Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping finally died. The early obituary line was that he made China safe for capitalism, openness, and prosperity. References to his purported authorization of the Tiananmen Square massacre were politely buried. Pundits are already handicapping the power struggle among China's next generation of would-be rulers. (2/19)

Pretrial hearings began in the Oklahoma City bombing case. The defense tried to exclude testimony from the two witnesses who claim they saw Timothy McVeigh rent the truck used in the bombing. Arguments: 1) The first witness has changed his story. 2) The second witness's identification of McVeigh was influenced by seeing him in handcuffs on television. 3) Both witnesses say McVeigh rented the truck with another man, the mysterious "John Doe No. 2," for whom the government can't account. ABC reported that the first witness has a long criminal record and has allegedly bragged that he stands to gain much of the government's $3 million reward for nabbing the bomber. Television correspondents agree that all this significantly wounded the government's case. Early media indicators, e.g., the hiring of on-screen network "consultants" to state the obvious, suggest that Oklahoma City will replace the O.J. trial as America's premier legal circus. (2/19)

Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr will resign his post to become a dean at Pepperdine University in California. Pundits inferred that the investigation would soon end without indictments of the president or first lady. White House aides were reported to be celebrating. But Starr's aides worried that uncooperative witnesses (i.e., Susan McDougal) would hold out if they thought the investigation was about to close. So Starr insisted to the press that he had made his decision without regard to the investigation's outcome--whereupon pundits concluded that he was a cad to leave precipitously. Liberal editorialists, after years of denouncing Starr's dogged partisanship, called him a quitter. Conservatives consoled themselves with the prospect that an independent counsel will be appointed in the Asian money scandal. (2/19)

Liberals assailed President Clinton's welfare-reform policy at what was supposed to be a friendly gathering. Clinton and several putative supporters met to discuss how businesses and churches could provide jobs. Instead, Earl Graves, the publisher of Black Enterprise magazine, said it was wrong "to expect the private sector ... to sacrifice profit margins in order to do the government's job." A welfare recipient compared New York's workfare program to "slavery" and protested that it was "demeaning" to clean toilets. Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO announced a drive to unionize welfare recipients, in part to discourage states and cities from hiring them to replace better-paid union workers. (2/19)

Nearly 70 countries agreed to open their phone markets to foreign competition. The agreement covers 95 percent of the world's current telecommunications. U.S. officials say it will eventually cut the average per-minute price of international calls originating in the United States from $1 to 20 cents. Contrary to last year's complaints by Pat Buchanan and Bob Dole that the World Trade Organization would become foreigners' tool for conquering the United States, foreigners are now complaining that the WTO has become the United States' tool for conquering the world. (2/17)

The Clinton administration released documents showing that the National Security Council had warned the White House against consorting with shady characters who have since become infamous in the Democratic campaign-finance scandal. The document release was meant to prove the integrity of then-NSC-boss Anthony Lake, thereby persuading senators to confirm him as CIA director. Instead, senators and the media responded by demanding to know why the White House had disregarded the warnings. The other scandal-related disclosure of the weekend was a Washington Post report that the administration embraced a bill financially beneficial to Guam after locals gave $900,000 to the DNC and the Clinton campaign. Special White House counsel Lanny Davis replied: "There's no governmental actions affected by contributions to this president."(2/17)

President Clinton halted a strike by American Airlines pilots. Using the rarely invoked Railway Labor Act of 1926, he forced the pilots to postpone the strike for two months while federal mediators try to resolve the dispute. The key issue is American's plan to assign more flights to lower-paid commuter-airline pilots. As compensation for this, American's pilots want a big raise. Travelers are outraged at the pilots' current, widely quoted $120,000 average salary. Editorialists are having trouble picking sides because both the company and the pilots seem to be making too much money. Pundits agree that the benefits of intervention (pleasing passengers and saving jobs in politically important states) and the low political cost (angering 9,000 pilots who are mostly Republican and are isolated from the rest of organized labor) made this a no-brainer for Clinton. The catch is that other airlines and unions headed for similar confrontations may be encouraged to hold out for absurd demands in the expectation that Clinton will bail them out, too. (2/17)

The Georgian Republic waived prosecutorial immunity for a diplomat implicated in a collision that killed a teen-age girl in Washington, D.C. Police said the diplomat appeared to have been drinking and speeding. The State Department portrayed Georgia's decision as extremely unusual and praiseworthy. (2/17)

Suspected North Korean agents shot a defector in South Korea. The victim, Lee Han Young, is reportedly near death, and South Korea is on a terrorism alert. This is the latest in a series of incidents--a North Korean submarine crew infiltrating the South, North Korea's top ideologist seeking asylum in South Korea's Beijing embassy--that have escalated tensions between the two countries. Observers worry that their reconciliation process might collapse, possibly provoking North Korea to resume its nuclear-weapons program. (2/17)

Tara Lipinski, 14, became the youngest American figure-skating champion in history. She upset 16-year-old champion Michelle Kwan, who fell down twice during her routine. Lipinski's camp quickly unveiled her Web site and booked her on television talk shows. USA Today and the New York Times certified her as the newest celebrity in sports but worried that she'll end up warped or burned out like other recent teen prodigies in gymnastics, skating, and tennis. The cynical view is that she's got a year or two at the top before she chokes under the pressure, as Kwan did. (2/17)

The Dow Jones industrial average topped 7,000. Financial reporters, while proclaiming once again that the optimists have been vindicated, are having more and more trouble finding anyone on Wall Street who was this optimistic. Even analysts who had argued for loosening the old standards, by which the market was clearly overvalued, now think it has maxed out for a while. The rosy view is that the market's remarkable rise makes sense because conditions have been perfect. The pessimistic view is that investors have been spoiled by the perfect conditions and will panic as soon as something goes wrong. The Wall Street Journal calls the 7,000 mark a perfect Valentine's Day affirmation of "investors' six-year love affair with stocks."(2/14)

Chinese government officials tried to steer foreign donations to the Democratic National Committee, according to a Justice Department leak to the Washington Post. The Post said "electronic eavesdropping" bolstered the case. The disclosure gives the scandal an important new twist and ratchets up pressure on the Justice Department to appoint an independent counsel. But the Wall Street Journal says there is still no evidence to confirm conservative theorists' suspicions of a conspiracy between Chinese intelligence agents, the Lippo Group, and John Huang. Meanwhile, the Senate committee investigating the scandal has collapsed into partisan feuding, and several principals in the scandal, including Huang and former Associate Attorney General Webster L. Hubbell, have refused to provide documents. (2/14)

Officials in Boulder, Colo., have hired two ex-stars from the O.J. Simpson defense team--attorney Barry Scheck and forensic scientist Henry Lee--to help in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case. The district attorney's explanation--"I'm going to be ready to match the resources of anyone"--was taken by some as a sign that the probe may now be focusing on the girl's parents, who have hired their own lawyers, detectives, and PR people while still refusing to be interviewed at police headquarters. The more cautious interpretation is that the case investigators don't want to repeat the forensic errors made in the Simpson case, and they figure Scheck and Lee know the pitfalls better than anyone. (2/14)

The House approved spending for overseas family-planning programs. An alternative measure reinstating a ban on funding for groups that also perform or promote abortions passed by a wider margin, but the Senate is expected to oppose such a restriction. Birth-control advocates called the vote an important victory in their efforts to disentangle support for contraception from the contentious abortion issue. (2/14)