News In Brief
The US Welfare moms will not be denied additional cash for babies they have while on public assistance. GOP moderates banded with Democrats yesterday to block a conservative plan to institute the so-called ''family cap.'' They said it would encourage abortions and intensify poor families' misery. Conservatives argued the government must stop subsidizing irresponsible acts. Malcom Forbes Jr. may be the latest GOP White House hopeful. The CEO of Forbes Inc., who has set up a campaign team and could spend $25 million of his own money to run, is expected to decide within two weeks. The government put 25,000 new cops on the streets in the past year, according Attorney General Reno. And by 2000, it will reach President Clinton's 1994 promise to get 100,000 cops hired, she said. But Clinton warned yesterday that while overall US crime is declining, violence by young people is rising: if present trends continue, juvenile violent crime arrests will more than double by 2010. Good inflation news: Consumer prices rose just 0.1 percent in August, the third straight month of small increases. The Dalai Lama was to have a low-profile White House meeting yesterday with Vice President Gore and Clinton was expected to ''drop by.'' The exiled spiritual leader is making the case for US support of Tibet, which was annexed by China in 1951. Concern over Chinese protest kept the meeting low-key, but China had not yet responded. Clinton and GOP leaders agree to forge a stopgap measure to avoid shutting down the government during a Tuesday meeting. The Sept. 30 deadline for a new budget most likely won't be met as the two sides spar over budget-cutting tactics. The US Post Office is expecting a $1.8 billion profit this year. Profits usually occur after rate increases, but the size of the windfall surprised even the postmaster general. He foresees a $500 million profit next year too. Time Books will publish the Packwood diaries. By next week it plans to have 100,000 copies on bookstore shelves. Meanwhile, Senator Dole said he didn't think it possible: A PBS documentary that was nice to the GOP. But a tribute called ''Inside the Republican Revolution,'' premiered last night on PBS. The tobacco industry increased its donations to national GOP coffers fivefold - to $1.5 million - in the first half of 1995 as Washington threatened stricter regulations, the New York Times said yesterday. More than a million teenagers smoked marijuana in an average month last year, new government figures show. That's a near doubling in two years of the proportion of young people who use the drug. Meanwhile, adult use of all illegal drugs has largely leveled off, says the 1994 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, released Tuesday. The FBI sniper who killed Vicki Weaver, the wife of white separatist Randy Weaver, invoked the Fifth Amendment Tuesday, and refused to testify to the Senate. He has said he was trying to shoot an armed man but hit Mrs. Weaver. Also, federal marshals testified they had a plan to lure Weaver off a Ruby Ridge, Idaho, mountain to arrest him, but a US attorney blocked the plan. The World Despite two weeks of intensive NATO airstrikes against rebel Serb targets, the Serbs are showing no sign of pulling back heavy weapons from around Sarajevo. Meanwhile, the Clinton administration is trying to mend a rift with Russia over NATO's bombing of Bosnian Serbs. US envoy Holbrooke was headed to Belgrade to start a fresh round of talks. Five Russian lawmakers also headed to the former Yugoslavia to express solidarity for Bosnian Serbs and to act as voluntary ''human shields'' against NATO airstrikes. Attackers fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the US Embassy in Moscow yesterday, shattering glass and spraying the street with shrapnel. It appeared no one was hurt. Russian officials would not speculate on the reasons for the attack, which came as anti-American sentiment was high because of the NATO airstrikes against Bosnian Serbs. Negotiators at the UN Women's Conference in Beijing collided sharply over human and sexual rights. Argentina led resistance to a sentence in the conference's Platform of Action urging governments to ''take action to ensure that women's sexual rights are fully recognized and respected.'' A key committee voted to recognize teenagers' rights to privacy in such matters as contraception. But some conservative groups said they will ensure that their governments do not act on it. Drafters agreed on language demanding curbs on the availability of conventional weapons and on the value of women's unpaid work. Israeli Foreign Minister Peres said peace talks with the Palestinians would go on despite the Israeli government's anger at the Palestinian Authority for not handing over two Arabs suspected of killing Jews. South Korea is considering setting up refugee camps to cope with a possible large-scale influx of North Koreans in the event of a disaster or the collapse of the Stalinist state's economy, Seoul officials reported. A recent report said about a quarter of North Korea's 22 million population suffered from the torrential rains and about 500,000 have been left homeless. The UN, which is owed millions of dollars by members, depleted its regular budget in mid-August and is borrowing $98 million from a separate peacekeeping fund to keep functioning, officials said. Unless members make hefty contributions, it will have to borrow $300 million by the end of November. Sudan's capital, Khartoum, appeared calm after two days of riots that left two people dead, injured many, and allowed hundreds of prisoners to escape. The riots were triggered by students who staged a protest calling for the government to free several students who had been detained. The first batch of 400 Sudanese expelled from Libya arrived in Sudan. Sudan has between 1.5 and 2 million of its citizens in Libya, most of them illegal aliens. Analysts applauded Japan's Mitsubishi Estate Group, the bankrupt owners of Rockefeller Center, for agreeing to turn over the New York landmark to Rockefeller Center Properties Inc., which holds the $1.3 billion mortgage on the property. The agreement among the owners, which included the Rockefeller family, closes a saga that began nearly six years ago when Mitsubishi paid $1.4 billion for its 80 percent stake in the partnership. (Story, Page 9.) Israel's ultra-Orthodox community is threatening to boycott the country's banks unless they adhere to ancient Jewish customs restricting interest-bearing loans. The move is the latest in a campaign by the ultra-Orthodox to make Israel more pious. Salvadoran police fired tear gas at some 150 striking social security workers Tuesday during a battle to evict them from a hospital they had occupied. Etcetera The biggest hole ever to open in Earth's protective ozone layer has formed over Antarctica, UN experts reported Tuesday. The ozone decline, an annual feature of spring in the Southern Hemisphere, was the most rapid on record - 1 percent a day. It is the size of Europe, the UN World Meteorological Organization said. He summers in New England and winters in Florida. So as fall descends upon the Northeast, Chessie the manatee has begun the long journey to his Southern home. The sea cow was sited near New Jersey this week. He spent the summer swimming 2,000 miles up the East Coast, eventually reaching Point Judith, R.I. Manatees usually swim no farther north than the Carolinas. ''Chris P. Carrot,'' a new mascot that animal rights activists hope will promote vegetarian eating habits, had a rough time on his first foray into Texas cattle country this week. The seven-foot orange carrot character was turned away from at least one school while the principal at another warned pupils not to talk to strangers. Top-Billing Entertainers Fortune magazine charted the highest paid entertainers. Figures represent estimated 1994 and 1995 earnings.
(in millions) 1. Steven Spielberg $285 2. Oprah Winfrey 146 3. Beatles 130 4. Rolling Stones 121 5. Eagles 95 6. David Copperfield 81 7. Pink Floyd 70 8. Michael Jackson 67 9. Barbra Streisand 63 10. Sylvester Stallone 58 11. Tom Hanks 52 12. Bill Cosby 49 13. Andrew Lloyd Weber 48 14. Harrison Ford 46 15. Stephen King 43 16. The Grateful Dead 42 17. Barney 40 18. Siegfried & Roy 40 19. Garth Brooks 40 20. Michael Crichton 39 -Fortune/AP '' If there's any way we can work together in a mature, adult manner and get this thing done right, I think we're going to cooperate fully.'' - House Speaker Gingrich, on the need for a stopgap spending bill to keep the government from shutting down.
