Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!americast.com!usa-post Newsgroups: usa-today.news From: usa-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: usa-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: news Fri, Mar 13 1992 Date: Fri, 13 Mar 92 05:47:47 EST Message-ID: DECISIONLINE: News USA TODAY Update March 13-15, 1992 Source: USA TODAY:Gannett National Information Network MAJORITY FAVORS CLINTON: More than half of Democrats, 54%, favor Bill Clinton as their nominee, according to a USA TODAY:CNN:Gallup Poll done Wednesday and Thursday. Just 23% favor Paul Tsongas; 18%, Jerry Brown. The poll also shows most (57%) Republicans want Pat Buchanan to end his GOP challenge. President Bush's approval rating is at 41%, up from 39%. But 71% think he'll be re-elected. Margin of error: 3 points. HOUSE MEMBERS CONFESS BAD CHECKS: House members are rushing to admit they wrote bad checks at the House bank after their colleagues moved toward revealing every check bouncer. Disclosure for some could end careers. Some 355 could be named. Seargent-at-Arms Jack Russ, bank overseer and bouncer of $56,000 worth of checks, resigned Thursday after NBC News said he may have shot himself March 1. Russ blames robbers. RETAIL SALES CLIMB: Retail sales in February were up 1.3% to $157.7 billion from January, the Commerce Department said Thursday. January's preliminary 0.6% gain was also revised to a 2.1% increase from December. "The consumer has started to spend again," said economist J. Antonio Villamil. The spending rebound was across the board, from cars and couches to clothes and clocks. GROUP SAYS SENIORS OVERCHARGED: The government continues to overcharge seniors for Medicare premiums, a group said Thursday. Families United for Senior Action said "this benefit is still a government secret." Since 1989, low-income seniors have been eligible for waivers on premiums and deductibles for Medicare to pay doctors. But benefits must be applied for at a welfare office or $31.80 per month is taken out. TAMMY FAYE BAKKER SEEKS DIVORCE: Tammy Faye Bakker says she's calling it quits with her husband, imprisoned televangelist Jim Bakker, after nearly 31 years. "For years I have been pretending that everything is all right," Tammy Bakker said in a letter released Thursday. Jim Bakker is serving an 18-year sentence at the Federal Medical Center at Rochester, Minn., for swindling followers of his defunct PTL ministry. U.N. TELLS IRAQ TO COMPLY: A high-stakes United Nations Security Council meeting ended Thursday with no change in the message for Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz: Comply with U.N. demands or face possible military action. Aziz said, "We are not bargaining over our rights to live as a free ... people." But the Security Council ordered Iraq to "immediately" comply with U.N. cease-fire terms. BUSH GIVES DETROIT GOOD NEWS: President Bush Friday will announce, four days before the Michigan primary election, that automakers won't have to put canisters on cars and trucks to trap gasoline vapors during refueling. Gasoline sellers will need them on pumps instead. That's good news for Detroit. The canisters cost about $100 per car, meaning an estimated $1 billion per year for automakers. DRUG GANGS SUSPECTED IN SLAYING: Dominican and Colombian drug gangs are top suspects in the gunshot slaying of prominent Spanish-language publications editor Manuel de Dios Unanue, New York police said Thursday. Stories he was running in Crimen magazine - premiering this week - focused on Colombian cocaine trafficker Griselda Blanco de Trujillo. Next week a Crimen story exposes Dominican drug dealers. GRAVANO JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS: Salvatore "Sammy Bull" Gravano testified Thursday that he was just following orders when he committed murders for reputed Gambino family Mafia boss John Gotti. "I was a good, loyal soldier. John barked and I bit," Gravano told the jury at Gotti's federal murder and racketeering trial in New York. Gravano, 47, was a top Gotti aide who turned informant. He has admitted to 19 murders. DEMS SUPPORT NIXON POSITION: Two top Democrats Thursday backed former president Richard Nixon's challenge for President Bush to aid democracy in the former Soviet Union. Nixon "rightly" called Bush's proposal inadequate, said Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Claiborne Pell, D-R.I. Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn, D-Ga., said Bush's "place in history may be determined in the next few months." GOP EFFORTS TO WEAKEN BILL FAIL: The Senate Thursday lumbered toward a vote on the Democrats' middle-class tax-cut bill, after rejecting GOP efforts to weaken or kill the measure President Bush has vowed to veto. The bill would hike taxes for the wealthiest 1% of taxpayers to provide tax credits of $300 per child for families earning less than $47,500 a year. Senators rejected attempts to throw out the tax cut. EAST TO REMAIN CHILLY: Thermometers in the East will continue to register low readings this weekend, as snow showers continue from the eastern Great Lakes into northern New England. A storm off the Pacific will usher in cooler air to the Northwest. Showers will dampen parts of Oregon and California Friday. By Saturday, scattered showers will move into the Rockies. DOW JONES OPENS UNCHANGED: The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials opens Friday at 3208.63, after closing unchanged Thursday. The New York Stock Exchange composite opens at 223.30, down 0.25. The American Stock Exchange market value opens at 403.59, down 2.26. The NASDAQ OTC composite opens at 615.92, down 1.22. News Editor: Beth Mann. (919-855-3491) Making copies of USA TODAY Update (Copyright, 1992) for further distribution violates federal law. This article is copyright 1992 Gannett News Service. 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