EVENTS
US BLOCKS WASTE INCINERATORS The Clinton administration is looking to reduce airborne chemical pollution by imposing tougher regulations on the nation's hazardous-waste incinerators and temporarily blocking new ones. The Environmental Protection Agency plans to effectively freeze capacity at the current 3 million tons of chemical waste handled by the 184 incinerators each year, said an EPA official who spoke on condition of anonymity. EPA Administrator Carol Browner's goal is to direct producers of chemical waste into recycling and red uce waste production in the future, the official said. Mine workers strike
The United Mine Workers expanded its strike May 18, calling out 2,000 southern West Virginia miners employed by Arch Mineral Company and Ashland Coal Company to join a weeklong walkout by 2,000 other strikers in Indiana and Illinois. The walkouts at 10 mines in Illinois and Indiana, called to protest coal operators shifting jobs to nonunion subsidiaries, began May 10. Navy prepares cuts
The Navy is proposing to eliminate 117 combat vessels, 32 submarines, and 125,000 sailors by 1999 in a bid to save enough money so the service can keep its 12 aircraft carriers. The Navy also wants to get rid of its aging A-6 bombers and delay purchases of a costly new attack aircraft. Those are the recommendations of Adm. Frank Kelso, chief of naval operations, to Defense Secretary Les Aspin as work begins on the fiscal year 1995 defense budget. Jury favors Jeffries
A federal jury May 17 found officials at the City College of New York liable for violating Prof. Leonard Jeffries's free speech rights by removing him as chairman of the black studies department due to a racially charged speech. The Manhattan jury made its finding after reaching a verdict last week that Jeffries who has made statements considered to be anti-semitic should get back his job as black studies department chairman. The jury is still considering monetary damages. Move over, Dan
The network that has had only three anchors in 45 years will have two at the same time come June: Dan Rather and Connie Chung. The surprise announcement from CBS on May 17 marks the first time since Barbara Walters and Harry Reasoner were unhappily paired at ABC in the 1970s that one of the Big Three has made a man and a woman co-anchors of its evening news. Mr. Rather said he welcomed the change. Japan's trade surplus rises
Japan's politically sensitive trade surplus soared to $10.25 billion in April from $7.11 billion a year earlier, the finance ministry said May 18. Perhaps the most explosive figure of all the surplus with the United States climbed to $4.03 billion from $3.29 billion in April 1992. The overall April trade gap, though higher than a year ago, was below the record $13.78 billion surplus posted in March. Cambodia prepares for vote
As Cambodia prepares for an election May 23-28, Yasushi Akashi, the chief of the United Nations peacekeeping operation, warned May 18 that anyone trying violence or scare tactics could be removed from the ballot. Winston Lord, assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, was also in Cambodia May 18. He said the US would do what it could to increase the chances of a fair election. War crimes trial ends
In a case that attracted wide publicity, an Australian jury on May 18 acquitted a 76-year-old immigrant of charges he helped German troops exterminate Jews in Ukraine during World War II. The 12-member jury took less than an hour to reach a verdict in the nine-week trial of Ivan Polyukhovich in South Australian state Supreme Court. Norway follows Ahab's lead
Norway announced May 18 that it would defy an international whaling ban and hunt 296 minke whales this year, most of them for profit. "Whaling is about more than whales themselves. It is about the rights of a coastal nation to make use of available resources," Foreign Minister Johan Jorgen Holst told Parliament.
