News In Brief

Some details began to emerge about budget cuts planned by President Bush, who is to deliver his first address to a joint session of Congress tonight. White House budget director Mitch Daniels, making the rounds of Sunday TV shows, said Bush would reduce corporate subsidies. One likely target: the Export-Import Bank, which guarantees loans to foreign companies for projects that use US products and services. Also being considered are cutbacks to federal programs that bring telephone service to rural areas. The Justice Department, in addition, may see a $500 million reduction to its budget. (Story, page 1.)

A review of 10,644 uncounted ballots in Dade County, where Al Gore had lobbied unsuccessfully to conduct a manual tabulation, showed he would not have gained enough votes to overtake George W. Bush in Florida's presidential election. An independent study done for USA Today, The Miami Herald, and the Knight Ridder newspaper chain concluded that Gore would have had a net gain of just 49 votes in the county if the most lenient standards had been used. The study is reviewing all 60,000 so-called undervotes in Florida and is expected to release complete results within weeks.

Only days after it put some lawsuits off limits under the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Supreme Court declined to take on a broader challenge to the 1990 law. At issue was an Illinois case that could have made states immune from lawsuits involving handicapped access to public services, programs, and buildings. The justices also turned aside three cases that dealt with the question of whether the disabled may be made to pay some of the government's cost to accommodate them. Lower courts have been divided on the issue.

Cattle ranchers, environmentalists, and even Benedictine monks met with top Navy officials to protest plans for almost 3,000 bombing missions annually on a practice range near rustic Big Sur, Calif. A Navy spokesman said the bombers, which would be aiming at targets in the Army's Fort Hunter Liggett reservation, won't create as much noise as anticipated because they will fly high and not reach supersonic speeds. The Army is to make the final decision after it receives results from an environmental assessment expected this fall.

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Publishing Society