News In Brief
American Airlines may have all its flights back in the air today, as more pilots return from a week-long "sickout." A US judge in Dallas declared the job action illegal last week and followed with a contempt ruling and a $10 million fine against the Allied Pilots Association. Nonetheless, some 230 flights - about 10 percent of those scheduled - were canceled yesterday because not enough pilots were available. Pilots are disputing how much the airline's parent company should pay pilots of a recently purchased regional carrier, Reno Air.
A majority of Americans have applauded President Clinton's acquittal and think Republicans pursued impeachment for political purposes, a Los Angeles Times poll showed. Sixty-five percent of those surveyed after the vote supported acquittal; 30 percent said Clinton should be removed from office. The results were similar to other polls. Meanwhile, a Washington Post survey found 68 percent approving Clinton's job performance, compared with 46 percent who approved the job Congress is doing - an 8-point gain for Clinton from a similar poll in January 1998, and a 1 percent decline for Congress.
Some GOP senators who broke ranks and voted to acquit the president of the impeachment charges said prosecutors' own witnesses undercut their case. Others said Clinton's actions, while reprehensible, did not warrant removal. Five GOP senators voted to acquit Clinton on both articles, preventing even a majority vote for removing the president - much less the two-thirds needed to actually do so.
Adults are becoming less interested in having their children grow up to be president, a new poll indicated. In a 1988 survey, 41 percent had said they would want a child of their own to be president. That slipped to 35 percent in 1992 - and to 30 percent in a new ABC News poll. Meanwhile, 62 percent of 12-to-17-year-olds said they believed they could grow up to be president, but only 17 percent said they were interested in occupying the White House.
With the impeachment trial over, Hillary Rodham Clinton is eyeing a run for a New York Senate seat next year, senior White House officials said. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D) of New York, who will be giving up his seat in 2000, said on NBC TV that Mrs. Clinton "would be welcome, and she'd win." But some close aides said they doubted she would take the plunge.
The Senate and the Treasury Department have launched probes of the Customs Service, The Miami Herald reported. The inquiries are expected to culminate this summer in Senate hearings on alleged mismanagement, it said. They were prompted in part by reports in the Herald of dozens of examples of employees who had dated drug smugglers, tampered with evidence, and stolen seized cash.
