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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.
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