Five
female soldiers say Army investigators pressured them into falsely
accusing their superiors of rape. Four of the five say they had sex with
their instructors, but that it was consensual. The women claim they were
promised helpful transfers if they told investigators what they wanted to hear
and threatened with retaliation if they didn't. The announcement was organized
by the NAACP, which suspects racism in the investigation because all the
accused officers are black, and most of the accusers, white. (3/12)
Update on the Democratic fund-raising
scandal : 1)
President Clinton said FBI
agents denied him advance warning
about Chinese influence-buying efforts (through political contributions) by
telling his aides to keep the information secret. The FBI then issued a
statement contradicting Clinton. Pundits oohed and aahed over the quarrel. The
next day everyone insisted it was just a misunderstanding. 2) The FBI warned
six members of Congress last year that China had targeted them for illegal
campaign donations through foreign companies. 3) The New York Times
reported that the administration endorsed a project in China that was
financially important to the Riady family just after a Riady-controlled company
put Webster Hubbell on its payroll. White House special counsel Lanny Davis
said Clinton may have known three years ago that his friends were
subsidizing Hubbell. (3/12)
Political fallout from the scandal: 1) The Senate expanded its
investigation to include "improper" as well as illegal conduct in the 1996
elections. This brings soft money and other much-criticized practices under
scrutiny. It is seen as a rebuke to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and a
victory for Democrats, Sen. Fred Thompson (who will chair the investigation),
and campaign reform. 2) Clinton's job rating fell from 60 to 55 points in a
Washington Post poll, apparently because pollees disapproved of his use
of the White House for fund raising. (3/12)
Republican fund-raising hypocrisy watch: 1) The Washington
Post reported that a Republican House committee counsel hit up
investment firms for $100,000 contributions to the GOP shortly after working on
financial-deregulation legislation. 2) Democrats released documents indicating
that Republicans sold big political donors meals with the party's leaders in
federal buildings in 1995. 3) The Washington
Post reported that
for $5,000, the National Republican Senatorial Committee is offering donors a
chance to give Trent Lott and other senators "advice" at a forum next month.
(3/12)
Jordan's King Hussein accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
of trying to destroy the Middle East peace process. In a letter released to the
press, Hussein warned Netanyahu that he was provoking the Palestinians to
violence and had exhausted Hussein's good will. Since Hussein is regarded as
Israel's best Arab friend, analysts consider the letter an important alarm and
a major addition to Netanyahu's domestic political crisis. (3/12)
The
TWA Flight 800 missile theory is back. A group headed by former ABC
newsman Pierre Salinger is about to publish a massive report in Paris
Match claiming that a U.S. Navy missile blew up the plane. The key
evidence, according to a co-author of the report: 1) A red residue on the
plane's seats has "chemical elements consistent with solid missile fuel" and 2)
a government radar tape supposedly shows a fast projectile on a collision
course with the plane. Federal investigators 1) dismissed the report as "rumors
and innuendo"; 2) said lab tests indicate the residue is from standard glue
used in plane seats; and 3) seized the radar tape, ostensibly to check it out.
Salinger said the seizure of the tape shows the government is covering up its
crime. (3/12)
Russian
President Boris Yeltsin ordered a shake-up of his Cabinet. Yeltsin
pledged to keep only two aides: Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and Deputy
Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais. The betting is that Chubais, a free-market
advocate whom Yeltsin promoted just last week, can now put allies in key jobs
and restart economic reforms. The Washington
Post declared that
Yeltsin is back in the saddle and is launching a much-needed second wave of
economic reform. But the Chicago
Tribune warned that Chubais will
fail, because he is a lousy manager and everyone in Russia hates him.
(3/12)
Germany
told the United States it would expel an American spy . Initial reports
indicated the Germans were angry because the agent was conducting economic
espionage against Germany. But U.S. officials now say that the agent was
gathering intelligence on another country--most likely Iran--and that the
Germans ordered the diplomat out because they're tired of the United States
using their country as a spy nest and keeping them in the dark about it.
American officials are asking Germany to let the agent stay. (3/12)
Playboy says it has corroborated a report that Timothy McVeigh
confessed to the Oklahoma City bombing. The magazine claims its article is
based on documents "prepared under the direction" of McVeigh's lawyer but that
these documents are different from those previously cited by the Dallas
Morning
News . According to the article, McVeigh said he alone
drove the truck bomb to the site--but he flunked polygraph tests, and his
lawyers were skeptical. (3/12)
Gangsta
rap artist Christopher Wallace, a k a Notorious B.I.G. , was assassinated
in an apparent drive-by shooting. Police have no leads, but everyone suspects
the shooting is a payback for last year's drive-by assassination of rival
rapper Tupac Shakur. Wallace, who represented the East Coast rap community, had
a long-running feud with Shakur, who represented the West Coast rap community.
Police fear an escalating war between the two sides. (3/10)
Fertility frontiers : 1) The Sunday Times of London reported that
a Belgian scientist had cloned a human. The report created a stir but was soon
debunked when the scientist explained that he had merely fertilized an egg in
vitro and then caused it to split, producing twins. 2) An elderly Milwaukee
couple are soliciting women to conceive and bear their grandchild, using frozen
sperm from their dead son. 3) President Clinton banned federal funding of
research on human cloning. 4) A bill was filed in the House to ban human
cloning outright. (3/10)
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)
President Clinton ordered federal agencies to hire welfare recipients .
The idea is to set an example for business leaders. The announcement appeased
some critics who have accused Clinton of hypocrisy for failing (until now) to
take this step. But skeptics pointed out that there are few openings for
low-skilled workers (since the government is shrinking), and unions objected to
giving welfare recipients preference in the competition for those openings.
(3/10)
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)
