged Sarajevo for the past 38 months. The combined Bosnian-Croat thrust advanced on three fronts; in response, the Serbs pounded the city with artillery. The fighting did not stop the wedding of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic's daughter Sonja from taking place in nearby Pale on Saturday.
CLINTON SQUIRMS AT G-7
At the summit of G-7 leaders in Nova Scotia, the U.S. squabbled with France and Britain over funding the Rapid Reaction Force that those two countries and the Netherlands are deploying this week in Bosnia. An embarrassed President Clinton admitted to his counterparts that while he believes the U.S. "should pay a share" of the deployment costs, the Republican Congress would prevent the White House from paying the amount required by the U.N. assessment schedule.
NORTH KOREAN NUKE ACCORD
Washington and Pyongyang reached an agreement to provide North Korea with two South Korean nuclear reactors, a central provision of the agreement signed by the U.S. and North Korea last October to dismantle North Korea's suspected nuclear-weapons program.
BUSINESS
'SOFT SERVED
A U.S. court of appeals reversed a lower court's rejection of Microsoft's antitrust settlement with the Justice Department. District Judge Stanley Sporkin perceived Microsoft as ruthless and rejected the settlement as insufficiently punitive; the circuit court disqualified him from further presiding over the case and recommended that the next judge on the case approve the agreement.
LABOR PAINS
Dissension erupted among AFL-CIO leaders when President Lane Kirkland announced he will retire on Aug. 1. Despite longtime expectations that deputy Thomas Donahue would inherit the office, an opposition ticket supported by 57% of the federation's membership will challenge him.
LOTUS' POSITION
IBM announced it had acquired the Lotus Development Corp. for more than $3.5 billion as the two companies came to friendly terms less than a week after IBM made a hostile bid for the software firm. Lotus CEO Jim Manzi won guarantees that the company will retain its employee-friendly environment and a large degree of autonomy.
DREAMING A LITTLE DREAM
The Seagram-owned entertainment giant MCA inked a 10-year deal with DreamWorks SKG, the studio created by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. MCA will distribute the studio's films internationally and its music- and home-video releases worldwide. Geffen valued the overall deal as potentially worth $1 billion to MCA.
SCIENCE
NOT QUITE A STAR
Astronomers have finally found what appears to be a brown dwarf, a long-sought heavenly object that until now has existed only in theory. Brown dwarfs are not quite big and hot enough to ignite the nuclear-fusion reaction that would make them shine as full-fledged stars. They probably account for some of the universe's "missing" matter.
SPORTS
HOW SWEEP IT IS
The Houston Rockets defeated the Orlando Magic 113-101 to finish a four-game sweep and retain their N.B.A. title. Seeded sixth among eight Western Conference play-off contenders, the Rockets outperformed the teams with the league's four best records en route to winning a record nine play-off games on the road.
WINTER WONDERLAND
The Olympics are returning to America. After being passed over four times, Salt Lake City, Utah, was chosen as host of the Winter Games in 2002.
--By Kathleen Adams, Melissa August, Nick Catoggio, Michael Lemonick, Lina Lofaro, Michael Quinn, Jeffery Rubin, Alain Sanders,Sidney Urquhart