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 Thu, May 21 1992 Date: Thu, 21 May 92 05:20:57 EDT Message-ID: DECISIONLINE: News USA TODAY Update May 21, 1992 Source: USA TODAY:Gannett National Information Network COLEMAN IS EXECUTED: Virginia inmate Roger Keith Coleman was executed Wednesday night after repeated attempts to prove his innocence. News reports late Wednesday said the prison doctor in Jarratt, Va., pronounced him dead at 11:38 p.m. Coleman had failed a lie-detector test hours earlier and Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder refused to overturn his earlier denial of clemency. Coleman murdered his sister-in-law. PEROT GAINS WRITE-IN VOTES: Texas billionaire Ross Perot upstaged the party favorites in the Oregon and Washington presidential primaries, though he wasn't on the ballot. Write-in efforts may have won Perot up to 15% of the vote from both Republicans and Democrats in Oregon. Any such write-in campaign in California June 2 would be futile. The state won't count write-in votes for undeclared candidates. `MURPHY' MERITS MORE DISCUSSION: Latest addition to the 1992 political lexicon: Don't mess with "Murphy Brown." After flak from Vice President Dan Quayle about the sitcom's unmarried star giving birth, the White House confusedly tried to rise above the fray. President Bush: Children should "have the benefit of" two parents. Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater: Brown showed "pro-life values." VOTER REGISTRATION BILL PASSES: The Senate Wednesday passed a bill compelling states to automatically register voters when they apply for drivers' licenses or government benefits. Republicans said the president will veto the bill that passed 61-38, short of a veto-proof majority. The House passed a similar bill in 1990. The bill would take effect in 1994. States also would have to establish registration by mail. RISK OF VASECTOMIES ASSESSED: A study in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine dismisses the link between heart disease and vasectomies but leaves a "lingering doubt" about cancer risk. Earlier studies have linked a higher risk of certain disease with the birth control method, which experts generally consider safe. Approximately 15% of U.S. men over the age of 40 have had a vasectomy. CONGRESS SAVES SEAWOLF: Congressional negotiators agreed on a $8.2 billion package of budget cuts Wednesday that will rescue the Seawolf submarine program from extinction. The budget cuts, first recommended by President Bush, will be voted on Thursday in the House and are expected to win White House support. One key to the compromise: Guaranteeing construction of a second Seawolf. TEXANS TOP LARGE-STATE POVERTY: Texans - especially children - are far more likely to be poor than residents of the USA's three other largest states. That's among findings in 1990 new Census numbers being released Thursday: Almost one in four children and one in five Texans of all ages lived in poverty in 1989, a steep increase from 1979. The state's poverty level is far worse than New York, Florida and California's. FEWER ABORTION PROVIDERS FOUND: More than a quarter of the nation's metro areas have no doctors who perform abortions, says a study out Thursday. The Alan Guttmacher Institute report finds that in 1988, 70 of the USA's 305 metro areas - with 50,000 or more residents - had no abortion provider, up from 59 in 1980. The number of abortions annually - about 1.6 million - has remained steady the last decade. USA FUNNELED AID TO IRAQ: Bush administration officials Thursday face congressional questioning for lenience toward Saddam Hussein before Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. The hearings are part of an effort by congressional investigators led by Rep. Henry Gonzalez, D-Texas. Gonzalez has released classified administration documents to show that even after the 1988 end of the Iran-Iraq war, the USA continued aid. USA STILL A ROLE MODEL: People around the world look to the United States to lead the way into the millennium, a new CNN:Angus Reid Group survey finds. Forty-two percent of people polled in 16 countries named the USA as the world's leader at the end of the 1990s. Japan was second with 20%. The USA is the most admired nation, but asked what other nation they would choose as a residence, Europeans favor Europe. DOW JONES OPENS ON UPSWING: The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials opens Thursday at 3393.84, after closing down 4.15 Wednesday. The New York Stock Exchange composite opens at 228.94, down 0.38. The American Stock Exchange market value opens at 392.15, down 0.22. The NASDAQ OTC composite opens at 580.29, up 2.24. SUNNY AND WARM ALL OVER: Northeast temperatures will be in the 80s and 90s. In the Southeast, partly sunny skies will dominate as slightly lower temperatures set in. Sun and warmth will grace the mid-Atlantic. Pleasant weather will prevail throughout the Northwest and northern Rockies. Scattered thunderstorms accompanied by high humidity will whip through the Mississippi Valley into the Great Plains. News Editor: Beth Mann. (1-919-855-3491) Making copies of USA TODAY Update (Copyright, 1992) for further distribution violates federal law. This article is copyright 1992 Gannett News Service. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM