EVENTS
CLINTON PLANS $31 BILLION STIMULUS
President Clinton's top economic aids have told lawmakers he will propose a $31 billion short-term economic stimulus package, with job-creating spending and business tax breaks, the Associated Press reported Feb.2. The package would include $16 billion in immediate spending for fiscal 1993, which runs through Sept. 30. Meanwhile, the US government's chief economic forecasting gauge leapt 1.9 percent in December, delivering a strong signal of continuing healthy economic growth. Plan to house homeless
The Clinton administration is drafting a plan that would use decommissioned military bases and other suitable federal facilities to house the homeless, Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros said Feb. 2. He said he and other Cabinet and White House officials are working on a plan President Clinton could announce as an executive order that would seek cooperation of all federal resources on the homeless problem. Clinton and governors
Mr. Clinton Feb. 1 pleased governors when he told them he was ordering the Health and Human Services Department to make it easier for states to find ways to control rapidly rising costs of providing the poor with health care, through Medicaid. He admitted administrative procedures in this tightly managed area have been "cumbersome." Coal workers strike
As many as 7,000 miners in Appalachia and the Midwest went on strike Feb. 2 in a dispute over job security. Members of the United Mine Workers failed to report for the midnight shift at Peabody Coal Company and Eastern Associated Coal Corporation, which operate mines in eight states. Both are subsidiaries of Peabody Holding Company of St. Louis. It was not immediately clear what effect the strike would have on production or on industries that use coal. Anarchy in Zaire
In Zaire, President Mobutu Sese Seko's political opponents say his special forces killed at least 1,000 people mainly regular Army troops after soldiers who refused to accept newly printed banknotes rioted. Russian Embassy staff joined the hundreds of other foreigners who have fled in riverboats and overland since the violence erupted Jan. 28. In an indication the unrest may be spreading, reports were trickling in of violence in eastern Zaire. Crisis in Armenia
Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosyan announced Feb. 2 he was firing his prime minister and would dissolve the government in a dispute over the future of the country's collapsed economy. The landlocked former Soviet republic is almost out of fuel and is caught in an economically draining war over territory with neighboring Azerbaijan. Decline in Germany
Industrial production in both eastern and western Germany declined toward the end of 1992 as the economy slowed, official figures released Feb. 2 showed. Meanwhile, in the latest sign that Japan's prolonged economic slowdown is taking a toll on Japanese society, the government announced in Tokyo Feb. 2 that the annual jobless rate climbed for the first time in six years during 1992. Reds owner on carpet
Baseball's executive council was scheduled to meet Feb. 3 in Chicago to decide whether to penalize Marge Schott, owner of the Cincinnati Reds. Reports said the ruling group would suspend the Reds owner, who has been accused of making racial and ethnic slurs, for one year. Post editors jump ship
The New York Daily News has hired away the top editor, star columnist, and two other key editors from the struggling New York Post. Leading the defections was Lou Colasuonno, the Post's editor, who will become the News's editor. Columnist Mike McAlary also left, as did James Lynch, the Post's managing editor, and Richard Gooding the metropolitan editor. Lynch will become the executive editor at the News.
