News In Brief
Hillary Rodham Clinton filed papers to form an exploratory committee for a Senate campaign in New York. That allows Mrs. Clinton to raise and spend money for a Senate race - and moves her closer to becoming the only first lady to run for public office. Today she is to begin a four-day "listening" tour across central and eastern New York.
Hate groups are using the Internet to recruit young disciples, civil-rights veterans warned after two men were killed and nine wounded during a weekend shooting spree in the Midwest by a white-supremacist college student. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said there are more than 2,000 hate sites on the Internet today - up from only one at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995 - some of them designed for children as young as 9. Harlan Loeb, Midwest civil-rights counsel for the Anti-Defamation League, said white males seem to be the main target.
Heat advisories were in effect from the Mississippi Valley to the Eastern Seaboard, as much of the country continued to experience unusually warm and muggy weather. New York and Atlantic City, N.J., reported record highs of 101 degrees F.
Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey endorsed Bill Bradley for the 2000 Democratic presidential nomination. Kerrey is the second Senate Democrat - after Paul Wellstone of Minnesota - to endorse the former New Jersey senator, who is the only Democrat running against Vice President Al Gore. The announcement came in Omaha, Neb., where the two friends were campaigning together.
Former Connecticut Gov. Lowell Weicker Jr. is considering a third-party run for the White House, The New York Times reported. It said strategists for Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura are trying to entice Weicker to offer himself as a Reform Party nominee. Weicker, who spent three terms in the Senate as a Republican before losing his seat in 1988, told the newspaper he's interested in the Reform Party idea. In 1990, Weicker left the GOP, formed a new state party, and won a three-way race for governor.
The Bank of America is committing $500 million of equity for community development of inner cities, White House officials said. The bank was to formally announce the establishing of the fund during a visit to East St. Louis, Ill., by President Clinton. He's on a four-day nationwide tour to promote development in areas that have enjoyed few, if any, benefits from the current economic expansion. Before arriving in St. Louis, Clinton was to unveil more than $60 million in federal community-development grants at a stop in Clarksdale, Miss.
A series of explosions rocked the Kaiser Aluminum plant near Gramercy, La., injuring 21 workers, four of them seriously. A Kaiser spokesman said the financial impact had not been determined, but production of alumina, necessary to manufacture aluminum, will be curtailed for several months. The facility had produced 1 million metric tons of alumina a year, about one-third of the total amount produced by the company.
Compiled by Robert Kilborn and Lance Carden
