The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times lead with news on the Asian financial crisis from the Asian-Pacific economic summit. Having led with that story for the past two days, USA Today switches its lead to the corruption charges leveled at ex-Teamsters boss Ron Carey. The Washington Post leads with continuing scandals in the D.C. police department.
All the papers give front-page play to the Asian economic crisis (and they all call it a “crisis,” except the LAT, which calls it “fiscal turmoil.”) The NYT has three stories: Their lead says Asian leaders at the summit vow action to limit the scope of the crisis. A second front-page story says the White House is concerned, but thinks it unlikely, that Japan’s economy could collapse the way Thailand’s did. An analysis piece inside sees the crisis as an affirmation of America’s economic power (parroting a piece in yesterday’s WP). The LAT has two front-pagers: The lead says summit heads want to reassure global investors of Asia’s stability; the other story claims the public is pressuring Japan to rescue its ailing banks. The WP front-pager reveals the plan for bailing out the troubled economies: financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund, and possibly from the U.S., too.
The USAT lead tracks Ron Carey’s mounting woes. A federally-appointed board will bring corruption charges against Carey, and he may be banned from the Teamsters for life. The WP, NYT, and Wall Street Journal all put the story on their front pages. The charges stem from Carey’s illegal diversion of “$885,000” from the union to his election campaign, according to USAT (the NYT has “more than $700,000”; the WP has “$735,000”; the WSJ goes with “more than $750,000”). Carey has temporarily resigned the presidency to focus on his legal problems.
USAT’s off-lead is essentially a long quote from Defense Secretary William Cohen on the prevalence of chemical weaponry in the world, and the imminent dangers it could pose to America. The WP trumps with an op-ed from Cohen himself.
USAT and the NYT have front-page stories on a revised estimation of the global AIDS epidemic. Experts had “grossly underestimated” the number of worldwide cases, which they now number at 30.6 million, not the previously thought 22.6 million. (The overwhelming majority of cases are in sub-Saharan Africa.) The WP puts the story on page A6, but is the only paper to offer this grabber of a stat: 1 out of every 100 people on Earth (of reproductive age) is HIV positive.
The NYT catches Newsweek in a bit of hypocrisy. Three years ago, Newsweek cried foul when Time electronically darkened a photo of O.J. Simpson on its cover. This week, Newsweek doctors its cover photo of septuplet mom Bobbi McCaughey: It fixes her teeth. Time’s concurrent cover, untouched, clearly shows McCaughey’s (authentic) imperfect choppers; Newsweek’s cover shows straight and pearly whites. To view the two cover images, see Slate’s “In Other Magazines” column.
Today’s Papers will take off tomorrow in observance of the holiday. This column gives thanks for each and every one of its readers, and wishes each and every one of you a wonderful Thanksgiving.
