THE WEEK
By KATHLEEN ADAMS, NICK CATOGGIO, ALICE PARK, MICHAEL QUINN, ALAIN L. SANDERS AND SIDNEY URQUHART
NATION
THE PRESIDENT REBUFFED...
In a rare bipartisan repudiation of a President's foreign policy, the Senate voted 69 to 29 to end American participation in the U.N. embargo on arms to Bosnia. The rationale: to help the Muslim government fend off the savage onslaughts of the Bosnian Serbs. President Clinton vowed to veto the measure if it also passes the House; he claims that lifting the embargo would, among other things, increase the chances of injecting U.S. troops into the conflict. In the short term, however, the bill's impact is more likely to be political: it's qualified in such a way that any action on the embargo could be postponed for months.
... AND SUPPORTED
Moderate Republicans in the House joined Democrats to reject, in a 212-to-206 vote, a Republican initiative that would have limited the Environmental Protection Agency's enforcement powers. The vote killed a series of riders attached to a spending bill that would have barred the epa from using its funds to enforce such regulations as those governing commercial development of the nation's wetlands. Fifty-one Republicans broke ranks to block the proposed limits.
THE WHITEWATER HEARINGS
The Senate Whitewater hearings lumbered into their second week. The most dramatic testimony: a Secret Service officer who testified that he had seen the First Lady's chief of staff, Maggie Williams, remove files from deputy counsel Vincent Foster's office on the night of his suicide-and Williams' emphatic testimony that she had done no such thing. The handling of Foster's files are at the heart of allegations that the White House impeded the investigation into his death in order to protect the Clintons from Whitewater disclosures.
GUESS WHAT? LOBBYING REFORM
By a 98-to-0 vote, the Senate approved legislation imposing stricter registration requirements on lobbyists and mandating greater disclosure of their activities and income. Whether the measure can pass the House is unknown. The Senate also adopted changes in its rules that sharply limit the value of gifts Senators can accept from lobbyists.
HELMS REBUKED
Rejecting an attempt by North Carolina's Jesse Helms to curtail federal funding for AIDS treatment--an effort that Helms laced with fulminations over the "offensive and revolting conduct" of homosexuals--the Senate voted 97 to 3 to fully reauthorize such spending.
GINGRICH QUESTIONED
House Speaker Newt Gingrich testified behind closed Ethics Committee doors for three hours about the propriety of his controversial book deal. Afterward, the senior Democrat on the committee accused the panel of botching the probe by refusing to conduct a full-fledged formal investigation with subpoena powers and outside counsel.
U.S. TO HAMAS: KEEP OUT
U.S. immigration authorities detained Mousa Abu Marzook, a Palestinian whom they suspect of being a top political leader of the Middle East terrorist group Hamas, as he landed in New York City from a trip abroad. A legal-alien resident of the U.S., Marzook has lived in America for 14 years. Israel expressed interest in extraditing him.
WHERE THERE'S SMOKE ...
Tobacco companies came under renewed fire. Reports surfaced about existing and impending federal grand-jury probes into allegations that industry executives may have lied to federal regulators and Congress about their knowledge of the addictive properties of nicotine. And California Representative Henry Waxman unveiled a leaked industry study that he said had tracked hyperactive third-graders to determine whether the children might later become smokers.
SUSAN SMITH GETS LIFE
After a week of tearful and gut-wrenching testimony from family, friends and experts, it took only 2-1/2 hours for the Susan Smith jury to decide what sentence to impose on the suicidal South Carolina mother convicted of drowning her two small boys in a car: life in prison, not death.
THE SIMPSON TRIAL
The O.J. Simpson defense team took another big hit when one of its witnesses, an FBI specialist, said bloodstains found at the murder scene and on socks in Simpson's bedroom "did not come from preserved blood," thereby undercutting the defense contention that the blood was planted by police to frame Simpson. But the defense got a boost from another expert, who testified that a bloodstain on one of the socks showed signs of "compression transfer"--which the defense sees as proof the blood was planted.
A WRONG RIGHTED
President Clinton bestowed a posthumous commission on Johnson Whittaker, one of West Point's first black cadets. He was expelled in 1882, ostensibly for failing an earlier exam--but after successfully battling charges that he had faked a racist attack against himself. "We cannot undo history," said the President, "but we can acknowledge a great injustice."
WORLD
A WIDER, HOTTER WAR?
Croatian forces massed for possible large-scale attacks against Serbs in Croatia and western Bosnia, thus threatening to renew the Croatian-Serbian conflict quelled by a 1992 truce. Meanwhile, soldiers from the vaunted U.N. rapid-reaction force took positions in the hills around Sarajevo, a more aggressive posture that threatened to draw them into new confrontations with Bosnian Serb gunners. Zepa, a U.N.-designated "safe haven," fell to Bosnian Serb troops, putting thousands of Muslim women and children to flight. The skies threatened to grow more hostile as well. After heavy pressure from Washington, U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali delegated the authority to order NATO bombing raids to the U.N. military commander in Zagreb, thus streamlining the process by which any such raids would have to be approved.
A DEADLY BOMB IN PARIS
Seven people died and more than 80 were injured when a bomb exploded aboard a rush-hour commuter train in the heart of Paris. Police investigators suspect militant Muslim fundamentalists from Algeria.
ANOTHER IN TEL AVIV
Three relatively terrorism-free months in Israel ended with the suicide bombing of a bus near Tel Aviv. Six people perished in the attack. The bombing, claimed as the work of the militant group Hamas, was quickly condemned by P.L.O. leader Yasser Arafat. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin vowed to press ahead with the peace process.
BUSINESS
RED, THEN BLACK
Euro Disney looked more the beauty than the beast last week as it announced its first quarterly profit since opening in 1992. The theme park attributed third-quarter earnings of more than $35 million to an enthusiastic public response to price cuts in tickets, food and hotels--and a new Space Mountain roller coaster.
LABOR GAINS
The United Auto Workers, United Steelworkers of America and International Association of Machinists announced they will merge to form the country's largest industrial union by the year 2000. Leaders for the three later invited other labor groups to join the merger, which aims to restore labor's diminished national presence by uniting nearly 2 million members.
AGAINST THE GRAIN
The Wall Street Journal reported that FBI videotapes of secret meetings between executives of agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland and global competitors suggest a conspiracy to fix international prices on a popular food additive. The tapes were made possible by ADM executive Mark Whitacre, who was recently identified as a longtime FBI informant.
JEOPARDIZING JEOPARDY!
The Federal Communications Commission killed a 25-year-old rule that limited what network affiliates could broadcast during one early evening hour. It had helped turn independent syndicators of shows like Jeopardy! into gold mines. The decision, which takes effect next summer, will let networks fill the hour with their own programming.
THE ARTS & MEDIA
A POSTHUMOUS NO. 1
Fans of slain pop singer Selena paid their respects by making Dreaming of You, the Tejano queen's unfinished crossover effort, the first album by a Latin artist to reach No. 1 on the Billboard chart. The disc sold 331,000 copies for the week, becoming history's second fastest-selling release by a female artist.
--By Kathleen Adams, Nick Catoggio, Alice Park, Michael Quinn, Alain L. Sanders and Sidney Urquhart