News & Reviews

Midwest sizzles, death toll approaches 70 Can't stand the heat Power companies struggled to keep the electricity flowing to residential customers stuck in a Midwest midsummer heat wave, but they could do nothing for those who had no air conditioning or had it but didn't use it. Nearly 70 people have died from the dangerous heat wave that began July 19-eight in St. Louis alone: "With all the brick and black tar-paper roofs, we have homes that essentially are solar ovens," medical examiner Phillips Burch told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Officials found some hyperthermia victims dead in their homes with fans blowing hot air on them and air conditioners switched off. The son of one woman who perished in the heat told the newspaper, "I told her we ought to go get an air conditioner, but she didn't want it. She was worried about the bill. I told her, 'You can't eat money; you got enough.' She just said, 'Let's stop talking about this.' I should have gone against her, but I didn't." Cincinnati was hit harder: Officials blamed the heat for at least 10 deaths. One elderly woman died with a core body temperature of 107 degrees. Coroner Carl L. Parrott warned against underestimating the deadly potential of a heat wave: "We all know that a tornado or hurricane is a deadly natural event, but people don't realize calm, still, beastly hot summer weather has lethal potential." In Louisville, Ky., where the mercury hit 100 for the first time in eight years, one homeowner complained as he mowed his lawn that the heat was "like a blast furnace." Said Greg Woods, "This has got to be what hell is like, but without the grass." Debra Cook and her mother took refuge in an air-conditioned movie theater, where they endured the R-rated Eyes Wide Shut. Ms. Cook said Hollywood's on-screen heat couldn't match that in Louisville. "The movie was steamy, but not nearly as hot as it is out here." A political u-turn Try Clinton Alley Little Rock's city fathers have backed down under public pressure from honoring Bill Clinton by renaming a significant chunk of the 11-mile street that runs past sites representing the successes and scandals of his career: the Old State House, where he celebrated electoral victories in 1992 and 1996; the Excelsior Hotel, where he allegedly propositioned Paula Jones in 1991; and the Doubletree, a hotel where Juanita Brodderick claims then-attorney general Clinton raped her. Instead of renaming a 21-block stretch of Markham Street, now only two blocks around the site of a planned presidential library will become President Clinton Avenue. Fed chairman urges restraint Strong words When Alan Greenspan speaks, markets move. So do politicians. The chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, which controls monetary policy by setting interest rates, appeared on Capitol Hill last week and threatened another hike in the cost of borrowing money. His fear: A rapidly growing economy could provoke inflation. So as Democrats searched for a way to stave off the Reaganesque Republican plan to rebate almost $800 billion of budget surpluses to taxpayers over the next decade, they tapped Mr. Greenspan. Conceding the tax-cut plan would spark the dreaded economic growth, Democrat lawmakers prodded Mr. Greenspan to opine that the tax cut should be postponed, for now. What they ignored (as did most press reports, like AP's "Greenspan Cautions Against Tax Cut" story) were other Greenspan comments critical of the White House strategy of spending the surplus: "I certainly support tax cuts if it looks as though the surplus will be spent." The No-Comment Zone