EVENTS
WELFARE BENEFITS MAY BE CUT, TAXED The Clinton administration may finance new programs for job training and child care by wringing billions of dollars from the welfare system through cost cutting and taxes on benefits, officials say. The administration's welfare reform task force is considering limits on federal cash payments to the growing number of elderly people who immigrate to the US legally and then retire on Supplemental Security Income, a senior administration official said Sunday. To pay for its overhaul of a welfare system that supports 5 million families with children, most of them headed by a single mother, the administration has decided it must find offsetting savings in other federal welfare programs. President Clinton's welfare reform legislation, to be introduced this spring, will seek to limit benefits to single mothers to 24 months. Women would be given the training and day care they need to get a job. Olympic results
Star-crossed US speedskater Dan Jansen, the fastest sprinter ever, skidded on the home turn of the 500 meters yesterday, failing again to win an Olympic medal in the event he has dominated for a decade. He finished eighth. Coming only hours after Duncan Kennedy crashed with a first-ever US luge medal within his grasp, it was a double blow to the American team. (Olympics, Pages 2, 12.) Burma meeting
Rep. Bill Richardson (D) of New Mexico and UN official Jehan Raheem met yesterday with Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in the first nonfamily visit permitted since the Nobel Peace Prize winner's house arrest nearly five years ago. Past requests by human rights groups, US officials, journalists, and others to see Mrs. Suu Kyi have been turned down by the Burmese military government. The daughter of Burmese independence hero Aung San, she returned to Burma in 1988 and led a pro-democracy uprising that was brutally suppressed by the military. Electricity rationed
Hit by its worst energy crisis in 50 years, the former Soviet republic of Georgia announced yesterday it is rationing electricity to five hours a day. The drastic cuts come at a time of unusual blizzard conditions, with temperatures dropping to minus 10 degrees. Never self-sufficient in oil or gas, Georgia has not bolstered its own energy resources or secured imports during its two-and-a-half-year independence. Chilean presidency
A joint session of the Chilean congress voted 120 to 6 Sunday to cut Chile's presidential term from eight years to six, further distancing the nation from its military dictatorship past. The constitutional amendment takes effect immediately and will apply to President-elect Eduardo Frei, who will be sworn in March 11.
