Around the Nation

Around the Nation

Congress arrives at spending agreement

House approval of the hefty spending package, the final installment of this year's $1.8 trillion annual budget, came on a 296-135 tally. In the Senate, two Democrats used parliamentary maneuvers to stall a related temporary spending measure, and the tactics threatened to close seven departments of the federal government at midnight.

White House and congressional negotiators reached agreement on the overall spending package, which combined five appropriations measures into one, with a host of adjustments. They included a 0.38 percent across-the-board budget cut, a one-day delay in the September military payday and more than $30 billion in accounting gimmicks that helped finance new teachers, and police, depayment of the United States' debt to the United Nations and provide debt relief for poor nations.

The package allowed both Republicans and Democrats to claim they had balanced the budget without touching the Social Security Trust Fund.

"This budget is a victory, and a hard-won victory, for the American people," Clinton said during a conference of European leaders in Turkey.

U.S. takes lead in crash investigation

"We are certainly going to be working with the Egyptians ... but I would not say anything iscontingent upon the approval of the Egyptian government," said Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, the top deputy to Attorney General Janet Reno.

That tough stance could set up a diplomatic showdown with a key ally if Egypt continues to insist that the U.S. government is rushing to condemn EgyptAir co-pilot Gamil Batouty, who investigators suspect may have intentionally crashed the Boeing 767.

Egyptian citizens and government officials alike stepped up their criticism yesterday of the U.S. investigators' keen interest in Batouty and the prayer that he was heard to utter on the plane's cockpit voice recorder just before the jet began its descent, killing all 217 people on board in the Oct. 31 crash.

Activists skeptical of tobacco settlement

Too many states, they say, are treating their cut of the $206 billion settlement as a multi-purpose budget booster rather than as ammunition for a decisive assault on underage smoking.

Water projects in North Dakota or new jails in Southern California are not what smoking opponents envisioned a year ago when five major tobacco companies signed the settlement with 46 states.

11-19-99