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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 17, 1995)
5Srer“ News D gest Friday, November 17, 1995 , Page 2 GOP ignores veto vow Gingrich’s complaint of snub draws attention WASHINGTON — Defying a veto threat, the Republican-controlled Con gress passed legislation Thursday night to end the three-day partial shut down of government, but only if Presi dent Clinton agrees to balance the budget in seven years. Clinton said the GOP proposal would lock in “crippling cuts in Medi care" and other programs and de manded — unsuccessfully—that law makers restore government services without preconditions. He also an nounced plans to recall thousands of furloughed workers to process claims for Social Security and other benefits. With the two sides seemingly at gridlock. Democrats savaged House Speaker Newt Gingrich for claiming Clinton had snubbed him recently aboard Air Force One, and for saying he had toughened his terms on the budget battle as a result. Several lawmakers trooped to the House floor with oversized copies of the front page of the New York Daily News. It bore a huge headline of “Cry Baby" and a cartoon depicting Gingrich in a diaper, holdihg a baby bottle and throwing a tantrum. Clinton sounded a more forgiving note than congressional Democrats. “If it would get the government open. I’d be glad to tell him I’m sorry," said the president. However, he said he didn’t believe he had been discourte ous during a recent trip to Israel for the funeral of slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Clinton’s press secretary jokingly offered Gingrich a box of M&Ms with the presidential seal if that would soothe his hurt feelings. Meanwhile, the legislation to re store government services through Dec. 5 cleared the Senate on a near party line vote of60-37. Seven Demo crats sided with Republicans, but the roll call was still short of the two-thirds majority that would be needed to over ride a veto. The House had approved the mea sure several hours earlier, in a mid night-hour roll call that produced sur prising Democratic support. Clinton’s resolve in the stalemate brought a swift rebuttal from Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole: “He doesn’t want a balanced budget. ... That’s the issue.” At three days, the partial shutdown was the longest ever arising from one of the nation’s periodic budget wars. And barring an unexpected conces sion, it seemed likely to stretch into Thanksgiving week. Republicans are hoping to pass a separate measure containing their bal anced budget plan by the weekend, a proposal that squeezes hundreds of billions from Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs, and also fi nances a tax cut. Clinton has threat ened to reject it, as well, in part over Medicare. Republicans and Demo crats alike said they doubted serious compromise talks would begin until that veto had been cast. Earlier in the day, more than 20,000 workers at the Transportation Depart ment and other related agencies re turned to their jobs after Clinton signed a routine spending bill affect ing them. That bill provides funds for the agencies for the full 1996 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. Clinton has signed four of the 13 such spending bills necessary to keep the whole gov ernment open for the year. In the sideshow over Gingrich’s per ceived snub, Gingrich said the idea of a presidential apology was irrelevant. “The question is, would the presi dent be willing tonight to sit down, roll up his sleeves and work up with Bob Dole and me to get to a bal anced budget in 7 years," Gingrich said in a CBS News interview. “We don’t need smart aleck comments. We don’t need surface-kind of su perficiality.” Foreigners were beginning to snicker. Gerry Adams, head of the political arm of the Irish Republican Army, joked at the White House that he was “going to offer myself as an envoy' between Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Clinton” — but decided to stick with Northern Ireland’s brutal struggle in stead. House tightens rules on gifts from lobbyists . WASHINGTON — Worried about public disdain for Congress, the House on Thursday imposed a virtual ban on gifts its members may receive from lobbyists and other favor-seekers. Voting 422-6, the chamber adopted a new rule for itself that bars members and their aides from accepting anything from sports tickets and vacations to fruit bas kets and free meals. The rule takes effect Jan. 1,1996, the same day as tightened gift standards adopted by the Senate. Lawmakers would still be al lowed to receive expense-paid travel to make speeches, participate in meetings or engage in fact-find ing, and to have spouses or children accompany them. But the rule would end the widely criticized practice of House members participating in charity golf, tennis and ski events. Critics call them thinly veiled free vaca tions. “The simplest, the cleanest and the clearest standard was to say,' No gifts’” said Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga„ who proposed the change. There is an exemption for gifts from personal friends and family members. Any gift given under the personal friendship exemption that is worth more than $250 must be “Under the new gift rule, members of Congress will do what their constituents do — pay their own way. ” ANN MCBRIDE president of the ethics watchdog group Common Cause "' ' approved by the ethics committee. The new rule leaves the House with tougher standards than the Senate, which tightened its own rules in July. The Senate rules limit gifts from lobbyists and favor-seek ers to those worth no more than $50, with gifts from a single source aggregating no more than $100 a year. Gifts under $10 don’t count. “Under the new gift rule, mem bers of Congress will do what their constituents do — pay their own way,’’ said Ann McBride, president of the ethics watchdog group Com mon Cause. News in a - Minu _i Disease won’t slow Reno WASHINGTON — With medication controlling the shaking of her left hand. Attorney General Janet Reno says her newly diagnosed Parkinson’s disease will neither force her from office nor cease her long weekend walks along the Potomac River.. “I feel fine now. I continue to take my long walks,” the 57-year-old attorney general told her weekly news conference Thursday. “I don’t feel like I have any impairment. I feel strong and feel like moving ahead.” She has “an excellent, long-term prognosis,” her doctor, Jonathan Pincus, a neurology professor at Georgetown University Medical Cen ter, said at a later news conference. “Her mild tremor was completely eliminated with modest doses” of medication. Republicans cap student loans WASHINGTON — Republicans in Congress agreed Thursday to limit the government’s direct lending program for college students, a move Democrats contend will enrich bankers at the expense of 1.9 million students. The agreement, which is part of the GOP bill that would balance the budget by 2002, would save $1.6 billion over seven years by limiting the program to 10 percent of all student loans. The House initially wanted to scrap the program altogether, while the Senate sought a 20 percent cap. Panel OKs anti-obesity drag SILVER SPRING, Md. — A federal advisory panel on Thursday narrowly recommended approval for sale in the United States of the first new anti-obesity drug in more than two decades. The panel for the Food and Drug Administration voted 6-5 to recom mend allowing Intemeuron Pharmaceuticals InG. to market the drug, dexfenfluramine. The drug, which works by altering the brain chemical serotonin to make people feel full even though they have eaten less, has been avail able for sale in 65 countires for the past 10 years. Moderate drinking good for heart ANAHEIM, Calif. — Good news for beer drinkers: A can of brew can be good for the heart — and just as good as a glass of red wine. For years, experts have recognized the benefits of modest amounts of alcohol on the heart. Heavy guzzling is clearly harmful. But those who enjoy a drink or two a day have only about half as much heart disease as teetotalers. Dr. J. Michael Gaziano of Harvard Medical School outlined the find ings Thursday at the annual scientific meeting of the American Heart Association. He looked at 340 men and women who had just suffered heart at tacks and compared their drinking habits with those of a healthy com parison group. Like other studies, this one found that a drink or two a day cut the risk in half. But it didn’t matter what people drank. Wine, beer and liquor were equally effective at keeping the heart healthy. Maccabean burial tombs found MACCABIM, Israel — A tractor leveling ground for a new highway broke open a 2,000-year-old burial cave believed used by the Maccabees, a tribe of Jewish warriors whose re volt is celebrated in the festival of Hanukkah. Excited archaeologists showed off their dusty find Thursday — the first physical evidence of the Maccabees, known until now only from ancient Jewish writings. “This is the first time that archae ologists have evidence that there re ally was this family,” said site direc tor Shimon Riklin, as workers in hard hats cleared away sand that has cov ered the cave for nearly two millen nia. The cave was discovered Monday by workers building a highway 19 miles northwest of Jerusalem. It in cludes an entrance courtyard and three small burial chambers built of chalk blocks, in which archaeologists found 24 stone boxes, or ossuaries, contain NetJraskan Editor Managing Editor Assoc. News Editors Opinion Page Editor Wire Editor Copy Desk Editor Sports Editor Arts & Entertainment Editor Photo Director Night News Editors Art Director General Manager Production Manager Advertising Manager Asst. Advertising Mgr. Publications Board Chairman Professional Adviser J. Christopher Hain 472- 1766 Rainbow Rowell DeDra Janssen Brian Sharp Mark Baldridge Sarah Scalet Kathryn Ratliff Tim Pearson Doug Kouma Travis Heying Julie Sobczyk Matt Waite Doug Peters Chad Lorenz Mike Stover Dan Shattil Katherine Policky Amy Struthers Laura Wilson Tim Hedegaard 436-9253 Don Walton 473- 7301 http://www.unl.edu/DailyNeb/ FAX NUMBER 472-1761 The Daily NebraskanfUSPS 144-080) is published by the UNL Publications Board, Nebraska Union 34,1400 R St., Lincoln, NE 68588-0448, Monday through Friday during the academic year; weekly during summer sessions. Subscription price is $50 for one year. Postmaster: Send address changes to the Daily Nebraskan, Nebraska Union 34,1400 R St.,Lincoln, NE 68588-0448. Second-class postage paid at Lincoln, NE. ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1995 DAILY NEBRASKAN ing the bones of the dead. The ossuaries are inscribed in He brew with Jewish names, Riklin said. The inscription on one is missing sev eral letters, but is believed to read “Hasmonean,” another name for the clan. “This is the first time the word Hasmonean has been found on ar chaeological evidence,” Riklin said. Coins and oil lamps were also found in the cave, helping to establish its age. Riklin said the cave may contain the remains of three generations of Hasmoneans, perhaps even its most famous members, Judah Maccabee and his brothers. The Maccabees lived in what is now central Israel. In the second cen tury B.C. they rebelled against Syria’s King Antiochus IV, who had stripped the Temple in Jerusalem and perse cuted the Jews. Led by Judah, they conquered Jerusalem and reconsecrated the Temple in 165 B.C., a feat celebrated by the Jewish Hanuk kah festival, which begins Dec. 17 this year. Riklin said the discovery of the burial cave is also significant because it pinpoints the location of the ancient city of Modi’in, where the Maccabean revolt broke out. The find was initially kept secret so archaeologists could work without interference. The ossuaries were sent to a lab for examination, and bones found inside them were turned over to Israel’s Burial Society, run by the ultra-Orthodox, for reburial. But after the discovery was an nounced Thursday on Israeli radio sta tions, half a dozen ultra-Orthodox pro testers came to the site and shouted “You are stealing bones,” at workers, who were guarded by police. There have been frequent confron tations between archaeologists uncov ering burial sites and ultra-Orthodox Jews who believe it is forbidden to remove remains. Former S. Korean leader in prison for taking bribes SEOUL, South Korea — Former President Roh Tae-woo was arrested Thursday on charges of accepting multimillion-dollar bribes from the country’s biggest businessmen in ex change for government contracts. Locked in a cell in a jail outside the capital, the man credited with some of South Korea’s biggest diplo matic successes has become the nation’s most famous prisoner. On Friday, prosecutors expanded their investigation, arresting Roh’s former bodyguard. Lee Hyun-woo, a retired army general, was charged with helping Roh collect bribes, and tak ing at least $3.5 million on his own. Roh, whose name is pronounced “No,” is the first former South Korean president to face legal action for deeds committed while in office. If con victed, he could face 10 years to life in prison. As court officials took him to jail Thursday, the 62-year-old former army general struggled to keep his composure and said: ‘To our people. I’m really sorry. I’m ready for any punishment, taking the sole responsi bility for this incident.” It was the latest—but probably not the last—development in a slush fund scandal that gripped the nation and confirmed long-held fears that politics and industry spent decades in league. There is widespread speculation that top corporate leaders may be charged with bribery. The five-page warrant against Roh charges him with two counts of ac cepting bribes: $31 million from the Daewoo group in return for a govern ment contract for a major submarine depot and a total of $300 million from 30 top companies. The slush fund scandal became public Oct. 19 when an opposition leg islator disclosed that one of Roh’s se cret bank accounts held a large sum of money. Under mounting public pressure, Roh tearfully admitted on national TV that he had collected $650 million during his term and left $230 million in secret bank accounts.
