The week's big news, and how's it's being spun.
March 9 1997 3:30 AM

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President Clinton banned federal funding of research on human cloning. He also urged privately funded researchers not to clone humans. A bill was filed in the House to ban human cloning outright. Contrary to the traditional objection to birth control--that it permits sex without reproduction--critics of cloning are increasingly objecting that it permits reproduction without sex. (3/7)

William Saletan William Saletan

Will Saletan writes about politics, science, technology, and other stuff for Slate. He’s the author of Bearing Right.

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Underplayed: A California scientist announced that he has made chickens behave like quails by replacing their embryonic brain cells with quail brain cells. The media, consumed by the frenzy over cloning, have largely ignored the brain-transplant story. Scientists point out that transplanting animal tissue into human embryos is far more imminent than human cloning. Researchers in Boston are already implanting fetal pig cells in the brains of Parkinson's disease patients. The Associated Press raised the specter of "people with socially unacceptable behavior being forced to undergo brain surgery."(3/7)

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Rebels holding hostages at a diplomat's house in Peru broke off talks with the government. They claim that police are preparing to storm the building by digging a tunnel under the house. Peruvian officials say that the tunnel-digging story is plausible, but that if it's true, President Alberto Fujimori doesn't know about it. (3/7)

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Flooding along the Ohio River has killed 26 people, driven many thousands from their homes, and destroyed more than $400 million worth of property from Kentucky to West Virginia. (3/7)

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A panel of scientists conceded that a planned robot mission to Mars might bring back harmful alien microorganisms. But the scientists said it's very unlikely that Martian germs could do much damage here, since they probably can't compete with Earth's own germs. (3/7)

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Police announced that they have ruled out JonBenet Ramsey's half-brother and half-sister as suspects in her murder, evidently because both were out of town when the crime was committed. Locals are said to be increasingly suspicious of the refusal of the girl's parents to be interviewed separately by police. Material collected from under JonBenet's fingernails--possibly tissue scraped from the killer--is reportedly being examined by a lab. (3/7)

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The Democratic fund-raising scandal is closing in on Vice President Gore. The Washington Post reported that during the 1996 Clinton campaign, Gore made private phone calls (some from the White House) soliciting donations. The report prompted further calls for an independent counsel, on the grounds that a high government official (Gore) had violated the law by making political calls from a federal building. Editorialists derided Gore's response that the law doesn't apply to him. Gore and Clinton suggested that their end (getting re-elected and thereby helping the United States) justified their means (using the White House to raise money). Democrats also released records showing that Vice President Dan Quayle had used his official residence for a reception for high-dollar Republican donors in 1990. Pundits are bewailing the shattering of their faith that Gore was the One Honest Man in the administration. The betting now is that he's in for a stiff primary challenge in 2000. (3/5)

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New disclosures in the scandal: 1) The New York Times reported that Webster Hubbell was paid far more money in the months after his resignation than had been previously thought, much of it from Clinton's friends and donors, and that the administration endorsed a project in China that was financially important to the Riady family just after a Riady-controlled company put Hubbell on its payroll. Whitewater Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr has subpoenaed White House records, evidently to find out whether the Riady-controlled Lippo Group paid hush money to Hubbell to prevent him from cooperating with the Whitewater probe. 2) Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief of staff accepted a $50,000 check to the Democratic National Committee--in the White House--from an alleged "hustler" deeply embroiled in the scandal. (3/7)

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Update on the investigation: 1) Republicans decided that the Senate fund-raising probe will cover congressional as well as presidential campaigns, but will concern itself with only "illegal activities," not soft money. 2) Attorney General Janet Reno concluded that laws prohibiting political fund raising in federal buildings apply only to direct campaign contributions, not to soft money. This lets Vice President Gore and Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief of staff off the hook, which, in turn, reduces the chances Reno will authorize an independent counsel. 3) The House Intelligence Committee announced an investigation of possible efforts by foreign governments to influence last year's elections. 4) Newt Gingrich called the scandal "much bigger ... than Watergate." Democrats called Gingrich a hypocrite, since he was recently reprimanded for unethical fund raising. (3/7)

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Echoes of the scandal abroad: 1) China replied to U.S. criticism of its human-rights abuses by accusing the United States of corruption for letting its political parties sell face time with their leaders. 2) Britain's Labor Party is demanding an investigation of a report that Prime Minister John Major orchestrated an $800,000 donation to the Tories from a foreign businessman. (3/5)

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President Clinton welcomed Yasser Arafat to the White House and criticized Israel for expanding Jewish housing in East Jerusalem. Administration officials confirmed that Clinton was deliberately 1) "rolling out the carpet" to enhance Arafat's prestige and 2) sending Israel a warning not to screw up the peace process by provoking further conflict. News accounts agree that Arafat has finally shed his image as a terrorist and is now being honored by the White House not only as a virtual head of state but as the indispensable player in the peace process. (3/5)

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The balanced-budget constitutional amendment failed--as expected. The Senate voted 66-34 in favor of it, one vote shy of the two-thirds majority needed. (3/5)

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The Dallas Morning News reported that "confidential defense reports" show Timothy McVeigh confessed to the Oklahoma City bombing. The document in question appears to consist of notes taken by a defense attorney during an interview with McVeigh in prison. But McVeigh's lawyer indicated that his team had faked the putative confession in order to persuade a witness to talk to them, and an Oklahoma reporter has now confirmed that the defense team's private eye told him of the fake confession a year ago. The executive editor of the Morning News dismissed the fabrication theory as ad hoc damage control. (3/5)

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The Immigration and Naturalization Service, pressured by the White House, rushed immigrants through naturalization last year and ended up granting citizenship to hundreds--if not thousands--of people who should have been rejected because of past felony convictions. Again, Vice President Gore is at the center of the controversy. According to the Washington Post, records indicate that the pressure came from Gore's office and was driven in part by hopes of registering new Democratic voters. (3/5)

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Scientists have identified another obesity gene. The gene creates UCP2, a protein that determines whether an animal burns calories or stores them as fat. The next step is to develop drugs to influence the gene and thereby treat obesity. (3/3)