BOMBA
Bombing terrorism, in Israel and in New York City, is the day's most urgent
news. The older, cooling, stories of the budget bill and the robust economy
round out today's coverage. The New York Times
leads with the immediate aftermath of the Jerusalem market bombing, and the
Washington Post leads with the police raid in
Brooklyn that apparently interrupted a plot to blow up subways and buses, a
plot with eerie reflections of, if not actual connections to, the Jerusalem
slaughter. USA Today leads with yesterday's final congressional
approval of the tax and spending bills, while the Los Angeles
Times goes with the 2nd quarter economic figures.
The Post reports that "New York police and federal agents arrested
three men and seized five powerful bombs yesterday after a tense shootout in a
seedy Brooklyn apartment, and the FBI began an intensive investigation to
determine whether the suspects had ties to any Middle East terrorist
organizations." (Editors take note: there is never a calm shootout.) According
to New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, one of those arrested expressed support for
the Jerusalem bombers. The episode, the paper observes, marks the third time in
the past four years that New York City has experienced a terrorist threat with
a real or apparent Middle East connection.
The WP , the NYT , the LAT , and USAT each report
that investigators working the case believe that the plot was an intended
suicide bombing. One of the plotters had second thoughts and last night flagged
down a patrol car. He didn't speak any English so, reports the NYT , his
way of communicating imminent disaster to the cops was to repeatedly cup and
fling apart his hands while screaming, "BOMBA." The Times says the man
later told an interpreter, "My roommates are going to follow up on
Jerusalem."
The NYT depicts the rapidly disintegrating political relations
between Israel and Palestine, reporting that yesterday, Israel "threatened to
send commandos into Palestinian areas and had decreed a series of severe
punitive measures against the Palestinian Authority. Also, the Times
says that Benjamin Netanyahu assailed Yassir Arafat for encouraging terrorism,
and Arafat accused Netanyahu of making excuses for the collapse of the peace
process.
The NYT observes that due to changes in the law, the tax reductions
favoring extremely small numbers of beneficiaries in the tax bill now on the
president's desk are listed there quite explicitly. So it took no real sleuth
work for the Times to point out that the bill bestows special favors on
"hard-cider producers in upstate New York and Vermont," "life insurance
companies and securities firms," "Mississippi sheriffs," and "software giants
like Microsoft." The Wall Street Journal notes other special cases: producers of
"arrows," "owners of marginal oil wells and skydiving planes." The tax bill,
the Journal notices, "even allows U.S. wine bottlers to continue using
names, including port and burgundy, of European wine-producing regions."
The LAT trumpets the just-released 2nd quarter annualized growth rate
of 2.2 percent and annualized inflation rate of 1.4 percent (the lowest in 34
years) as together indicating a "calmer" economy. The "Washington Wire" of the
WSJ concurs, noting that "not one of 131 economists surveyed by the
National Association of Business Economists says his or her firm plans on a
1998 recession." The LAT story is in the middle of stating that
"financial markets cheered the report, which bolstered signs that the Federal
Reserve..." when it interrupts itself with an insert box headlined, "DOW RALLY
ENDS."
