TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=93TT0305> <title> Sep. 27, 1993: The Week:News Digest </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993 Sep. 27, 1993 Attack Of The Video Games </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> THE WEEK, Page 15 NEWS DIGEST: SEPTEMBER 12-18 </hdr><body> NATION Selling Clinton's Programs It was the week of big pitches from the White House. Basking in the afterglow of the South Lawn signing of the Middle East peace agreement, the Clinton Administration launched the sales job on its health-care plan and rolled out three former Presidents -- Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George Bush -- to endorse the North American Free Trade Agreement. In a meeting with small-business owners, Clinton promised flexibility on some important elements of his health plan, especially on proposals that might harm small businesses. Earlier, House and Senate Republicans unveiled their own plan, which would not compel employers to cover workers and, they promised, would not require new taxes or insurance-premium caps. The Fugitive A kind of anti-Vietnam War veteran came home last week. Katherine Ann Power, a college radical, had eluded authorities for 23 years after taking part in a bank robbery in which a Boston police officer was killed. For much of that time she lived as Alice Metzinger, a wife, mother and restaurant owner in Corvallis, Oregon. Power turned herself in to Boston police. Goodbye, We Must Not Run Two Senators, David Durenberger (R., Minn.) and Dennis DeConcini (D., Ariz.), separately announced they would not run for re-election next year. Both have been tainted by scandal: Durenberger faces trial in January on fraud charges, and DeConcini was rebuked by the Senate ethics committee in 1991 for accepting campaign contributions from savings and loan huckster Charles Keating. They join three other Senators and 12 House members who will not run for re-election. This Week's Tourist Homicide Just one week after the killing of a German tourist, Florida residents were stunned by the murder of a British visitor, the ninth foreign tourist to be killed in that state in the past year. At a highway rest stop outside Tallahassee, Gary Colley, 34, was shot to death and his female companion wounded by attackers who demanded money. Two teenagers, one just 13, have been arrested. A third is being sought. Vidor Revisited Determined to integrate a defiantly all-white housing project in a mostly white Texas burg, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros ordered the federal seizure of Vidor Village, a public housing facility in the town of Vidor, and fired the heads of the local housing authority. Under court order to desegregate, the facility accepted nine black residents last spring, but all have left because of racial harassment. Cisneros, once mayor of San Antonio, Texas, promised that 10 to 12 new black families will soon arrive in Vidor. An Opening to Vietnam President Clinton relaxed the ban on trade with Vietnam in order to allow U.S. firms to bid on development projects there. He stopped short of eliminating the embargo on most dealings, however, saying that Hanoi is not yet fully cooperating in the search for MIAS. Truly Hell-Bent? As Southern Baptists would have it, the road to hell goes straight through Alabama. The Southern Baptists Convention estimated in a detailed county-by-county chart that 46.1% of people in the state are not born again and so risk not reaching heaven. Some Alabamians consigned to the flames were angered by the news. Said Martin King of the Home Mission Board, which compiled the study: "All we know is that as we understand the doctrine of salvation, a lot of people are lost." WORLD Arafat to Rabin: Shake, Pal After decades of loathing between their peoples, the Prime Minister of Israel and the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization met in a ceremony on the White House lawn, attended by world leaders, diplomats and four U.S. Presidents. The two men witnessed the signing of an agreement on limited Palestinian self-rule, beginning in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho. Then, in a gesture that seemed remarkable even under the circumstances, they shook hands. Israeli-P.L.O. Fallout The repercussions of the Israel-P.L.O. agreement spread quickly throughout the region. On his way home from the signing ceremony, Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin stopped off in Morocco for an unprecedented meeting with King Hassan II; diplomatic relations may follow. Jordan and Israel signed an agreement laying out the framework for their own peace discussions. But Rabin lambasted Syria for allowing anti-Israel guerrillas to continue to operate in southern Lebanon. Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip three Israeli soldiers were ambushed and killed and a Palestinian blew himself up in a botched attack on an Israeli police station. Battling in Georgia Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze was under fire on all sides. Only after he threatened to resign did parliament give him emergency powers to quash armed rebellions. Last weekend he was besieged by Abkhazian separatists battling to gain control of their capital. Bosnian Truces A thin ray of hope for peace glowed as Bosnia's beleaguered Muslims signed separate cease-fire agreements with Croatia and with the Bosnian Serbs. If the truces hold, all three parties may soon be signing a peace accord that would partition the former Yugoslav republic into a confederation of three ethnic zones. The agreement, if ratified, would allow any of the three enclaves to withdraw from the confederation after two years. Chinese Dissidents Freed One of China's most famous political prisoners has been Wei Jingsheng, who was jailed in 1979 for advocating democracy and opposing Deng Xiaoping. Last week Beijing authorities suddenly saw fit to release him, six months before his sentence was to end -- and just before the International Olympic Committee was to decide on a host city for the 2000 Olympic Games. Beijing is an anxious contender. For good measure, the government also released Wu Xuecan, an imprisoned newspaper editor who had supported the 1989 pro-democracy movement, and Zhai Weimin, a student leader. BUSINESS A Deal in Detroit Twenty-four hours after their old contract expired, the United Automobile Workers and Ford agreed on a new three-year pact under which Ford's 96,000 U.A.W. workers will still enjoy health care fully paid by the company, a major sticking point. The pact will provide a model for negotiations at General Motors and Chrysler. The Economy: Looking Up? Washington released two economic reports that might -- just might -- mean good news: the trade deficit shrank 14% from June to July, and in August industrial production rose 0.2%. Chasing Mickey Universal Studios Florida announced a $3 billion expansion of its Orlando theme park, 12 miles from Walt Disney World. The new venture will feature a Jurassic Park ride and other Spielbergian creations. SCIENCE You'd Be Extinct Too For some time scientists have been moving toward the view that the extinction of the dinosaurs occurred after a giant comet or meteor struck the earth, filling the air with dust that shut out the sunlight for months. Now the theory is looking even better: a crater off the coast of Yucatan, known to be the right age (65 million years old) but thought to be too small to have been made by such a cosmic collision, has been discovered to be 185 miles across, not 110 as previously believed. The heavenly object that carved it out was plenty big enough to have done the job. Why the Titanic Sank Everyone knows the Titanic sank because an iceberg cut a huge gash in its side. But everybody's wrong, says a group of naval architects and marine engineers. Extensive sea-bottom photos of the ship show no gash. The real problem was the ship's steel plating, which was inherently brittle, say the experts -- even a small impact could have caused major cracks. The Titanic's sister ships, the Olympic and the Britannic, made from the same steel, are known to have suffered such cracks. MEDIA & THE ARTS That's Entertainment Viacom Inc., which owns MTV and other show businesses, announced a planned $8.2 billion acquisition of Paramount Communications. But at week's end two other TV titans -- QVC chairman Barry Diller and Turner Broadcasting -- were reportedly considering their own, separate bids for Paramount. Stolen Paintings Recovered Belgian police recovered two priceless works of art, Vermeer's Lady and a Maid Servant and Goya's Portrait of Dona Antonia Zarate. In one of the largest art heists of recent years, the paintings were stolen seven years ago from Russborough House, the Dublin-area home of the late Sir Alfred Beit, a private collector. Three Irishmen and a Yugoslav were caught near Antwerp transporting the paintings, along with six other stolen works, in two rented cars. Marilyn Mementos Missing Who can forget her gauzy white skirt billowing over a subway-grating updraft in The Seven Year Itch? Alas, New York police confirmed the outfit is missing and presumed stolen from a Manhattan warehouse. Also gone: some letters written by the actress to her acting coach, Lee Strasberg. Marlene Mementos Purchased At a negotiated sale in New York, the city of Berlin bought up actress Marlene Dietrich's 100,000 possessions for $5 million. The vast collection includes the uniform she wore while entertaining U.S. troops and at least 10 steamer trunks. Dietrich, who died last year, left Berlin in the early 1930s but in 1990 asked to be buried there. The city plans to display the artifacts in a new film museum. -- By Christopher John Farley, Michael D. Lemonick, Erik Meers, Michael Quinn, Sophfronia Scott Gregory, Sidney Urquhart Yet Another Setback For The White Male "If I'd wanted to fill my office with gay, white, male lawyers, I could have filled my staff weeks ago." -- AIDS CZAR KRISTINE GEBBIE, ON THE NEED FOR DIVERSITY IN HER STAFF AND THE LOPSIDED DEMOGRAPHICS OF JOB APPLICANTS TO HER OFFICE Dispatches THE PLUMBER AND THE T. REX By DAVID S. JACKSON, in northwestern South Dakota In the movie Jurassic Park, dinosaur fossils are found by a jet-setting paleontologist with a millionaire benefactor and a glamorous female assistant. In real life the relics are more often discovered by the likes of Stan Sacrison, 37, a plumber and electrician who likes to wander around sheep ranches near his home in Buffalo, South Dakota, looking for prehistoric bones. Last May, while scrambling up the side of a butte, he noticed an unusually large pelvic bone and three sun-bleached vertebrae poking out of the siltstone. "I could tell right away it was a Tyrannosaurus rex, because they're really distinctive," he says. "I was pretty excited." Although Sacrison describes himself as an amateur paleontologist who has never traveled outside his own time zone, he is too modest. In a sense, he has spent more time in the Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago, than many professionals. Since he found his first dinosaur bone, a triceratops vertebra, at age 8, he has scoured the landscape looking for more artifacts of the distant past. Counting his latest discovery, he has found two of the world's 14 known skeletons of Tyrannosaurus rex. Sacrison helped excavate the first last year, only a quarter-mile from his latest find. The dinosaur burial ground, now a dry, undulating pasture of sage and buffalo grass just below the North Dakota border, was once a subtropical floodplain, where dinosaurs roamed amid palm trees and ferns on the edge of a dying inland sea. One day a mature male T. rex, weighing up to five tons and measuring nearly 40 feet in length, died in a silty washout. At least two albertosaurs, sharp-toothed scavengers about half T. rex's size, fed on the carcass, leaving a few of their teeth behind. Within months a river overflowed its banks and swept the bones away, eventually covering them with a three-foot layer of silt, which preserved them for eternity_and Stan Sacrison. After his discovery, Sacrison called Peter Larson, the president of the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, in Hill City, South Dakota. Larson is a controversial figure in the world of paleontology: last year, after he announced that he was excavating the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex ever found, the U.S. Attorney impounded the skeleton, contending that it had been illegally removed from government-owned land. Larson disagrees, and the institute is suing. But there is no dispute over Sacrison's latest find, which Larson named Duffy, in honor of his lawyer. After getting the landowner's permission, Sacrison, Larson and a score of volunteers set up camp and began excavating Duffy with shovels, dental picks and toothbrushes. So far, they have found about 20% of the skeleton, but they are certain the rest is nearby. Meanwhile, Sacrison plans to look for more skeletons. If he has the time, he would also like to see Jurassic Park. "I hear," he says, "it has great special effects." It does, Stan, but the paleontologist isn't very realistic. The Morning Line NAFTA has partisanship on its head as Republicans rally to Clinton in the looming free-trade battle. What are the odds of its passing? And when will the first floor vote be? PLAYER R.W. APPLE JR. New York Times ODDS 3 to 2 against VOTE DATE Nov. 1993 COMMENTS "The only way [Clinton] can win it is to rally support from industrial-state Democrats." PLAYER SENATOR PHIL GRAMM (R., Texas) ODDS even VOTE DATE Nov. 1993 COMMENTS "Politics says no, history says yes. If lawmakers are going to catch hell no matter what they do, they'll normally do the right thing." PLAYER JODY POWELL Chairman, Powell Tate ODDS 3 to 5 VOTE DATE Dec. 1993 COMMENTS "If NAFTA wins, it will be in large measure because the Congress recognizes the severe consequences of rejecting it." Winners & Losers WINNERS THE KINGDOM OF NORWAY Mideast pact alters its global image: whale killer to peacemaker WEI JINGSHENG Hoping to be host of the 2000 Olympics, China frees top dissident EMMITT SMITH Hard-fought $13.6 mil Dallas deal makes him top-paid running back LOSERS BENJAMIN NETANYAHU Israel's urbane rightist left griping on the sidelines by P.L.O. deal BRUCE BABBITT Western Senators delay his grazing-land fee increase KEVIN COSTNER His Deadwood casino scheme looks dead after South Dakota vote Informed Sources Open Heart, Open Door, Bad Idea? Some officials of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the State Department are upset over Attorney General JANET RENO'S recent decision to override policy and admit to the U.S. eight Cubans whose boat sank off the coast of Mexico. A Justice Department spokesman confirms that Reno personally decided to admit the refugees because their story moved her but insists it was a onetime exception. Sources say ins acting commissioner Chris Sale acceded reluctantly, fearing the decision capriciously discriminated against other would-be immigrants with stories no less tragic. Critics say Reno's decision has encouraged a flood of Cubans to head for Mexico, believing it is the new pipeline to Miami. Muzzling Gephardt -- Temporarily House majority leader DICK GEPHARDT has the White House guessing how actively he'll oppose the North American Free Trade Agreement. On the same day last week that Clinton mustered former Presidents Ford, Carter and Bush to support the pact, Gephardt had planned to give a speech in Congress opposing it. A Democratic Party source says Clinton called Gephardt to quiet him: "Having Gephardt come out against us on the same day would have just been devastating." Still, Gephardt is expected to issue a statement opposing NAFTA this week. Travel Money for the Unemployed? The DEPARTMENT OF LABOR is considering a policy change in the way government helps the jobless. Because more unemployed people are finding that they need to relocate to get work, Labor Secretary Robert Reich may request extra unemployment assistance to help pay for some of the costs involved in job searches that require long-distance travel. Health Report THE GOOD NEWS -- More evidence that vitamins can prolong life: a five-year study of nearly 30,000 peasants from rural China discovered that vitamin E, beta-carotene and selenium supplements appeared to reduce cancer deaths 13% and deaths from all causes 9%. -- A radical though still experimental technique may someday help treat brain cancer. Doctors have used genetic engineering to make tumor cells sensitive to the antiviral drug ganciclovir. When they subsequently administered the drug to patients, five out of seven improved. More extensive tests are in the works. -- Japanese chemists have synthesized a chemical that covers up bitter tastes, including those found in many medicines. The chemical doesn't interfere with other tastes, like sweetness. THE BAD NEWS -- Though they are routinely administered to pregnant women as a way to detect fetal defects, expensive ultrasound screenings have not led to an increase in healthy babies. Experts now say the test should be done only in high-risk cases or at a woman's request. -- The HLA test, a kind of tissue matching used to decide who will probably accept a kidney transplant most successfully, is less accurate for blacks than for whites. The result: blacks receive only 22% of donated kidneys (not counting transplants from relatives) though they make up 31% of patients waiting for such an operation. -- Tuberculosis is up 35% since 1985 among kids under 15. The Centers for Disease Control says this is fallout from the recent TB increase among adults, who are now infecting their children. Sources -- GOOD: Journal of the National Cancer Institute; New York Times; Science. BAD: Journal of the American Medical Association; New England Journal of Medicine; A.P. </body></article> </text>