News In Brief
House Republican leaders were to unveil a plan for about $1 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years. The proposal was expected to contain reductions in capital-gains and estate taxes - and to eliminate the so-called marriage penalty, which forces many couples to pay higher taxes than when they were single.
A $7.8 billion plan to restore the Florida Everglades was to be unveiled by the Clinton administration. The cost would be divided between the US government and Florida, with each contributing $200 million annually for the next 20 years.
A bill that would make it a crime to take a teenage girl across state lines for an abortion in order to skirt state parental-notification rules was approved by the House on a 270-to-159 vote. The House passed a similar measure last year, but the full Senate never took it up. Parental-notification or -consent statutes for minors' abortions exist in about half the states and have been upheld by the Supreme Court.
The Senate approved a $12.6 billion foreign-aid package, ignoring a veto threat from the White House. An amendment that would have lifted restrictions on travel by Americans to Cuba was rejected on a 55-to-43 vote. The aid bill, approved 97 to 2, provides $1.8 billion less than requested by President Clinton - and includes language that threatens to cut aid to Russia unless its forces in Kosovo are completely integrated under NATO command.
A US appeals court ordered a reduced sentence for Michael Fortier, who failed to warn authorities that the federal building in Oklahoma City would be bombed. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled 3 to 0 that a judge in Oklahoma should have used a guideline for involuntary manslaughter instead of first-degree murder when ordering Fortier - a former friend of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh - to spend 12 years in prison. Fortier, who has served four years, pleaded guilty in 1995 to failing to warn officials, lying to the FBI, transporting stolen weapons, and conspiring to transport them.
Spending on construction projects fell for the second consecutive month in May, the Commerce Department said. The data fell well shy of Wall Street expectations. Construction spending dropped 0.9 percent in May after a revised 2 percent drop in April. The last time construction spending posted back-to-back monthly declines was in March and April 1997.
The Clinton administration made it easier for high-technology companies to sell powerful computer systems to foreign countries. Exports to about 100 "tier 3" countries - including the former Soviet bloc and Latin American nations - had been limited to systems that can perform 7 billion theoretical operations a second for civilian use and 2 billion a second for military use. Those figures were increased to 12.3 billion and 6.5 billion, respectively.
