01|Joshua Nkomo, vice president of Zimbabwe, dies in Harare at the age of 82. Nkomo had been suffering from prostate cancer.|
01|In Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom opens Scotland's parliament, the first for 292 years, on a day marked by ancient tradition and celebration of democracy. Scotland's last parliament disbanded in 1707 after passing the Act of Union, which united the kingdom of England and Wales with the kingdom of Scotland. The new government will assume authority over local government, health, education, transportation, environmental matters, and culture. The Scottish Parliament will also have some powers to levy taxes and pass laws. The UK Parliament will retain control over defence, foreign policy, most taxation, and social security.|
01|A mountain cable car transporting observatory workers to the Plateau de Bure radio-telescope in the French Alps southeast of Paris falls 80 metres onto a rocky slope, killing all 20 passengers. French Interior Minister Jean-Claude Chevenement describes the accident as the worst such disaster in French history.|
02|The governments of Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria reject a Russian request for the use of their airspace to fly planeloads of Russian troops into Kosovo. Hungary, a new member of NATO, and Romania and Bulgaria, which hope to join the alliance, consulted top U.S. and NATO officials before rejecting Russia's request. Russia asked to fly 3,600 troops into Pristina, Kosovo's provincial capital, on July 4. On June 11, Russian troops, stationed in Bosnia, marched into Kosovo and took control of the Pristina airport.|
03|Prime ministers Tony Blair of the United Kingdom and Bertie Ahern of Ireland threaten to shut down Northern Ireland's new legislature unless the province's two principle political parties, the Protestant Ulster Unionists and Roman Catholic Sinn Fein, resolve the current impasse that threatens the 1998 Northern Ireland peace settlement. The crisis centres on whether paramilitary groups, particularly the Irish Republican Army, will disarm before or after the creation of a Roman Catholic-Protestant Cabinet designed to govern Northern Ireland.|
03|In the United States, winds of 32 kilometres per hour drive a forest fire over more than 809 hectares outside Lewiston in northern California, forcing the evacuation of at least 500 people. Outside Reno, Nevada, strong winds drive a second wildfire across 1,214 hectares.|
04|Americans sweep singles tennis at Wimbledon, England, for the first time in 15 years. Lindsay Davenport wins her first Wimbledon title by beating seven-time champion Steffi Graf 6-4, 7-5. Defending champion Pete Sampras takes a sixth Wimbledon title, a record in this century, by crushing Andre Agassi 6-3, 6-4, 7-5.|
04|In the U.S., a police chase through southern Illinois ends when an avowed white supremacist, Benjamin Smith, dies of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Police sought the 21-year-old man in connection with a three-day shooting spree that left two people dead and nine injured. The search began in Chicago on the night of July 2, after a gunman in a blue Ford shot at Orthodox Jews walking home from Sabbath services. In suburban Skokie, a gunman killed a black man, later identified as former college basketball coach Ricky Byrdsong. Similar attacks on Asians and blacks occurred on July 3 in Springfield, Decatur, and Urbana, Illinois. A man, who was also driving a blue Ford, killed a Korean student outside a church in Bloomington, Indiana, on the morning of July 4. Smith, the suspect in all of these shootings, belonged to the World Church of the Creator, a white supremacist organization.|
05|A 19-year-old Kurdish girl, flashing a "V for victory" hand signal, detonates bombs strapped to her body, killing herself and wounding 17 people on the streets of Adana, Turkey. The bombing is the third major attack on Turkish civilians by Kurdish guerrillas since a Turkish court found Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan guilty of treason on June 29 and condemned him to death.|
05|As Indian military forces continue to regain control of disputed mountain peaks in Kashmir, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has a meeting with U.S. President Bill Clinton. In a joint statement later, Sharif announces that concrete (but unspecified) steps will be taken to restore the 1972 Line of Control separating Pakistani and Indian forces in Kashmir. In Pakistan, the Harakat-ul Mujahedeen, a key Muslim guerrilla group fighting Indian forces in Kashmir, warns Sharif that his government is unlikely to be able to stay in power if it succumbs to Western pressure.|
06|Ehud Barak takes office as Israel's 10th prime minister. Barak, one of Israel's most decorated soldiers, pledges he will make peace with Arab neighbours. Before taking office, Barak scheduled meetings in July with Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, King Abdullah of Jordan, and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.|
06|Massive flooding in China's Yangtze River Valley forces the evacuation of more than 1.8 million people. The river, swollen to its highest level since records have been kept, has flooded 10,000 square kilometres of farmland in central and eastern China. The Ministry of Civil Affairs estimates that the flood, which has killed 240 people, threatens the safety of 60 million Chinese.|
07|A Florida jury decides in the first U.S. class-action lawsuit brought by ailing smokers that tobacco companies defraud the public by producing "defective and unreasonably dangerous" products. The same companies are found guilty of conspiring to keep information from the public about the dangers of smoking and the addictive nature of cigarettes.|
07|UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook announces in the House of Commons that the United Kingdom is resuming foreign relations with Libya after 15 years. The move comes approximately three months after Libyan strongman, Muammar al-Qadhafi, surrendered for trial the two men accused of the terrorist bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The United States, claiming that Qadhafi backed terrorists, broke diplomatic relations with Libya in 1981 and continues to impose travel and trade restrictions against the Gadhafi government.|
07|The World Health Organization (WHO) announces plans to eradicate polio in nearly 50 more countries by the end of the year 2000. WHO will concentrate its efforts on 10 countries that are likely to reinfect other countries where polio has already been eliminated. Many organizations, including the diamond company De Beers, are giving cash to support a WHO vaccination programme. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will try to negotiate temporary cease-fire in the Democratic Republic of Congo so that children can be immunized.|
07|In Honduras, construction workers announce they have uncovered the remains of an ancient civilization. The discovery was made on a site south of Tegucigalpa, the capital, allocated to rehousing victims of Hurricane Mitch. A central plaza has been uncovered, together with artefacts that may date from Lenca or Chorotega cultures. The area may now be declared an archaeological zone, and the refugees may be rehoused elswhere.|
08|Intense fighting between Indian forces and Muslim militants in Kashmir continues, with heavy casualties on both sides. The combat goes on despite Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's pledge to President Bill Clinton, during a recent visit to Washington, D.C., to persuade Muslim combatants to withdraw. While control of Kashmir is divided between the two countries, both claim the territory in its entirety. The government of India maintains that Muslim militants in Kashmir are Pakistani soldiers. Officials in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, deny the assertion, claiming that the combatants are actually Kashmiri insurgents who receive only moral support from Pakistan. India has battled for two months to evict the militants from the Indian side of the cease-fire line, which serves as the border between the two countries.|
09|The highest lighthouse in the United States, the 63-metre Cape Hatteras Lighthouse near Buxton, North Carolina, completes a journey of more than 805 metres to a location farther away from the Atlantic Ocean, which threatened the foundation of the 100-year-old structure. The journey, costing approximately 10 million U.S. dollars, was made on rails lubricated with soap.|
08|Papua New Guinea's prime minister, Bill Skate, tenders his resignation. Skate, 46, has recently been accused of having links to Papua New Guinea's notorious street gangs. Skate was also expected to lose a planned no-confidence motion in parliament triggered by his government's recent recognition of Taiwan as a separate state.|
09|Charles (Pete) Conrad, the third man to walk on the moon, dies in a motorcycle accident, near Ojai, California, U.S. He was 69. On July 19, the former American astronaut will be buried with full military honours in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.|
09|At the International Symposium on Antarctica Earth Sciences at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, expedition leaders announce finding huge deposits of dinosaur bones in Antarctica, last January. Seymour Island, Vega Island, and Antarctica Peninsular areas were once home to the plesiosaur and at least four different types of mosasaurs, one of which had previously been found only in Europe and North America.|
09|In Beijing, a state-run newspaper reports that more than 400,000 Chinese are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Most of the infected are young men in their twenties.|
10|The United States women's soccer team beats the Chinese team on a penalty kick after a scoreless tie to win the 1999 World Cup championship. The match, staged at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, was played before the largest stadium crowd to ever attend a woman's sporting event, 90,185 people.|
10|President Laurent Kabila of Congo and leaders of five other African countries sign a peace accord which they hope will end the 11-month conflict in Congo. However, immediate peace is unlikely because three rebel groups are excluded from the signing. Rwanda and Uganda, who are backing the rebels, say any cease-fire pact or discussions on the future of Congo must include the rebel leaders. Rebel groups say they will continue their battle against Congolese government troops, who are supported by Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe.|
11|Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat meet and reiterate their commitment to the peace process. They agree to implement the U.S.-brokered 1998 Wye Accords, postponed by Barak's predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu. Both men must now persuade the opposition at home of the viability of this decision.|
11|Jamaican Prime Minister P. J. Patterson tells members of his People's National Party that the looting, burning, and shootings currently disrupting life in his country will end only when residents reject the warring drugs gangs. More than 70 people have been killed in Jamaica in the last three weeks, bringing the death toll since January close to 500. Patterson is to give the military greater search powers in their fight against the gangsters.|
11|An official with the Pakistani government in Islamabad announces that Pakistan and India have agreed to a truce that allows Indian troops to withdraw from northern Kashmir. In New Delhi, the Indian capital, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee denies that the Indian army has agreed to a truce or cease-fire of any kind. He notes, however, that the Indian army in Kashmir sees evidence that Muslim combatants are withdrawing from the Indian side of the cease-fire line, which serves as a border between the two countries. The Indian army has attempted to evict the combatants for two months.|
12|Iranian student demonstrators clash with police in Teheran, the capital, for the fifth day in a row. The protests were sparked by the passage of a new law curbing freedom of the press and by the shutdown of an independent newspaper. The paper supported President Mohammed Khatami, who is considered a liberal reformer in Iran. While Khatami was elected by popular vote, actual control of the government remains in the hands of Muslim clerics, particularly Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme religious leader.|
12|The government of the Philippines announces it has disbanded its peace negotiating panel following the collapse of peace talks with Communist rebels. The two sides had failed to implement a human rights accord signed last year. In May, the rebels withdrew from the peace talks after the Philippine Senate permitted the United States to resume large-scale joint military exercises in the Philippines. The chairman of the Philipine government peace panel stated that the government and the rebels had "reached a point of irreconcilable objectives."|
12|The Norwegian Coast Guard seizes the Greenpeace vessel Sirius and arrests 15 activists after a confrontation between the Sirius and a Norwegian whaling ship, the Kato, in the North Sea. Greenpeace is accused of hampering a legal minke whale hunt. Although the International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986 to protect some types of whales from extinction, the commission rules allow members to reject its decisions. Norway shocked environmentalists by resuming whaling in 1993.|
12|Across Northern Ireland, about 80,000 Protestant men belonging to the Orange Order hold their annual parades. The parades celebrate the victory of King William III, a Protestant, over King James II, a Roman Catholic, in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The "Twelfth" is a public holiday in Northern Ireland. In Belfast, police and soldiers block the Ormeau Bridge to keep Orangemen away from the hostile Catholic area of Lower Ormeau. In protest, all 250 Orange lodges in Belfast abandon their usual parade route and about 20,000 Orangemen and their supporters march to a park across the river from Lower Ormeau instead. Since 1995, Catholic demonstrators have tried to block Protestant parades, but no serious violence is reported this year.|
13|The 200 wealthiest people in the world doubled their fortunes in the four years since 1995, the United Nations (UN) reports in a survey that focuses on the costs and benefits of the emerging global economy. The UN's Human Development Report notes that the combined assets of three billionaires--Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates; the Walton family, which controls the Wal-Mart chain; and the Sultan of Brunei--exceed the total gross national products of the world's 43 poorest countries. Gross national product is the value of all goods and services produced in a country in a given year.|
13|Street battles rage through Iran's capital, Teheran, closing much of the city's commerce, including the vast bazaar. Police and national security forces, numbering in the thousands, fire tear gas into crowds that number in the tens of thousands. Bands of Revolutionary Guard vigilantes brandish shields and batons in hand-to-hand combat with demonstrators. Media coverage of the civil unrest, the most widespread and violent since the 1979 revolution, is shut down after Iran's national press reported that the demonstrations had spread to cities outside the capital. The protests began with the passage of a law suppressing freedom of the press and the closing of an influential newspaper that supported government reform.|
14|An Israeli Arab lawmaker, Hashem Muhammad, is seated on the Israeli parliament's Foreign Affairs and Security Committee. The appointment, protested against by members of the conservative Likud Party, breaks a long-standing tradition of banning Arabs from parliamentary committees and panels.|
14|Jordanian women wishing to register their vote in the country's municipal elections are required to uncover their faces to female officials at ballot stations. This is necessary because in 1995, during the first nationwide municipal elections, both men and women took advantage of the full-face veil and registered plural votes. In today's election, 20 of the 5,241 candidates are women.|
15|George Bush, governor of the U.S. state of Texas, declares that he will not accept matching federal campaign funds in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000. The refusal frees Bush from conforming to the spending limits applied to candidates who receive public campaign money. With the first presidential straw poll and primary still in the future, Bush has raised a record 37 million U.S. dollars for his campaign war chest.|
16|Vote counting in Indonesia's parliamentary election is completed more than six weeks after the June 7 polling. The opposition party led by Megawati Sukarnoputri is the clear-cut winner with 33.7 per cent of the votes, giving it 154 seats in the 700-member People's Consultative Assembly. The Assembly will select Indonesia's next president in November. Megawati Sukarno-putri is the daughter of Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, who held power from 1945 until 1967. The June 7 polling, Indonesia's first free election since Sukarno dissolved the parliament in 1960, was moderated by an international board that included former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.|
16|A small private plane piloted by John F. Kennedy, Jr. disappears into the Atlantic Ocean off Martha's Vineyard near Cape Cod, Massachusetts, U.S., triggering a massive search for the son of the late U.S. president. Kennedy was travelling with his wife, Caroline Bessette Kennedy, and sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette. (See July 21, 22.)|
16|The price of a share of Microsoft stock rises to 99.4375 U.S. dollars on the New York Stock Exchange. The increase pushes the value of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates's company holdings to 100 billion dollars.|
17|At least 10,000 Kosovars died at the hands of Serbian soldiers and police during Serbia's three-month campaign to drive ethnic Albanians from the Yugoslav province, reports the chief investigator for the United Nations (UN) War Crimes Tribunal, J. Clint Williamson. Williamson's figure is based on estimates made by investigators for the UN, NATO, and private international relief agencies.|
18|David Cone of the New York Yankees, playing opposite the Montreal Expos in Yankee Stadium, retires 27 batters in a row to pitch the third perfect game in Yankee history and the team's second perfect game in slightly more than one year. Cone's perfect game is only the 14th in modern baseball history and the 16th overall. The game is attended by Don Larsen, who pitched a perfect game for the Yankees in the 1956 World Series.|
19|In Iran, Teheran newspapers report the release of 750 pro-democracy demonstrators who had been arrested during recent clashes between students and riot police. About another 450 people are believed to still be held in detention. Three people are known to have been killed in the riots. (See July 10).|
20|A large section of the Great Wall of China is demolished to make way for a modern road bridge near the northern city of Baotou. Earlier this year, construction workers were punished for damaging the same section of the wall which is believed to date from 100 B.C.|
20|In West Bengal, the State Assembly votes unanimously to change the name of the city of Calcutta to Kolikata and to rename West Bengal as Bangla.|
20|Government officials in the Philippines confirm that a Chinese fishing boat sank yesterday after a collision with a Philippine Navy patrol boat, near the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. They express regret for the incident. The Chinese government expresses its shock and deep disatisfaction. China, the Philippines, and four other countries claim ownership of the mineral-rich Spratly Islands.|
20|Muslim guerrillas kill 20 Hindus in three separate incidents in remote areas of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Officials in New Delhi, India's capital, fear the murders indicate a renewal of the hit-and-run violence against Hindus that claimed 24,000 lives in the last 10 years. Both Pakistan, which is overwhelmingly Muslim, and India, which is predominantly Hindu, claim sovereignty over Kashmir and have twice gone to war over the territory. The Indian army has attempted for two months to evict Muslim insurgents from positions inside India's border with Pakistan in Kashmir. Pakistan denies India's claim that the Muslim guerrillas include Pakistani army regulars.|
21|The bodies of John F. Kennedy, Jr., his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette, are discovered off Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, in the small plane that went down in the Atlantic Ocean on July 16. (See July 22.)|
21|Canadian authorities arrest more than 100 illegal Chinese immigrants aboard a Chinese fishing vessel on the western coast of Vancouver Island, about 305 kilometres northwest of Victoria. The immigrants left Fuzhou, China, in mid-June aboard a boat that immigration officers described as "rusting, filthy, and obsolete". One of the immigrants claims to have paid smugglers 38,000 U.S.dollars for the trip. All but 18 of the 122 passengers and crew members aboard the boat are women. A similar boat loaded with an unknown number of Asian immigrants sank recently near the Queen Charlotte Islands, north of Vancouver.|
21|In the U.S., the Liberty Bell 7 space capsule arrives at Cape Canaveral, Florida, after being salvaged from the bed of the Atlantic Ocean. The spacecraft, piloted by American astronaut Gus Grissom, sank after splashdown on this day, 1961. After cleaning and restoration, the Liberty Bell is expected to be put on public display in Kansas, U.S.|
22|AIDS overtakes war as the foremost killer of human beings in eastern and southern Africa, reports Stephen Lewis, the deputy executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund. In that region of Africa, where 45 per cent of the world's AIDS cases are located, the disease killed 1.4 million people and orphaned 6 million children in 1998.|
22|The ashes of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette, are committed to the Atlantic Ocean off Martha's Vineyard near Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The ceremony, attended by members of the Kennedy and Bessette families, takes place aboard the Briscoe, a U.S. Navy destroyer loaned for the occasion by President Bill Clinton.|
23|In the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, a volcanic eruption on uninhabited White Island propels steam and ash about 3,000 metres into the air.|
23|King Hassan II of Morocco, who ruled for 38 years, dies at the age of 70. Hassan's eldest son and successor, Sidi Muhammad, who will rule as King Muhammad VI, is expected to continue in his father's role as a mediator between Israel and the Arab nations of the Middle East.|
23|An All Nippon Airways passenger, claiming to want a "crack at the real thing," takes over the controls of a Boeing 747 with 517 people aboard after attacking and killing the pilot with a knife. Crew members, alerted to the problem by a sudden, violent plunge in altitude, overpower the hijacker, an unemployed, 28-year-old Japanese man, and return the plane safely to Tokyo's Haneda Airport.|
23|The European Union meets Ukraine in a one-day summit to discuss nuclear safety, especially the decommissioning of Chernobyl nuclear plant and radioactive waste management. Ukraine offers to close Chernobyl by the year 2000 in return for financial help to their two replacement reactors. The EU agrees to lend up to 143 million U.S. dollars to help with this project and to boost banking systems in Ukraine.|
24|Ross Perot, who twice ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. presidency, refuses to relinquish his position as head of the Reform Party, which he founded. The Reform Party's most successful candidate to date, Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, suggested in a speech at the party's national convention in Dearborn, Michigan, on July 23, that it was time for Perot to step aside. Perot drew 19 per cent of the vote in the 1992 presidential election and 8 per cent in 1996.|
25|Lance Armstrong, 27-year-old leader of the U.S. Postal Service bicycle team, wins the 86th running of the Tour de France, which has been called the world's greatest bicycle race and most gruelling sporting event. Armstrong is only the second American to win the event. In 1996, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, which had spread to his lungs and brain, but has tested free of the disease for more than two years.|
25|Louise Brown, the world's first baby to be born as a result of in vitro fertilisation (IVF), celebrates her 21st birthday. Louise was born in Greater Manchester, in the United Kingdom. IVF is a surgical technique whereby eggs are removed from a woman's body, fertilized in a laboratory, and then replaced in the womb.|
26|Chinese police arrest 1,200 government employees in the latest round of an official campaign to stamp out the Falun Gong spiritual movement. More than 5,000 people have been taken into custody since the ban went into affect on July 19. Prisoners are sent to camps for instruction in Marxist ideology and Chinese Communist doctrine. Falun Gong, which adherents claim is apolitical, combines slow-motion exercise, meditation, and breathing techniques with ideas from Buddhism and Taoism. Sect leader Li Hongzhi claims there are 100 million Falun Gong adherents in China. By comparison, the Communist Party claims 60 million members in China. Political observers in Beijing, the capital, believe the mysterious appearance in April of 10,000 silent, Falun Gong protesters outside the compound that houses top Chinese officials profoundly worried President Jiang Zemin, who is said to be behind the anti-Falun Gong campaign.|
26|The Japanese Minister of Health reports that tuberculosis is the number one infectious disease in Japan and declares a national emergency because of the rate at which the disease is being spread. In 1997, 42,715 people were treated for tuberculosis in Japan and 2,742 people died of the airborne disease, which in most cases is acquired through close, prolonged contact with an infected individual.|
27|Twenty people drown when a sudden torrential rain in the Swiss Alps triggers a flash flood in a mountain stream, trapping 45 adventurers and 8 guides "canyoning" near the resort town of Interlaken. Canyoning, or canyoneering, involves swimming rapids, sliding down mountain streams without a raft, and rappelling (descending on a rope by means of short drops) down gorges and waterfalls. Affluent young people from the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the United States flock to Switzerland for the sport, which is categorized with ice-climbing and bungee jumping as an "extreme sport."|
27|Dudu, the world's oldest panda, dies in the city of Wuhan, southern China, after suffering fits during a heatwave. Dudu, born in captivity in 1962, had been on a life support machine. Her age is believed to be equivalent to 110 human years.|
27|In South Africa, the Natal Law Society offers an unconditional apology to the late Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi for having attempted to restrict his rights to practise as a lawyer. In 1894, Gandhi applied to practise in Natal, a former British colony now known as KwaZulu-Natal. The Natal Law Society opposed his application because he was Indian.|
28|Scientists, after 15 years of laboratory research, have turned normal human cells into cancer cells, reports Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Robert A. Weinberg in the journal Nature. Weinberg, who led a team of colleagues at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., used one gene to trigger relentless cellular growth and two other genes to inactivate signals that limit cellular growth and life span. Researchers believe the discovery could lead to an early test for cancer as well as to new treatments and a possible cure.|
29|In the U.S., a 44-year-old securities day-trader and former chemist commits suicide after shooting 9 people and wounding 13 others at 2 investment offices in the Buckhead neighbourhood of Atlanta, Georgia. The gunman is believed to have also murdered his wife and two children, whose bludgeoned bodies are discovered in their suburban house south of Atlanta. In 1993, the same man's first wife and mother-in-law were murdered in an Alabama campground.|
30|A heat wave, which began in mid-July, bakes the eastern two-thirds of the United States. In drought-stricken Middle Atlantic States, temperatures shoot above 38 degrees Celsius from northern Virginia to eastern Pennsylvania. Temperatures push above 32 C for the 9th day in a row in Philadelphia and 35 C for the 11th day in New York City. More than 50 deaths are attributed to the 40 C heat in Chicago, Illinois, where a power station fails, plunging parts of the city into a stifling darkness.|
31|Thirty-five per cent of all U.S. adults on welfare either worked full- or part-time or actively looked for work in 1998, the Clinton Administration reports in a study ranking the 50 states' performances in moving people from welfare to work. Recipients in Iowa, Oregon, Montana, Wisconsin, and Wyoming were the most successful in finding jobs, with more than 55 per cent working 20 hours a week. Arkansas, Maryland, New Mexico, and North Carolina reported the lowest rates, with less than 20 per cent of welfare recipients in full- or part-time jobs. In 1998, all 50 states met the basic work requirements mandated by the welfare reform law of 1996.|
