News In Brief
Several thousand military reservists are likely to be ordered to active duty as part of a major buildup of allied air power in the Balkans, the Pentagon said. Reservists are already serving among some 22,000 US armed-forces personnel involved in the campaign. For example, many Air Force refueling aircraft are operated by members of the Air National Guard.
The Pentagon said it would ask Congress for up to $4 billion in emergency funding for the military operation in Yugoslavia, setting the stage for a debate over how to pay the bill. Senate majority leader Trent Lott said GOP leaders had not decided whether they would insist on compensatory cuts in present government spending to match the new expenditures.
Independent counsel Kenneth Starr told Congress the law that gave rise to his investigation of President Clinton is "structurally unsound" and should be scrapped. Starr, whose probe of the president sparked heated criticism and led to Clinton's impeachment, said the statute leaves the special prosecutor vulnerable to political attack.
Former Vice President Dan Quayle was to formally declare his candidacy for president during a speech in Huntington, Ind. Polls show Quayle running well behind Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the leading GOP hopeful and son of Quayle's former White House boss.
President Clinton was spell out his proposal to use some projected budget surpluses to fund individual retirement savings accounts as a supplement to the existing Social Security program. The Wall Street Journal quoted administration officials as saying qualifying workers would receive refundable tax credits of about $300 annually. The government also would reportedly match the contributions workers make toward retirement in so-called Universal Savings Accounts, up to a US contribution of $650 a year.
Clinton and Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji agreed to intensify talks on China's admission to the World Trade Organization by the end of the month. The White House said they spoke by telephone during Zhu's visit to New York. The new negotiations are to begin in Beijing.
Dr. Jack Kevorkian was sentenced to serve 10 to 25 years in prison by a judge in Pontiac, Mich. Kevorkian, who videotaped himself giving a man a lethal injection and then dared prosecutors to stop his assisted-suicide campaign, could have received a life sentence. He will be eligible for parole after six years and eight months, a prosecutor said. It was the first murder trial for Kevorkian, who says he has been involved in 130 deaths since 1990. His previous trials, on assisted-suicide charges, resulted in three acquittals and one mistrial.
Americans eager to clean up the environment should concentrate on driving less and eating more vegetables, a group of scientists said. The Union of Concerned Scientists said cutting meat and poultry consumption in half would reduce food-related land use by 30 percent and water pollution by 24 percent. But the environmental group said driving less or owning a cleaner car are the two best things people can do for the environment.
