The week's big news, and how's it's being spun.
April 6 1997 3:30 AM

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William Saletan William Saletan

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

Update on the Democratic fund-raising scandal: 1) The White House conceded that Clinton aides Erskine Bowles and Mack McLarty had asked friends to hire Webster Hubbell just as Whitewater investigators were closing in on him--and that Hillary Clinton had been told of the effort and appeared to convey sympathy. President Clinton argues Bowles and McLarty were only showing "compassion." Editorialists set aside the question of motive, focusing instead on the conclusion that once again, Clinton and his aides have been caught concealing or obscuring the truth (in this case, the help-Hubbell campaign). 2) The second batch of documents released by former Clinton aide Harold Ickes shows that a) Clinton micro-managed the fund-raising operation, b) Ickes ran much of the Democratic National Committee from the White House, contrary to Clinton's recent assertions, and c) White House aides clearly conceived of many coffees as fund-raisers. 3) While visiting Havana, a Democratic fund-raiser hit up Cuban drug kingpin Jorge Cabrera for a campaign donation, promising him an invitation to a Clinton-Gore campaign dinner in exchange. 4) The Wall Street Journal reported that a Chinese government-run bank wired hundreds of thousands of dollars to Clinton pal Charlie Trie while Trie was giving and funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to the DNC. 5) A CIA memo meant to alert then Director John Deutch to improper meddling by DNC boss Don Fowler in the Roger Tamraz case mysteriously disappeared. (4/4)

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The latest health scare is hepatitis-infected school lunches. A batch of frozen strawberries distributed through the federal lunch program caused hepatitis-A liver infections in more than 160 students and teachers in Michigan. Similar batches were sent to Arizona, California, Georgia, Iowa, and Tennessee, but no infections have been found there. Early reports blamed Mexico, whence the strawberries came in violation of the U.S. ban on foreign ingredients in school lunches. Mexico blames the American company that processed the berries. While experts explained that this kind of risk is inherent in a complex food-distribution system, editorialists demanded tighter regulation to make sure it never happens again. (4/4)

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President Clinton is under pressure to save the Middle East peace process. He will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington next week, at the request of Jordan's King Hussein and others. Two ideas are gaining support: 1) a coalition between Netanyahu and the opposition Labor Party, which would lessen his dependence on the far right and 2) Netanyahu's proposal to shortcut the peace process by negotiating a final settlement with the Palestinians. The situation on the ground continues to deteriorate: A firebomb injured 13 Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, and Israel confirmed that it has approved the construction of thousands of Israeli homes in the West Bank, which is expected to provoke further Palestinian outrage. Meanwhile, Israel scrapped its request to extradite the reputed Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook from the United States, lest his incarceration and trial in Israel exacerbate regional tensions. (4/4)

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Update on the Heaven's Gate suicides: The hot topic this week is whether other cult members (aside from the 39 who killed themselves a week ago) are still alive and will follow suit. Former cult members suggest that dozens or hundreds of cultists remain, but investigators insist the rumors are bogus. A man in Northern California was found dead under a purple shroud (the cult's trademark) with a suicide note saying he hoped to join the cult aboard its spaceship, but there is no evidence that he ever belonged to the group. Reports over the weekend indicated that the cult's sexual asceticism stemmed from leader Marshall Applewhite's repression of his homosexuality, and that several members had castrated themselves to emulate him. In six days, the New York Times has run 36 stories on the suicide. (4/2)

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Heaven's Gate feeding frenzy: 1) ABC signed a deal to develop a TV movie about the cult. The Washington Post, noting that "the sure-to-be lucrative marketing of the mass suicides ... has finally kicked into high gear," wonders why it took so long. Other cult associates have also been hawking proposals for movies and TV shows. 2) San Diego County officials plan to auction off the cult's deathbeds and possessions next month to compensate the county for the cost of investigating the suicides and accommodating the media. 3) Opponents of doctor-assisted suicide have seized on the tragedy as proof that assisted suicide is bad and that anyway, if you want to kill yourself, you don't need a doctor. 4) The Internet is being blamed for helping cults get their mitts on isolated nerds, spreading the rumor that a spaceship was hiding behind the Hale-Bopp comet, and enabling the cult to flourish in the Web-page business. After days of gawking at the cult's wacky faith in supervision by extraterrestrial beings and resurrection in a higher form, pundits consoled themselves with the normalcy of Easter. (4/4)

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The Arizona Wildcats won the NCAA men's basketball championship. The Wildcats, a lowly fourth seed, became the first team ever to defeat three top seeds--not to mention the three best schools in college-basketball history (Kansas, North Carolina, and Kentucky)--en route to the title. Most of the credit went to Arizona guards Miles Simon and Mike Bibby for breaking down Kentucky's notorious full-court press; nailing their jump shots; running a smart, disciplined offense; and generally proving to have ice water in their veins. Simon was named the tournament's most valuable player. (4/2)

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The University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers won their second consecutive NCAA women's basketball championship. Like the Arizona men's team, the Lady Vols were celebrated for overcoming regular-season mediocrity to oust several higher seeds on their way to the title. The heroines of the hour were Coach Pat Summitt, who has now won five championships at Tennessee (more college titles than all but one male coach), and Final Four MVP Chamique Holdsclaw, generally acclaimed as the new phenomenon in the women's game. (4/2)

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The Union of Orthodox Rabbis declared that non-Orthodox Jews are not practicing real Judaism and should stop attending their synagogues. The declaration covers 90 percent of American Jews. The group's leaders called the offspring of non-Orthodox converts "illegitimate children" and predicted that Orthodox Jews would eventually have to register all "real" Jews to keep the faith pure. Other Orthodox groups distanced themselves from the declaration. The prognosis is that the feud won't cause much trouble in the United States (where the ultra-Orthodox have little power), but will cause plenty of trouble between American Jews and Israel (where they have plenty of power), further isolating Prime Minister Netanyahu. The Israeli Parliament has just passed a measure officially denying non-Orthodox rabbis the authority to conduct conversions in Israel, prompting non-Orthodox Jewish leaders in the United States to threaten a cutoff of money and lobbying support for Israel. (4/2)

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President Clinton is taking on the hard-liquor industry. He responded to the industry's recent decision to allow distillers to run ads on television by urging the Federal Communications Commission to consider measures to protect kids from the ads. The preliminary assessment is that Clinton's crackdown is weak on the merits--he ignores beer ads and is pre-empting a blitz of hard-liquor ads that has yet to materialize--but politically smart, since it positions him (as in the war on tobacco) as a champion of family values against the merchants of sin and death. (4/2)

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Pedophilia is running rampant in Japan. Nearly 70 percent of Japanese teen-age girls say they have been groped on subways. More than 25 percent of junior-high girls in Tokyo say they have called phone services that pay them to talk dirty to men. About 4 percent of junior-high girls say they have dated men for money. Sex with children above age 12 is legal in Tokyo. The New York Times calls it "a disturbing national obsession." Japanese social scientists theorize that Japanese men are afraid of their increasingly sophisticated women, and are looking for sex objects they can dominate. The Japanese public, however, largely blames the girls. (4/2)

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Speaker Newt Gingrich went to China. He warned Chinese leaders that the United States would 1) use force to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack, 2) never cease its campaign against China's human-rights abuses, and 3) suspend dialogue for several years if China dissolved Hong Kong's present freedoms. The White House said Gingrich was speaking for himself, though it affirmed that the United States would defend Taiwan. Pundits unanimously agreed that Gingrich told it like it is and, by comparison, made Vice President Gore (see below) look like a sissy. (4/2)

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Vice President Al Gore finished his trip to China. Pundits complained that: 1) Gore won no concrete concessions on human rights, nuclear proliferation, or trade barriers. 2) He failed to criticize Chinese human-rights abuses. 3) He left the impression there will be no repercussions if it turns out that China funneled campaign contributions to influence U.S. policy. 4) One of his two putative accomplishments, a business deal between China and General Motors, is a technology giveaway. 5) He gave his political enemies useful ad footage by joining Prime Minister Li Peng, the "Butcher of Beijing," in a champagne toast. Gore, said the Washington Post's Meg Greenfield, has caught "some of the vice presidential ailment, but not necessarily a terminal case."(3/31)

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The stock market plummeted. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 360 points over four days, and other leading stock indexes followed suit. Buyers staged a strike on the theory that good news (rising personal incomes, strong consumer confidence, a jump in home sales, a drop in unemployment claims) is bad news. They fear that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates again to head off inflation. This obliterates the previous spin that last week's rate hike, the first in two years, would serve as a gentle but sufficient tap on the economy's brakes. (4/2)

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Timothy McVeigh's attorneys will try to pin the Oklahoma City bombing on the Irish Republican Army, according to the London Sunday Telegraph. Defense documents argue that the Aryan Republican Army, an Oklahoma-based neo-Nazi group, was plotting to blow up a U.S. federal building with help from Sinn Fein, the IRA's political wing. The purported smoking gun is the bomb's detonator, allegedly supplied by the IRA. Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams calls the detonator allegation "preposterous rubbish." The McVeigh trial opened March 31 in Denver. (3/31)