House Speaker Newt Gingrich announced that he will pay his $300,000 ethics "assessment" (i.e., fine) out of his own money. The catch: He will borrow that money from Bob Dole. The terms: 10 percent annual interest, no payments required until 2005. Pundits figured that if Gingrich had paid the fine out of his campaign kitty or a legal defense fund, he would have been forced from office. Instead, the loan allows him to serve out the maximum eight years as speaker, at which point he can repay the loan out of his campaign kitty or a legal defense fund. The short-term betting says Gingrich has quelled the Republican mutiny against him and bought himself time to regain his stature as a policy leader. Liberal politicians and editorialists, having warned Gingrich that he would be evading justice and creating a conflict of interest if he failed to pay the fine with his own money, accused him of evading justice and creating a conflict of interest when he agreed to pay the fine with his own money. (4/18)

Israeli police recommended indictments against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his justice minister, and his chief of staff. The charges concern an alleged deal to appoint an attorney general who would go soft on a Netanyahu ally (the nominee subsequently quit). Pundits quickly concluded that Netanyahu was in grave trouble, then backed off after learning that the proposed indictment against him rested largely on the testimony of one witness. The growing scandal is expected to hinder the peace process by preoccupying Netanyahu, weakening his hold over Israel's extreme right, and discouraging the Labor Party from forming a coalition government with him. (4/18)

German prosecutors indicted CompuServe's top German executive on charges of distributing pornography. This is regarded as an ominous precedent: the first prosecution of an Internet service in the West for providing access to material it did not produce. (The porn is produced by independent sites and distributed through Internet newsgroups.) Under German law, the executive could get five years in jail, though this is considered unlikely. He has previously threatened to circumvent prosecution by playing the Internet's trump card: moving CompuServe's German offices to France. (4/18)

Philip Morris and RJR Nabisco are discussing a possible $300 billion settlement of all cigarette liability suits against them. They would accept FDA supervision and advertising restrictions in exchange for an act of Congress that would require plaintiffs to seek compensation from a general tobacco-industry fund rather than from the companies. The media initially gloated over the news, on the grounds that the tobacco companies were offering unprecedented concessions. But within a day, pundits and politicians turned skeptical, complaining that 1) even $300 billion wouldn't hurt the companies enough; 2) they would simply pass the cost along to their addicted customers; and 3) awarding them immunity from liability would be immoral, unconstitutional, and profitable, as evidenced by a rise in tobacco-company stock on news of the talks. (4/18)

The Supreme Court struck down a Georgia law requiring drug tests for political candidates. The court ruled 8-to-1 that the urine tests were an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment because: 1) there's no evidence of a drug problem among Georgia politicians and 2) the law was designed to be symbolic rather than effective (e.g., it allows candidates to pick the day they will be tested). The Fourth Amendment spin is that the court, having upheld a series of drug-testing laws (for railroad crews, customs-service workers, and student athletes), finally encountered one too preposterous to tolerate. The ideological spin is that the principled left and principled right (including Justices Thomas and Scalia) defeated the unprincipled center (Chief Justice Rehnquist). (4/16)

Republicans are turning up the heat on Attorney General Janet Reno for failing to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the Democratic fund-raising scandal. House Speaker Newt Gingrich compared Reno to Nixon henchman John Mitchell, and threatened to summon her before Congress and investigate whether she was involved. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., replied that Gingrich, "the guru of ethics," had neither the right nor the credibility to intimidate the attorney general. The press contrasted Gingrich's invective with the more careful and substantive criticisms leveled at Reno by Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch. The New York Times and Los Angeles Times joined in the criticism of Reno, while the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune came to her defense. (4/16)

The Dow Jones industrial average bounced back strongly after falling nearly 10 percent below its March peak Friday. The drop had wiped out this year's gains and persuaded some market watchers to declare the slide a correction. Healthy corporate earnings reports and near-zero inflation in the consumer sector turned stock speculators exuberant. Irrationally so? asked the Wall Street Journal. Probably not, said most analysts, while agreeing that the market was likely to keep lurching in response to changes in economic indicators. (4/16)

Major League Baseball retired Jackie Robinson's number. To commemorate Robinson's shattering of the color barrier in sports 50 years ago, no player will ever again be assigned the number 42. President Clinton and Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig joined Robinson's widow at a ceremony honoring Robinson during a Mets-Dodgers game at Shea Stadium. Sports writers boasted that baseball was once again crystallizing the story of American progress. Killjoys pointed out that blacks own none of the league's teams, that the stadium failed to sell out, that the crowd was overwhelmingly white (as is usual at baseball games), and that nearly everyone left the game after the 5^th inning ceremony. The New York Times' George Vecsey suggested that latter-day black sports heroes such as Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan have insulted Robinson's legacy of sacrifice by devoting themselves to self-promotion and corporate marketing. (4/16)

China defeated a U.N. resolution criticizing its human-rights abuses. Under threats from Beijing, several nations abstained. Germany and France refused to co-sponsor the resolution (human-rights groups blamed France's eagerness to conclude an airplane deal with China). Nevertheless, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said she would attend the ceremonies in Hong Kong when the British colony reverts to Chinese control--to show her support for continued democracy in Hong Kong. (4/16)

An Illinois insurance company is selling life insurance to people with HIV. This is the first such insurance offer since the onset of AIDS, and is viewed as tentative commercial confirmation that AIDS is now, in the company's words, "a treatable chronic illness rather than a terminal disease" for many people. The Wall Street Journal hailed it as proof of the success of new drugs. If the company makes money on the policy, other insurers are expected to follow. (4/16)

Iran is being fingered in two cases of terrorism. 1) The Washington Post reported that a top Iranian official has been linked to the group suspected in last year's bombing of a U.S. military base in Saudi Arabia. Newt Gingrich said that if the evidence holds up, the United States should consider a military strike against Iran. 2) A German court implicated Iranian leaders in four recent assassinations in Berlin. More than 100,000 Iranians marched on Germany's embassy in Tehran to protest the ruling. Students trying to storm the embassy were thwarted by Iranian troops. The betting is that neither side will let the crisis escalate, because their trade relationship is too cozy. (4/14)

Tiger Woods won the Masters golf tournament and was anointed a Transcendent Sports Phenomenon. Woods became the first black or Asian-American to win a major golf tournament, and broke the course records for best score (18 under par), biggest margin of victory (12 strokes), and youngest victor (he is 21). Pundits declared it a triumph of youth and racial progress, comparing Woods to Jackie Robinson (whose 50^th anniversary of breaking the color barrier is being celebrated simultaneously), Arthur Ashe, and Lee Elder (who became the first black golfer to play in the Masters in 1975, the same year Woods was born). The game's current stars declared Woods the best player in the world and possibly in history. Optimists predicted that Woods will make golf hip and popular, especially among nonwhite kids. Pessimists grumbled that Woods is so superior he'll make tournaments boring, and that his corporate marketing machine (whose hour-long biography of him was aired by CBS during the tournament) is tarnishing his divinity. (4/14)