News In Brief

The US

Senate majority leader Dole and other GOP leaders planned to meet with President Clinton to discuss a temporary spending bill during the government's second shutdown in a month. They want to avoid furloughing some 260,000 federal workers who reported to work yesterday only to be sent home. Both sides rejected the others' earlier offers. Meanwhile, tourists remain locked out of parks, museums, and national monuments.

President Clinton vetoed two appropriations bills for Interior, Veterans Affairs, and Housing and Urban Development departments. He said not enough money is devoted to programs for national parks, public housing, the environment, and the arts. He also planned to veto a bill funding State, Justice, and Commerce departments.

A savings & loan cleanup agency concluded the Clintons should not be sued to recover taxpayer losses associated with the Whitewater land venture and a failed Arkansas savings and loan. The report by the Resolution Trust Corp. supports the Clintons' longstanding claim that they had nothing to do with Whitewater Development Company's day-to-day operations, officials said. However, the report leaves open the possibility that the government could sue other entities, including Hillary Rodham Clinton's former law firm. (Story, Page 1.)

The Clinton administration released $578 million to help low-income families pay their heating bills, despite efforts in the House to kill the program. It is one point of contention that has held up congressional action on a $250 billion bill to fund the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education in 1996. Edna Fairbanks Williams of Orwell, Vt., (above) does her part: She regularly brings jugs of kerosene to needy neighbors who can't afford heating oil.

Will Gen. Colin Powell accept a request to become the Republican vice presidential nominee? Dole thinks so. Despite an earlier statement by Powell that he would not seek any elective office in 1996, Dole said Powell will ''answer the call to duty.'' A Powell spokesman said the men have not discussed the issue.

The case of suspected Fort Bragg sniper William Kreutzer went before the Army equivalent of a grand jury. Sergeant Kreutzer is accused of firing upon a group of 1,300 soldiers as they prepared for a run at the North Carolina base. One soldier was killed and 18 were wounded.

A NASA rocket launch was aborted at the last second at Cape Canaveral, Fla., when a stuck oxygen valve caused a shutdown. It was the fifth attempt in a week to launch an X-ray telescope to probe collapsed stars and possible black holes.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich, crowned ''Man of the Year'' by Time Magazine for efforts to remake the government, said the GOP should have been named ''Team of the Year'' instead for its Republican revolution. But Time also called him ''the greatest liability to the revolution he launched'' because of an ethics cloud and perceptions of abrasiveness.

Bell Atlantic Corp, and NYNEX Corp. are exploring a possible merger. The resulting company in size would trail only AT&T in the US telecommunications market.

The maturing of drug trafficking gangs is being credited for a 12 percent plunge in the number of murders during the first half of this year. It was the largest decline in at least 35 years. Experts also cited police efforts and even a cultural change in attitudes for the drop.

The World

Bosnian arms talks opened in Germany, and Croatia threatened to pull out unless rump-Yugoslavia recognized rebel Serb-held Eastern Slavonia as part of Croatia. Meanwhile, six US military planes carrying cargo and soldiers landed at Tuzla air base in Bosnia, as thick fog cleared after five days. (Story, Page 6.)

''I thought this was the practice, to receive money at private interviews,'' former South Korean President Roh Tae Woo said on the first day of his trial on charges of amassing $654 million in bribes. Roh also disclosed he received $32 million from Korea's largest conglomerate, Samsung, and that he destroyed all accounting records after the scandal unraveled in October.

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