The Week October 31-November 6

By Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Christopher John Farley, Michael Quinn, Alain L. Sanders, Sophfronia Scott Gregory, Sidney Urquhart

NATION

Rocky the Flying Fight Fan

In a shocking and bizarre upset in Las Vegas, challenger Evander Holyfield took back the heavyweight boxing crown in a decision over previously undefeated champ Riddick Bowe. The fight was interrupted for 20 minutes during the seventh round when a parachutist came down into the outdoor ring at Caesars Palace. He landed on the ropes, bounced into the $800 ringside seats, was pummeled by irate spectators and wound up in the hospital in fair condition. Bowe's pregnant wife Judy fainted and had to be taken away, but her husband, for understandable reasons, was not told. Holyfield became the third fighter (after Floyd Patterson and Muhammad Ali) to regain the title from the man he lost it to -- and the first to do so after an unscheduled intermission.

Republicans Win

If last week is any harbinger, 1994 will be good to Republicans. In the New Jersey gubernatorial race, Christine Todd Whitman ousted Democrat James Florio, while New York City Mayor David Dinkins lost to Liberal-Republican Rudolph Giuliani. A Republican also won the Virginia statehouse, with George Allen scoring a victory over Mary Sue Terry. Top Democrats including President Clinton tried to downplay the significance of the results, attributing them to the vagaries of local politics.

Whither NAFTA?

White House officials attempted to ensure that the unease caused by the Democrats' Election Day losses did not hurt the North American Free Trade Agreement. Pollster Stan Greenberg was sent to Capitol Hill to convince Democrats that supporting NAFTA would not displease voters. In the meantime, Vice President Al Gore surprisingly challenged Ross Perot, NAFTA's fiercest opponent, to a debate over its merits, and Perot, unsurprisingly, accepted.

The Packwood Saga

In a 94-to-6 vote, Senators supported the ethics committee's effort to subpoena 8,400 pages of diaries as part of a sexual-misconduct investigation of Bob Packwood, the Oregon Republican. The five-term Senator refused to hand over the diaries, however, and the battle will now move into the federal courts. Democrat Robert Byrd of West Virginia savaged Packwood in a speech on the Senate floor and called on him to resign.

Not So Bad After All

The Clinton Administration revised its revised number for how many Americans will pay more for health insurance. The figure was dropped from 40% of Americans to 30%. As explained to Congress by Budget Director Leon Panetta, the first figure counted only what people would pay in increased insurance premiums but didn't consider out-of-pocket costs such as co-payments, which are likely to decrease under the Clinton plan.

Ammo Control

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York called for huge tax increases, ranging from 11% to 50%, on handgun bullets, to deter their use. He wants to tack his proposal onto the President's health-care bill, saying he cannot imagine the Senate Finance Committee, of which he is chairman, approving a health-reform bill without such a provision.

More Fire in California

Fed by the hot Santa Ana winds, flames engulfed the hills of Malibu last week, killing three people and destroying 323 homes. Fire officials suspect the blaze was set by arsonists. Many movie stars have homes in Malibu, but only Sean Penn's and Ali McGraw's suffered appreciable damage.

Smart Kids, Dumb Schools

Public schools are not doing enough to encourage gifted students, says a new report released by the U.S. Department of Education. They lag behind the gifted of other countries because they often go unchallenged in the classroom, where more attention is paid to slow or average students. The U.S. is "squandering one of its most precious resources," the report says.

Dr. Death in the Slammer

Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the Michigan physician who was present when 19 grievously ill people killed themselves, went to jail for the first time. He began a hunger strike and vowed to continue it while behind bars.

WORLD

More Yeltsin Maneuvers

Backpedaling on a pledge, Boris Yeltsin told a group of Russian newspaper editors that he opposed holding early presidential elections in June 1994. A senior Yeltsin aide, Sergei Filatov, argued that the promise was void because it had been made under duress during a showdown with hard-liners. Earlier in the week Yeltsin rewarded the Russian army for its support by, among other things, removing a limit on the number of its troops.

Somalia Talks

Seeking to create momentum in negotiations in Mogadishu, U.S. special envoy Robert Oakley declared himself "moderately encouraged" after meeting with various Somali clans and factions, despite one outstanding stumbling block: the U.N. warrant for General Mohammed Farrah Aidid's arrest, which the warlord says must be rescinded before he sits down at the table.

Middle East Machinations

P.L.O. delegates temporarily broke off talks with Israel, complaining that an Israeli offer of troop redeployment in the Gaza Strip, under the parties' peace agreement, was inadequate. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres broadly hinted that there would be another breakthrough in the region, as reports circulated that he had met secretly with Jordan's King Hussein.

Jerusalem Mayor's Defeat

Mayor Teddy Kollek, Jerusalem's legendary political icon and the city's reasonable face to the world for 28 years, was defeated for re-election by Ehud Olmert, a hard-line opponent of Israel's latest peace initiatives.

Skinhead Attack

German politicians apologized for an incident at a nightclub in the eastern town of Oberhof, in which a group of young skinheads taunted a black U.S. athlete and pummeled a white teammate who came to his defense.

The Korean Bomb

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency informed the U.N. General Assembly that North Korea is continuing to obstruct the agency's inspections of nuclear sites in the country. Nevertheless, Japan and South Korea told the U.S that for fear of a military confrontation, they still want to delay punishing North Korea with sanctions.

De Benedetti Arrested

In connection with the Italian corruption scandal, which has already tainted more than 3,000 members of the country's political and business elite, tycoon Carlo De Benedetti, chairman and chief executive officer of Olivetti SpA, was briefly detained on charges that he authorized kickbacks.

The Bosnians Win One

In one of their rare victories, Bosnian government troops captured the town of Vares, 20 miles north of Sarajevo, from Croatian forces, sending 15,000 Croatian refugees fleeing into the countryside.

BUSINESS

All Good News for Once

Worker productivity rose at a 3.9% annual rate from July to September, rebounding from declines in the previous two quarters, according to the Labor Department. In addition, spurred by low mortgage rates, new-home sales jumped almost 21% in September, the biggest increase since the boom year of 1986. For the month, the index of leading economic indicators rose five-tenths of one percent.

Yet Another Would-Be Network

A week after Paramount Communications revealed its intention to launch a fifth broadcast TV network, Warner Bros. announced plans of its own to start a new network, called WB. The expert consensus is that only one, at most, can succeed.

U.S. Autos Top Japanese

A month into the new-model year, cars produced by America's Big Three automakers are far outselling autos made in Japan. The main reason is the expensive Japanese yen.

SCIENCE

Next: Biotech Cookies

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a controversial synthetic cow hormone that increases milk production in dairy herds as much as 15%. Although ! milk from cows treated with genetically engineered bovine growth hormone is indistinguishable from milk from any other cows, critics had demanded that it be labeled a biotech food product. The FDA disagreed.

Asteroid Protection

Some scientists say the earth's only hope if a huge asteroid were hurtling earthward would be to smash it away with a nuclear bomb. Now two researchers -- an American and a Russian -- have put forward a gentler solution. Writing in the journal Nature, they describe a solar-sail device that would act as a giant orbiting mirror, focusing sunlight on the asteroid and vaporizing just enough of its icy surface to nudge it safely off course.

Beyond Buckyballs

Ever since the 1985 discovery of carbon fullerenes -- those microscopic "buckyballs" named for Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome -- scientists have been on the lookout for other substances that can form the same remarkable soccer-ball shape. Now two scientists from Iowa State University and Ames Laboratory report in Science that they have stumbled upon just such a beast: an indium-based compound that is not only spherical but also layered like an onion.

THE ARTS & MEDIA

Matisse, Picasso Top Auction

A 1951 Matisse cutout, The Wine Press, up for auction at Sotheby's in New York City, sold for $13.7 million, almost $4 million above its estimated price. The following night, 88 works by Picasso were put on the auction block, and every one of them was sold, some at many times the expected price, for a total sale of $32 million.

Muslims Support Rushdie

Defying a climate of intimidation in which editors and translators of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses have been attacked and killed, 100 Islamic authors have come to Rushdie's defense. They have each written an essay or poem -- and in one case a short piece of music -- that is sympathetic to the author, and they have contributed the works to a collection called For Rushdie. Among the contributors is the Nobel-prizewinning Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz.