Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!usa-post Newsgroups: usa-today.news From: usa-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: usa-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: news Mon, Jul 20 1992 Date: Mon, 20 Jul 92 04:12:10 EDT Message-ID: DECISIONLINE: News USA TODAY Update July 20, 1992 Source: USA TODAY:Gannett National Information Network CONVENTION A BOON TO CLINTON: Bill Clinton has doubled his support since last week's Democratic Convention and Ross Perot's exit - from 28% to 56%, according to a USA TODAY:CNN:Gallup poll of 755 registered voters conducted Friday and Saturday. Margin of error: 3%. President Bush wins only 34% of voters in the poll. But Democratic pollster Alan Secrest cautions that post-convention polls often don't hold up. CONFERENCE OPENS TO BAD NEWS: The Eighth International AIDS Conference opens in Amsterdam Monday to two new reports that raise disturbing questions about the AIDS virus. A report in the current Newsweek says HIV, long accepted as the AIDS virus, is either absent or undetectable in some people with AIDS. Another, to be presented this week, suggests the virus may be able to adapt itself to target heterosexuals. BAKER LIKES NEW ISRAELI GOV'T: U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, on a trip to Israel, Sunday savored the new atmosphere created by Yitzhak Rabin's election. Baker said he was "quite confident that we will be able to make the point with the Arab countries and Arab representatives that ... we now have (an Israeli) government that is serious about limiting this question (of) ... settlement activity" in the territories. WEST HAS MOST CRIME: The West has the most crime, the Northeast the least, a new survey says. The Justice Department's National Crime Victimization Survey, released Sunday, found 29% of Western households were crime victims last year, compared with: Northeast, 19%; Midwest, 23%; South, 24%. Nationwide, 24% of households reported a crime in 1991. Almost 100,000 people in 49,000 households were surveyed. FIRES BURN IN CALIF. AND IDAHO: Forest fires Sunday raced through dry timber in California and Idaho, fueling fears this will be a particularly destructive fire season in the drought-plagued West. "Things are incredibly dry," said Arnold Hartigan of the Boise (Idaho) Interagency Fire Center. There have been 60,000 fires this year compared to about 39,000 by the same time last year. Monday's threat: Lightning storms. SCHROEDER TO CHALLENGE PILL BAN: Rep. Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., says she will challenge a U.S. ban on the French abortion pill RU-486. Monday, Schroeder will introduce a bill that would allow women to bring the abortion pills into the country for personal use. Last week the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government should not return 12 pills seized from a pregnant woman because the drug is not approved in the USA. CONGRESS TO OPEN BRIEF SESSION: Congress returns to work Monday for a between-conventions session that Democrats hope will point out the shortcomings of President Bush's agenda. But first, lawmakers may confront an embarrassment of their own: A report due this week on the House post office scandal is expected to say the independent mail system was rife with mismanagement and abuse of political patronage. PRISON TUNNEL PROMPTS SEARCH: New Mexico penitentiary guards continued a "top-to-bottom, fine-tooth-comb" search after discovery of a 28-foot-long tunnel that began in a crawl space connected to the cell of a murderer, a prison spokesman said Sunday. The tunnel was strung with lights, may have taken a year to dig, but still was far short of the prison boundary. TRUCKERS' BRAKES A PROBLEM: Federal safety inspectors spot-checking heavy trucks found nearly half had brake problems that posed potentially serious safety concerns, The Detroit News said Sunday. Inspectors ordered 46.1% of the big rigs off the road because their brakes were out of adjustment. Cited: An National Transportation Safety Board report on surprise inspections of more than 1,500 big rigs in five states. PENTAGON HAS `POW' PHOTO: The Pentagon has obtained a reproduction of a 1923 photo of three Soviet farmers that may be the original of a controversial picture purportedly showing three U.S. servicemen still being held prisoners in Indochina. The New York Times reported Sunday Pentagon officials say they're convinced the source of the POW photo, which surfaced publicly last year, was the 1923 photograph. REPORT CITES RADIATION RELEASES: Federal health officials are trying to determine the dosage and effect on humans of radioactive tritium gas routinely released in the 1950s from the Savannah River nuclear weapons plant in Aiken, S.C. The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, citing a U.S. Department of Energy report, said workers stored the gas and released it when weather conditions aided quick dispersal. DOW JONES OPENS ON DOWNSWING: The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials opens Monday at 3331.64 after closing down 29.99 Friday. The New York Stock Exchange composite opens at 228.51, down 0.98. The American Stock Exchange market value opens at 386.55, down 1.79. The NASDAQ OTC composite opens at 570.52, down 5.67. News Editor: William Snoddy. (1-919-855-3491) Making copies of USA TODAY Update (Copyright, 1992) for further distribution purposes violates federal law. This article is copyright 1992 Gannett News Service. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM