The Week October 2-8

By Kathleen Adams, Robertson Barrett, Eugene Linden, Lina Lofaro, Steve Mitra, Michael Quinn, Alain L. Sanders and Sidney Urquhart

NATION

Out with a Thud

Hoping for Democratic blood in the upcoming November elections, Republicans used a barrage of procedural tactics to kill what was left of the Clinton legislative agenda as Congress moved to adjourn. A stringent ban on gifts from lobbyists perished in the intense last-minute partisan warfare, as did an overhaul of the Superfund law that would have speeded cleanup of toxic-waste dumps. Miraculous survivors were: a California desert bill that creates the largest wilderness area outside Alaska and an education bill that redirects more federal aid to poorer communities. Clinton assaulted the Republicans for their "stop it, slow it, kill it or just talk it to death" obstructionism. The G.O.P. retorted that bad laws were better dead than alive.

Espy Goes

With a none too subtle push from the White House, Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy announced his resignation from his Cabinet post following the disclosure that his girlfriend had received a $1,200 scholarship from a foundation run by Tyson Foods, the Arkansas poultry firm with political ties to the Clintons. Though the woman eventually returned the money, the episode was the latest Tyson gift imbroglio involving Espy, whose conduct is being investigated by an independent counsel. Espy said he left to overcome "the challenge to my good name."

The Supremes Reconvene

Joined by new Justice Stephen Breyer, the U.S. Supreme Court began its 1994-95 term by facing a light -- though politically potent -- docket. Among the cases the high bench plans to decide in the months ahead: whether states can impose term limits on members of Congress, whether the federal child-pornography statute is constitutional, whether Congress has the power to ban guns from the vicinity of schools and what kinds of federal minority-preference programs are legal.

Mandela in Washington

In his first visit to the U.S. as President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela came calling at the White House and Capitol Hill to thank America for its help in overthrowing the South African apartheid system and to seek pledges of economic help. President Clinton responded by announcing a series of economic initiatives that could boost U.S. aid to South Africa to more than $700 million during the next three years.

Starr Takes Cover

The already complicated Whitewater investigation got even thornier when independent counsel Kenneth Starr, appointed by a judicial panel to probe the propriety of the Clintons' financial affairs, announced the hiring of an ethics counsel to watch over the integrity of his own legal work. Complaints about Starr's past Republican partisanship and the objectivity of the judges who picked him prompted him to hire Samuel Dash as a watchdog. Dash is the former chief counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee and an exemplar of Democratic probity.

Abortion Violence

In Florida, Paul Hill became the first person to be tried and found guilty under the new federal law protecting access to abortion clinics. Hill, who, witnesses say, shot and killed a doctor and his bodyguard outside a Pensacola clinic, could get a life sentence on this conviction; he also faces state capital-murder charges. Meanwhile, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a man picking up his wife from an abortion clinic was charged with attempted murder after allegedly scuffling with and firing a shot at an antiabortion demonstrator. The protester was unhurt.

America, the Poorer

The Census Bureau released a report showing that the number of Americans living under the poverty line last year -- defined as an income of $14,763 for a family of four -- climbed to more than 39 million, or 15% of the nation's population. Worse, median income continued to decline, while the inequality between high- and low-income families increased. Labor Secretary Robert Reich openly showed concern that the U.S. was in danger of becoming a "two-tiered society." There was a smidgen of good news at week's end: new figures showed an unemployment rate of 5.9% -- the lowest in four years.

The Simpson Case

Once again, O.J. Simpson's defense attorneys spent much of the week challenging the admissibility of key evidence seized by police, this time from Simpson's Ford Bronco. And once again, Judge Lance Ito ruled in favor of the prosecution. The judge also continued his attack on the press, scheduling a November hearing to determine whether or not to pull the plug on television cameras in the courtroom.

WORLD

Iraq: Deja Vu All Over Again?

Massed troops in southern Iraq fueled speculation that Saddam Hussein was preparing to reinvade Kuwait. The U.S. responded swiftly, ordering 4,000 Army troops from Georgia to Kuwait and dispatching the aircraft carrier George Washington to the Persian Gulf region. In London the British Defense Ministry announced that it was sending an extra frigate to patrol the waters off Kuwait. But the Baghdad government defended Iraq's right to move troops within its own borders, and there were no signs of panic in Kuwait.

Doomsday Cult

The charred bodies of 48 men, women and children -- members of a secretive religious sect known as the Order of the Solar Temple -- were discovered in two Swiss villages, a tragedy that included apparent suicides and what local authorities described as "collective murder" made to appear as mass suicide. In a fire-damaged farmhouse in Cheiry, a village north of Geneva, police discovered 23 dead men and women wearing ceremonial vestments. Fifty miles away, in Granges-sur-Salvan, investigators found 25 additional bodies in three burned-out chalets. Many had bullet wounds indicative of point-blank execution. Almost simultaneously, Canadian authorities reported the death of five more suspected cult members near Montreal. Police are searching for the cult's two leaders, Luc Jouret, a Belgian homeopath who emigrated to Switzerland via Canada, and Joseph di Mambro, a French Canadian.

Haiti: Preparing for Aristide

Seeking to hasten the departure of General Raoul Cedras and his henchmen, the Haitian Parliament approved an amnesty law that seems to allow returning President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to grant as broad a pardon as he wishes. Meanwhile, U.S. troops continued to search for weapons as pro-Aristide demonstrators grew increasingly boisterous. Earlier in the week one coup leader, Port-au-Prince police chief Michel Francois, slipped across the border into exile in the Dominican Republic.

More Death in Bosnia

Sixteen Bosnian Serb soldiers and four nurses were killed on a mountainside southwest of Sarajevo in what U.N. officials said was a commando raid by largely Muslim government forces. In an apparent revenge attack on Saturday, Serb snipers fired on Sarajevo trams, killing one man and seriously wounding 11 others, including five children. In an effort to prevent renewed fighting from endangering aid flights, U.N. troops forced some 500 Bosnian government soldiers out of a demilitarized zone near Sarajevo's airport.

Mexico: An Inside Job?

There are now 12 suspects in the killing of Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, a top official in the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. Among them: a Congressman and a former federal official. Mexico's deputy attorney general, Mario Ruiz Massieu, the brother of the slain politician, theorized that the killing was "a political affair with aid or financing from drug traffickers."

New President for Brazil

Fernando Henrique Cardoso, 63, former Finance Minister and sociologist, was elected President of Brazil. In his first press conference since the vote, Cardoso vowed to open the world's 10th largest economy to foreign investment and said his country would "assume a much more active role" in international affairs.

Remembering Nicholas

The killing of seven-year-old Nicholas Green two weeks ago has unleashed a wave of soul searching among Italians. The child, an American who had accompanied his parents on a vacation to Italy, was shot during a botched highway-robbery attempt in the southern region of Calabria. The Greens' subsequent decision to offer their son's liver, kidneys, heart and pancreas for organ transplants was met with an outpouring of compassion and admiration. Inquiries from families of potential organ donors to the Milan-based Italian Organ Donor Association increased fivefold.

BUSINESS

A New Health-Care Giant

The health-care business continues to consolidate at a blinding rate. Last week Rick Scott, founder and CEO of Louisville, Kentucky-based Columbia/HCA, the largest U.S. hospital chain, announced plans to purchase HealthTrust, the second largest for-profit chain. The price: some $3.6 billion in stock. With 311 hospitals and 170,000 employees, the new medical-care behemoth will tower over its rivals, ringing up $15 billion worth of surgery, X rays and Band-Aids yearly.

THE ARTS & MEDIA

Degas Out of Hiding

A stunning cache of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works taken by victorious Soviet troops from German private collectors at the end of World War II has resurfaced at the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg. The paintings -- more than 70 pieces by Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh and other masters -- were thought by Western experts to have been destroyed during the war; instead they were hidden by the Soviet government. Museum director Mikhail Piotrovsky said the works would be shown at the Hermitage in March 1995, but that any question of returning them to Germany would have to be debated in court.

SPORTS

Hockey Season Still on Hold

Talks between N.H.L. players and owners were stalled over the issue of how revenue should be divided to help the league's financially strapped smaller- market teams. The league has proposed a payroll tax to generate revenues, but players claim that such a tax would have the same effect as a salary cap. Sofar, 30 games have been postponed.