News In Brief

President Clinton called on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to follow the lead of ethnic Albanians in pledging to sign a Kosovo peace accord - noting that NATO air strikes were still possible. "If he shows intransigence and aggression, I think that from our point of view we would have little option," Clinton said. He spoke during a White House meeting with NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana, who echoed the warning.

The Senate was to open debate on a missile-defense bill. Co-sponsored by Thad Cochran (R) of Mississippi and Daniel Inouye (D) of Hawaii, the proposal would commit the US to fielding a system that would protect all 50 states. Some Democrats prefer an alternative measure designed to give the Clinton administration more flexibility to work with Russia on modifying the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty. Officials in Moscow say the Cochran-Inouye bill violates the treaty's restrictions.

Much of the East Coast was pounded by snow, sleet, and rain after a storm that left nearly two feet of snow in Missouri and Oklahoma headed east. In Oklahoma, at least 13 people were killed in weekend traffic accidents.

Americans rank Clinton first among postwar US presidents on foreign-policy success - up from eighth place in the middle of his first term, a new Gallup poll found. When asked to list the two or three biggest foreign-policy issues, the most common responses were: "I don't know" (21 percent), terrorism (12 percent), the world economy (11 percent), balance of payments (10 percent), and the Middle East situation (8 percent). The survey is conducted every four years by Gallup for the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations.

The US scientist suspected of sharing nuclear-bomb secrets with Beijing visited China in 1985, an official Chinese newspaper said. Without providing details, the China Daily said Taiwanese-born Wen Ho Lee went to China with his wife, who was invited to address a conference on "sophisticated computer topics." Lee was dismissed last week from a job at the US nuclear-weapons laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M. He was not charged with a crime.

NBC has been secretly negotiating with Sony Corp. to forge a relationship that would boost revenues for both companies, The New Yorker magazine reported. It said the deal could provide the television network access to Sony's movie and TV studios and give Sony broadcast-cable- and Internet-distribution systems. According to the report, an executive close to the talks said potential revenues could be enormous if Sony - bypassing movie theaters and video stores as a result of a deal with NBC - could offer first-run movies to homes on a pay-per-view basis.

Ford Motor Co. agreed to pay a civil fine of $425,000 for failing to recall and fix vehicles promptly and for withholding data on fires in Ford cars and light trucks from federal safety officials. Ford was not required to acknowledge any wrongdoing.