Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!usa-post Newsgroups: usa-today.news,americast.usa-today.news From: usa-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: usa-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: news Tue, Sep 29 1992 Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 04:35:07 EDT Message-ID: DECISIONLINE: News USA TODAY Update Sept. 29, 1992 Source: USA TODAY:Gannett National Information Network HOUSE MEMBERS CAN DUCK RULES: The House has set up elaborate rules controlling how its individual members can spend money a USA TODAY:Gannett News Service study found. But it also has set up a way to avoid many of those rules. Individual House members are prohibited from using taxpayer dollars to pay for receptions. But when Pennsylvania's delegation threw a reception last year, taxpayers picked up the tab. SERVICE GROUPS COLLECT WINDFALL: Legislative service organizations (LSO) hire their own staffs and use rent-free House offices at taxpayer expense. The 30 groups collected $4.1 million last year from Congressmen's accounts. A USA TODAY:Gannett News Service study of House expenses found LSOs are almost unaccountable to the public, rarely subject to oversight and able to circumvent most internal limits on spending taxpayer money. GM, UAW REACH TENTATIVE DEAL: General Motors and the United Auto Workers union reached a tentative agreement Monday to end a four-day-old strike at a Lansing, Mich., car body plant. The UAW refused to give details until striking workers vote on the agreement Tuesday. The strike shut down production of GM's top-selling Pontiac Grand Am at another Lansing plant. PEROT SUPPORTERS GET COURTED: The presidential candidates dispatched their envoys, hats in hand, to a Dallas hotel Monday to woo supporters of Ross Perot. The on-again, off-again contender pledged he'd finally decide whether to run against them by Thursday night. Meanwhile, top advisers to President Bush and Bill Clinton emerged from separate closed-door sessions to play up points of agreement with the volunteer leaders CANDIDATES FIND SIMILARITIES: The Democrats, led by Bill Clinton campaign manager Mickey Kantor, cited Clinton's agreement on 130 of the 145 points Ross Perot made in his book. President Bush's supporters, including Housing Secretary Jack Kemp and Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, claimed "75% agreement" with Perot forces. State leaders return home Tuesday to canvass troops before deciding whom to endorse. BUSH VETOES SHOULD STICK: President Bush is likely to win two more veto confrontations with Congress this week - on family leave and abortion counseling - but Democrats hope to make them political liabilities by November. The House is set to attempt Wednesday an override of Bush's veto of the family leave bill. The Senate is expected to try to override Bush's 33rd veto, which came Friday on the "gag rule" bill. DEBATE COMMISSION BLINKS: The debate commission became the first to blink in the presidential debate stand-off. The bipartisan commission on debates, unable to break the deadlock over rules of the debates, is sending letters to the Bush and Clinton campaigns Tuesday saying they are willing to consider new formats. Negotiations would also open the question of Ross Perot's participation. POLL SHOWS BUSH CATCHING UP: A new poll shows President Bush closing the gap with Bill Clinton, and drawing to a near-dead heat when Ross Perot is included. The ABC News:Washington Post poll shows Clinton leading by only nine points, 51%-42%. A three-way race shows Clinton 44%, Bush 39%, Perot 14%. Margin of error is 4.5%. The first Kansas poll of 1992 shows Clinton at 38%, Bush at 37%, Perot drawing 13%. `GREEN ICE' GETS WIN: Authorities Monday claimed a strike against a world-wide organized crime conspiracy that traded drugs and laundered dirty money. As many as 201 arrests were made - most in the USA and Italy - in an unprecedented police dragnet capping the two-year "Operation Green Ice." Others cooperating in the probe: Colombia, Britain, Canada, Spain, Costa Rica and the Cayman Islands. 3,000 KILLED AT PRISON CAMPS: The State Department said Monday 3,000 Bosnian Muslims were executed at Serbian-run prison camps in May and June - the largest slaughter to be uncovered from the 15-month war. Spokesman Richard Boucher said the USA has received eyewitness reports of the killings, which occurred near the Bosnian city of Brcko. The report will likely boost U.S. efforts to set up a war crimes commission. AIRPLANE CRASH KILLS 167: A Pakistani airliner slammed into a rugged Himalayan hill while coming in to land at Nepal's Katmandu airport during a rainstorm Monday, killing all 167 people on board, officials said. The victims included many tourists, three of them U.S. citizens. It's the second crash in two months at Katmandu. A Thai Airways plane crashed July 31, killing all 113 on board. BERKELEY LAW CHANGES ADMISSIONS: In the first case of its kind, the University of California at Berkeley law school has agreed to change its minority admissions program under pressure from federal officials who say it discriminates. In findings Monday, the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights said Boalt Hall School of Law improperly shielded minorities from competition with other applicants. N.Y. CRACKS DOWN ON POLICE: New York police officers who use racial or ethnic slurs may be fired, Acting Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said after announcing disciplinary action against 42 officers as a result of last week's police union rally that turned ugly. Kelly announced the policy in a report to Mayor David Dinkins on problems at the rally to protest city plans to set up an all-civilian review board. CALIF. FIRES STILL BLAZING: California firefighters battled five wildfires Monday that have blackened more than 15,900 acres. A 6,300-acre blaze and a 6,000-acre fire, both in northern California's Butte County, were under control. In Wenatchee, Wash., three boys - age 12, 13 and 14 - were charged with reckless burning. Their weekend campfire, authorities say, was whipped by strong winds into a 3,500-acre blaze. DEATHS LED TO REGULATIONS: Ten years after seven people died taking cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules in the Chicago area, the murders remain unsolved, but the tragedy's legacy is far-reaching. Consumers are protected by tamper-resistant food and drug packaging. The deaths led to tough criminal penalties for product tampering and inspired federal regulations that require protective seals over non-prescription drugs. News Editor: Kate Coughlin. (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