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Ni fc *' 'ooc ■ ’ ' ■ '' wwimiBimwiiii Senate committee confirms Albright Full Senate also expected to approve first woman secretary of state. WASHINGTON (AP)—The Sen ate Foreign Relations Committee voted unanimously Monday to con firm Madeleine Albright as the nation’s first woman secretary of state. Full Senate approval is expected Wednesday. The committee met briefly in the Capitol as a throng gathered outside for President Clinton’s second inau gural. The 12-0 vote, with six other committee members expected to add their approval later in the day, was the first on new members of Clinton’s Cabinet. Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Dcl., rank ing Democrat on the committee, said he expects the nomination to “sail through the Senate as it did through the committee. This is the first and - most visible example of bipartisan ship.” Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., commit tee chairman, has been referring to Albright as “secretary-to-be.” If confirmed as expected, Albright would be the highest-ranking woman ever in the federal government. The first of President Clinton’s second-term Cabinet nominees to go before the Senate, she earned support from many Republicans by advocat ing U.N. reforms, punitive measures against Cuba and other issues on the GOP agenda. At a nearly eight-hour confirma tion hearing Jan. 8, Albright repeat u This is the first and most visible example of bipartisanship. ” Sen. Joseph Biden committee member edly challenged Republican lawmak ers to provide the money necessary for continued U.S. leadership abroad. She pointedly told them the State Depart ment would not be able to achieve U.S. foreign policy goals “on the cheap.” Following the hearing, members submitted 215 additional questions in writing. Albright replied Friday. Albright’s responses indicated that any differences between her tenure as secretary of state and that of her pre decessor, Warren Christopher, would be a matter of style rather than policy. Because Christopher's resignation was effective with Clinton’s swearing in to a second term today, the post could remain open for a few days. Deputy Secretaiy Strobe Talbott will fill in as acting secretary of state. Both at the confirmation hearing and in her written answers, Albright stressed the need for bipartisanship and cooperation with Congress in the conduct of foreign pplicy. Albright also appealed to Congress to approve payment of $1A biHion that the United States owes the United Nations in outstanding debt. JAKARTA, Indonesia — Officials Monday blocked Indonesia’s pro democracy leader from running for re-election to parliament in May. . The list of2,293 candidates approved by election officials includes four of President Suharto’s children, his half-brother, a daughter-in law and a cousin. Excluded was Megawati Sukarnoputri, whose ouster as leader of an opposition party last year led to anti-government rioting in which at least five people died. She has been a member of parliament since 1992. WASHINGTON — Newt Gingrich will decide Within two weeks whether to use personal funds, campaign money or some other method to pay a $300,000 penalty for his ethics violations, the speaker’s attor ney said Monday. The method he chooses could prompt lawyers to seek advice from the ethics committee, Federal Election Commission or other agencies, possibly delaying payment for months, attorney J. Randolph Evans said. The House will vote today on a resolution to reprimandGingrich for ethical misconduct and assess him $300,000 for extra work he caused the ethics committee with misleading statements. The committee found Gingrich should have known his statements were inaccurate when he denied involvement of his political organiza tion in a college course financed with tax-exempt funds. COLUMBUS, Ohio — Banc One Corp. is buying First USA Inc. in a $7.3 billion deal that will create the nation’s third-largest credit card operation with a combined 32 million card holders. The merger, announced Monday, will marry Banc One, the 10th largest U.S. bank, with one of the nation’s fastest-growing credit card companies. First USA issues both Visa cards and Mastercards and controls First USA Paymentech, a processor of credit card payments. Alone, First USA ranks as the nation’s No. 4 domestic issuer of Visas and Mastercards. If the deal is completed, Bahc One would trail only Citicorp and AT&T Corp. in the number of credit cards issued. The companies ex pect their merger to be completed by May 31. MOSCOW — President Boris Yeltsin was released from the Kremlin hospital Monday to continue recuperating from pneumonia at his country home outside Moscow. Presidential spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky did not say when the 65-year-old Russian leader jwould,return to full-time work at his Krem lin residence. He s^d Yeltsin’s recovery would be gradual. K “One should not expect a forceful return of Boris Nikolayevich to ; full-time work, including a return to the Kremlin,” he said. • * Schizophrenia, smoking linked WASHINGTON (AP)—Scien tists have located a gene that may increase the risk of inheriting schizophrenia — a finding that could also explain why many schizophrenics chain smoke. Essentially, nicotine appears to briefly override a brain defect char acteristic of the devastating men tal illness, providing frenzied pa tients a few minutes of calm. The findings appear in today’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Schizophrenics are the most heavy smokers of any psychotic pa tients,” said Dr. Robert Freedman of the Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center. “They had discov ered this (effect) before we had, and it had been overlooked as a clue to the biology of schizophrenia.” Information overload At issue is the inability of many schizophrenics to filter out unnec essary sights, sounds and other stimuli —that tapping tree branch or the refrigerator hum that healthy people can ignore—so they essen tially suffer from information over load. ' Freedman and colleagues at the University of Colorado discovered that this trait is inherited. And they linked a gene that appears respon sible for that to a brain receptor that helps filter information, a receptor that can be stimulated by nicotine. Nicotine gives brief relief That means schizophrenics who smoke get enough nicotine to switch on this receptor for brief relief, Freedman said. “All the patients report they feel great after a cigarettehe said. The study is “an excellent piece of work,” said Dr. Elliott Gershon, neurogenetics chief at the National Institutes of Health. Gershon cautioned that while Freedman has strong evidence link ing this schizophrenia trait to the nicotine receptor gene, he doesn’t yet have proof — especially be cause Freedman has not found the gene mutation that would cause it. But don’t take up smoking While Freedman is searching for the mutation, he has begun working with drug companies to find treatments that target this re ceptor. “We certainly don’t recommend people take up smoking to try to combat their schizophrenia because the effect literally lasts just a few Jim Mehsling/DN minutes” and smoking causes killer diseases like lung cancer, he stressed. But the findings are “re assuring to family members who wonder why their (schizophrenic) children can’t stop smoking.” One schizophrenia drug, clozapine, appears to help this fil tering problem, and patients have reported smoking fewer cigarettes, Freedman said. Some 4 million Americans suf fer schizophrenia, a mental illness characterized by hallucinations, de lusions, bizarre behavior and the inability to feel pleasure. Quake hits Chinese province DcuirNVj poweriui earthquake struck China’s remote northwestern province of Xinjiang on Tuesday, and one Chinese official said damage and injuries were likely. The 6.4-magnitude earthquake, which struck at 9:47 am local time, was centered in the Xinjiang region of Jiashi, near the market city of Kashgar, said an official of the Cen tral Seismology Bureau who gave his name as lang. He said reports of damage and in juries had not been received because of poor communications with the re gion, but were likely. The quake hit a remote desert area 2,000 miles west of Beijing that is prone to earthquakes. Jiashi County, about 40 miles east of Kashgar, was hit March 19 by a 6.9 magnitude earthquake that killed 28 people. That quake leveled four towns, injuring 170 people and leaving 10,000 residents homeless. A bustling commercial center, Kashgar is an oasis along the Silk Road, the trade route that linked China to the Mediterranean as early as 2,000 years ago. The people of the area are mostly Muslim ethnic minorities, including Uygurs, Kyrgyz and Thjiks. Bill Cosby victim of extortion tty NEW YORK (AP) - Two days af ter Bill Cosby’s only son was slain, a woman claiming to be the entertainer’s illegitimate daughter was arrested in an unrelated attempt to extort $40 million, federal prosecutors said Monday. Meanwhile, police in California located two possible witnesses to the killing of Ennis Cosby on Monday and turned them over to investigators for questioning. Autumn Jackson, 22, demanded the money to keep from going to a tab loid. She and Jose Medina, 54, who was to write her story, were arrested Saturday at a New York law firm rep resenting Cosby after signing a pur ported $24 million settlement to “end everything,” said U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White. According to an FBI affidavit, the family of Bill Cosbyapparently had made payments to Autumn Jackson for educational purposes for several years, as he does for numerous other young people in need pf assistance. Cosby denied that the woman is his daughter, according ta&mily spokes man David Brokaw, who said Cosby’s lawyers had a copy of the woman’s1 birth certificate proving he is not her father. < Jackson and Medina were sched uled to appear at a hearing Tuesday in federal court. If convicted of extor tion, they each face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Even though both suspects in the extortion case were identified as be ing from Southern California, authori ties say it appears unrelated to last Thursday’s shooting death of Cosby’s 27-year-old son in Los Angeles. “There is no evidence that extor tion scheme is connected with the death of Ennis Cosby,” White said. Meanwhile, as sketches of a sus pect *nd * posable witness brought hundreds of calls to police, two wit nesses were picked up by police at a drug store in the Los Angeles suburb of Totmnce, and turned over to the LAPEt. ; KCBS-TV said officers went to the a bluehatehbackthat appeared to match one driven by a wjtness shown in one of the sketches. But police emphasized that the witnesses were not suspects, and wouldn’t say whether they matched the sketches or the information about the car. “The most I can tell you at this x>int in time is they are being identi fied as witnesses,” said Torrance Po lice Lt. Steve. Gilliam. Nebraskan 4 FAX NUMBER: 472-1761 The Daily Nebraskan (USPS 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. Readers are encouraged to submit story ideas and comments to the Daily Ne braskan by calling 472-2588. The public has access to the Publications Board. ' Subscription price is $55 for one year. Postmaster: Send address changes to the Daily Nebraskan, Nebraska Union 34, i 400|R St., Lincoln, NE 68588-0448. Second-class postage paid at Lincoln, Neb. - =;* , , i ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1997 DAILY NEBRASKAN