News In Brief
THE US
The Million Man March started with prayers by Baptist and Islamic preachers and continued throughout the day. As marchers converged in front of the Capitol, African drums beat, pop music blared, and strangers embraced strangers. Estimates varied from 50,000 to 300,000 participants. Also, Colin Powell said he did not want to legitimate Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakahn by appearing at the march.
"America, we must clean our house of racism," President Clinton said yesterday in Austin, Texas. To begin that process he urged Americans to talk about racial understanding and called on police departments to root out internal racism. He also praised the Million Man March though made a veiled criticism of Farrakahn.
The Supreme Court rejected an appeal by anti-abortion activists who were arrested in San Jose, Calif., for picketing within 300 feet of an abortion doctor's home. The protesters had claimed the arrests violated their free-speech rights. The court also refused to hear an appeal by the all-male, state-funded Citadel in its gender-discrimination suit.
Former Los Angeles police Sgt. Stacey Koon - convicted in the 1991 beating of Rodney King - was released yesterday to a halfway house to finish his 30-month sentence. Separately, of the 44 L.A. police listed in 1991 as "problem officers" with patterns of brutality and racism, three have been fired, 10 quit, and nine have been promoted, the Los Angeles Times said. And L.A. police chief Willie Williams said Sunday that police departments nationwide will have a hard time getting rid of racist officers. "You can control their assignments, remove them from streets, but that's just putting a Band-Aid on the issue," he said.
"It is straight out of James Bond," Senator Nunn said of Aum Shinri Kyo's gassing of the Tokyo subway in March. Nunn sent investigators to Tokyo after the attack. He said Sunday the group was armed with a Russian helicopter and drone aircraft to deliver chemical weapons. He also said Aum aimed to take over Japan and force an Armageddon between it and the US.
Speaking as much to US lawmakers as the thousands of Latin Americans she has seen in the past four days, Hillary Clinton has made the case that for a relatively small amount of money, the US is helping change the lives of the region's poor. The first lady was to fly to Paraguay yesterday from Brazil. The White House asked Congress for $14.8 billion for 1996. Lawmakers are aiming for about $12 billion.
There were about 12 million on-line service subscribers in June, up dramatically from 5 million less than a year earlier, the Washington-based Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press says. Despite the jump, few subscribers see it as essential: only 32 percent of those surveyed say they would miss on-line access "a lot" if they no longer had it.
"We have no doubt you will overcome all obstacles," Vice President Gore said to Haitians Sunday as he exhorted them to continue democratic and economic reforms. He met with President Aristide at the presidential palace Reforming the economy could be tough as the genius behind reforms, Prime Minister Smarck Michel, was expected to resign yesterday.
The number of two-parent families is rising slightly, the Census Bureau said yesterday. After two decades of decline, there are nearly 600,000 new two-parent homes since 1990. Census officials caution that the number is not necessarily a trend. Growth of single-parent homes - now at about one-third of all households - still outpaces two-parent families.
Some 26 percent of elementary school kids smoke marijuana, according to their peers. This is up from 13 percent in 1990, according to a survey of 5 million children by the Middleton, Conn-based "Weekly Reader." The nonscientific survey also suggests that alcohol use is up among middle-graders.
How to get rid of Fidel Castro the fastest is a hot Senate topic this week. Senators could move as early as today to pass a bill to strengthen the US embargo of Cuba. Some Democrats say trade will bring freedom faster. But with Fidel Castro vulnerable, Republicans says this is the wrong time to ease sanctions.
THE WORLD
Japan said yesterday relations with Washington could be seriously damaged if a report of CIA spying at the auto talks is true. The New York Times said Sunday the CIA eavesdropped on talks between Japanese negotiators and automakers during the Geneva talks this year, and reported the results to US Trade Representative Mickey Kantor.
Artillery fire in northwestern Bosnia threatened a cease-fire Monday. Also, the five-nation contact group met in Moscow yesterday to prepare for initial talks between the Bosnian Muslims, their Croat allies, and separatist Serbs due to begin Oct. 31. And government forces unearthed 14 bodies in two northwestern Bosnian towns Saturday taken from Serb rebels last week.
Foreign ministers from many of the 113 Nonaligned Movement countries began meeting yesterday in Cartagena, Colombia. Heads of state of 45 of those nations are expected later. The group's 11th summit opens officially tomorrow.
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin called an emergency Cabinet meeting for today in response to Muslim guerrillas who killed nine Israeli soldiers in four days in south Lebanon. Israeli warplanes began pounding Lebanese villages Sunday night. Also, the Lebanese government asked its pro-Syrian President Elias Hrawi yesterday to agree that his six-year term, which ends next month, be extended three years.
Alexander Kwasniewski, a former Communist, won nearly half the vote in a Polish straw poll Sunday, three weeks before elections. President Lech Walesa got just 12.7 percent of the 10,518 votes cast by citizens of Wrzesnia, a town west of Warsaw.
NATO chief Willy Claes said yesterday he will appeal to Belgium's Parliament this week in hopes of averting a trial in a corruption scandal that has plunged the Western military alliance into a leadership crisis.
Taiwan yesterday welcomed reports that Chinese President Jiang Zemin wants to meet with his Taiwanese counterpart. Visits by the two presidents would be unprecedented in the countries' 46-year cold war. Also, US Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown arrived in Beijing yesterday to push for business on behalf of US firms, discuss China's bid to join the World Trade Organization, and press the piracy issue. Coincidentally, the Xinhua News agency reported yesterday that Chinese police confiscated more than 15,000 pirated CD-ROM computer discs and arrested 500 people in the past three months.
Mexico's conservative opposition PAN claimed victory yesterday in mayoral elections in Tuxtla Gutierrez, the capital of troubled Chiapas. But the ruling PRI appeared headed for victory in Chiapas' San Cristobal de las Casas and Tapachula, as well as many villages. Meanwhile, in Campeche, hurricane Roxanne left homes in knee deep water after whipping across the Yucatan Peninsula last week.
About 100 South Korean lawyers took to the streets yesterday to demand that two former presidents stand trial for the 1980 Kwangju massacre that crushed resistance to military rule. And 13 student activists, demanding the same, briefly occupied ruling party headquarters.
Some 60 Muslim guerrillas were killed by Algerian security forces last weekend, the official government news said. And gunmen murdered an pro-government newspaper executive.
One in a million."
- Slogan on a T-shirt being sold on the Mall in Washington during the Million Man March.
Tennis star Steffi Graf has lost an annual $1 million sponsorship contract after a much-publicized investigation into her tax affairs, her sponsor said yesterday. German car company Adam Opel said it will not renew its deal with the six-time Wimbledon champ.
The Isle of Skye lost some of its romantic appeal yesterday when a controversial toll bridge opened, linking the remote island to the Scottish mainland. The bridge has been attacked by islanders, who say its toll is too expensive and its existence is an intrusion on a special way of life.
The Beatles have completed their long-awaited reunion. Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr have finished lyrics to a John Lennon song, "Free as a Bird," Newsweek magazine says. The song will be released Nov. 19 on "The Beatles Anthology."
Cities With the Most Expensive Child Care
For a three-year-old child placed in a private, for-profit day-care center, five days a week, eight hours a day, the costs are:
City Monthly Cost
1. New York 589
2. Boston 579
3. Minneapolis 537
4. Philadelphia 503
5. Washington 486
6. Manchester, N.H. 469
7. Wilmington, Del. 460
8. Chicago 455
9. Anchorage, Alaska 454
10. Hartford, Conn. 445
- Rochester, Wis.-based Runzheimer International