"A green light"

California's voter-passed ban on race- and sex-based preferences jumped over its last legal hurdle. Without comment, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a constitutional challenge to the measure, known as Proposition 209. "This is a green light to all the other states who want to copy Proposition 209," said California businessman Ward Connerly, who led last year's effort to pass the initiative. Similar measures are expected to be on state ballots next year in Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and Washington.

Wrong man for rights job

Saying, "It's time to take a stand against ... policies that are dividing America and ripping us apart," Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) announced he would not support President Clinton's choice to head the Justice Department's civil-rights division. Mr. Hatch, whose committee must approve the nomination before it goes to the full Senate, said nominee Bill Lann Lee's defense of "constitutionally suspect ... public policies that ultimately sort citizens by race" makes him unfit for the job. "The assistant attorney general must be America's civil-rights law enforcer, not the civil-rights ombudsman for the political left," said Mr. Hatch. Like President Clinton, Mr. Lee advocates legal preferences based on race and sex. Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee voted to sidestep the politically explosive issue of preferences, delaying indefinitely any action on a bill that calls for ending federal "affirmative action" programs.

A double standard?

The Clinton administration, fresh from rolling out the diplomatic red carpet for the leader of China, took a decidedly different tone with another human rights-abusing nation: Sudan. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright announced a near-total trade-and-investment embargo against Africa's largest country. "We take these steps because the government of Sudan has failed to respond to repeated expressions of concern," she said. The Sudanese government, according to the State Department, supports severe persecution of Christians, promotes terrorism, and condones a slave trade.

On the Hill

Senatorial hot air blocked a bill that would have made it easier for parents to afford their children's school-related expenses, including tuition for private school. The bill fell victim to a Democratic filibuster but could be revived next year. It would allow parents or others to contribute up to $2,500 a year for each child to a tax-free savings account similar to an Individual Retirement Account. Under the bill, money deposited in an "education savings account" could be used to cover a variety of expenses for grades K-12, such as buying a home computer, hiring a tutor, and paying private school tuition-including tuition at religious schools. In the House, lawmakers rejected, 228-191, a proposal to provide educational choice to the nation's neediest students. The bill would have authorized states to funnel federal education money toward tuition vouchers so that poor students could afford to attend private schools. Despite pleas from GOP leaders to support the bill, more than two dozen Republicans voted with Democrats to kill the measure. On another issue, almost all House members were of one mind: A bill to reform the Internal Revenue Service sailed through by a vote of 426-4. The bill would create an IRS oversight board, enact 28 new legal protections for taxpayers, and make it easier for average citizens to win cases in tax court. "The IRS is too big and too mean," said Republican leader Dick Armey of Texas. "Once this bill becomes law, the IRS will just be too big." The Senate plans to take up the bill next year.

Twisted compassion

A farmer from the Canadian province of Saskatchewan placed his sleeping 12-year-old daughter, Tracy, in the cab of his pickup truck in October 1993 and filled it with carbon monoxide gas until she died. Tracy suffered from cerebral palsy and faced a second surgery to remove part of a bone that was causing pain in her hip; her father, Robert Latimer, never disputed he killed the girl, but characterized it as an act of love to relieve her suffering. A jury of his peers last week, for the second time in three years, ruled that he committed murder. The Canadian Supreme Court overturned his first conviction, but ordered a second trial. "People say this is a handicapped issue," said Mr. Latimer in a nationally televised news conference Nov. 6 after his conviction. "But they are wrong. This is an issue of torture." Torture? Prosecutors showed journal entries from Mrs. Latimer describing Tracy as a happy, alert child. There is no denying the Latimers' anguish, and no denying Tracy Latimer's suffering. But even the girl's or the parents' happiness or lack of it is beside the point. The issue is the sovereignty of God. What makes these euthanasia cases "hard" is man's attempt to substitute his judgment for God's. That makes every case a hard case. In the court case that ended last week, the judge made it simple for the jurors: If they believed the evidence showed Mr. Latimer deliberately killed his daughter, they must find him guilty-no matter how they may have felt for him. Following their verdict, several jurors gasped and two began weeping after the judge announced he'd have to impose a life sentence. They were then asked to recommend a parole date of between 10 and 25 years. Jurors wanted to know whether they could recommend 1 year. The judge said no. The judge refused to second-guess the civil law. How much more fearful it is to second-guess God's law.

Election '97

Celebrating the first anniversary of his election to a second term, President Clinton, the consummate campaigner, brushed up his stump speech and hit the trail to campaign for underdog Democratic candidates in New York, New Jersey, and Virginia. "I think we can have an impact," said a Clinton aide, apparently hoping the presidential aura would help put Democrats over the top. It didn't. All the candidates for whom Mr. Clinton campaigned lost. In Virginia, the president's attempt to help struggling gubernatorial candidate Donald Beyer backfired when Mr. Clinton described as "selfish" those voters swayed by the tax-cut promise of Republican James Gilmore. Mr. Beyer made his own mistakes, as well. His polling numbers dropped sharply after he began airing TV ads seen as attacking conservative Christians. On election day Mr. Gilmore won easily, 56 percent to 43 percent, with religious voters and social conservatives giving him the hefty margin of victory, according to exit polls. In New Jersey, Republican incumbent Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, a social liberal, barely survived her reelection bid, winning by a single percentage point over a little-known Democratic challenger. Mrs. Whitman had repeatedly alienated social conservatives during her first term and had recently vetoed a state ban on partial-birth abortions. "Even a good economy and [her] still-popular [30 percent] income-tax cut were barely able to offset Mrs. Whitman's well-publicized disdain for pro-life and social conservative voters," opined Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council. The one congressional race on the ballot was in New York, where Republican Vito Fossella handily defeated Democrat Eric Vitaliano for the congressional seat vacated by Congresswoman-turned-TV-personality Susan Molanari. The most culturally significant news on election day came from Oregon, where voters, in the largest turnout in more than three decades, soundly defeated a state initiative aimed at repealing physician-assisted suicide. "Oregon has become the first jurisdiction in the world to fully embrace the culture of death," said a statement issued by the Oregon Catholic Conference, the group that spearheaded the attempt to repeal assisted suicide. The measure originally passed by a narrow margin in 1994 but had never taken effect because of court challenges. Elsewhere, Washington state voters rejected a homosexual "rights" measure, as well as a proposition that would have legalized medical use of marijuana and other drugs. In the Southwest, the Navajo nation, covering parts of Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico, rejected casino gambling for a second time. Backers promised jobs but opponents warned of social ills, including gambling addiction among tribe members. San Francisco voters approved a plan to save the Mount Davidson Cross, a huge, high-elevation landmark visible from much of the city. The 63-year-old cross, which sits on public land, became the focus of a controversy about government endorsement of Christianity. Under the plan, the small parcel of land on which the cross sits will be sold to a private group. The power of language in shaping voters' perception of an issue was evident in Houston, where residents decided to hang on to race- and sex-based preferences in government contracting. Opponents of Houston's set-asides program had proposed the following ballot language: The city "shall not discriminate or grant preferential treatment ... on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin." Polls showed the measure, with that wording, had overwhelming support. But before the initiative could reach the ballot, Houston's mayor and City Council-seeking to maintain the city's preferences program-intervened. They changed the ballot language. The final version asked: Should the city charter be amended "to end the use of affirmative action for women and minorities"? Put that way, voters said no.

The nation in brief

The author of a widely disseminated Internet document that accused the Navy of shooting down TWA Flight 800 admitted he made up the story. Ian Goddard said he just "wanted to give the government a black eye." Flight 800 exploded and crashed last year off the coast of Long Island, killing all 230 people aboard. The cause of the explosion remains a mystery. Four months after the Pathfinder spacecraft touched down on Mars, NASA announced the official end of the mission. Apparently, the Pathfinder and its companion rover, Sojourner, ran out of battery power and froze in the 45-degrees-below-zero Martian climate. But Pathfinder and Sojourner's batteries lasted eight weeks longer than expected. Back on earth, a judge sentenced Richard McLaren, leader of the Republic of Texas separatist group, to 99 years in prison for plotting a kidnapping that led earlier this year to a weeklong standoff with police. Mr. McLaren's top deputy got 50 years.

Refusing to be DeMented

In Alabama, high-school students demonstrated against a federal judge's ruling that bars any "school organized or officially sanctioned religious activity." In Boaz, more than 400 students gathered to protest the order issued late last month by Judge Ira DeMent. In Sardis, about 60 students walked out of class in protest. "We don't want to have to pray under our breath," said student Kristie Gilley. Meanwhile, Gov. Fob James announced he would resist the order "by every legal and political means." In Etowah County, Circuit Judge Roy Moore, already facing legal trouble for refusing to remove a plaque of the Ten Commandments from his courtroom, issued a temporary order preventing Judge DeMent's ruling from being enforced in his county. Judge Moore called the DeMent order, which stemmed from a lawsuit brought in another county, "an unconstitutional abuse of power."

The nation in brief

The author of a widely disseminated Internet document that accused the Navy of shooting down TWA Flight 800 admitted he made up the story. Ian Goddard said he just "wanted to give the government a black eye." Flight 800 exploded and crashed last year off the coast of Long Island, killing all 230 people aboard. The cause of the explosion remains a mystery. Four months after the Pathfinder spacecraft touched down on Mars, NASA announced the official end of the mission. Apparently, the Pathfinder and its companion rover, Sojourner, ran out of battery power and froze in the 45-degrees-below-zero Martian climate. But Pathfinder and Sojourner's batteries lasted eight weeks longer than expected. Back on earth, a judge sentenced Richard McLaren, leader of the Republic of Texas separatist group, to 99 years in prison for plotting a kidnapping that led earlier this year to a weeklong standoff with police. Mr. McLaren's top deputy got 50 years.

Scandal watch

The Washington press corps gave plenty of attention to Fred Thompson's (R-Tenn.) decision to suspend his committee's probe into campaign finance abuses. The chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee said his investigation was short of time, witnesses, and information. But the press paid scant notice to what was happening half a country away, in Little Rock, Ark. There, a federal judge extended the term of a Whitewater grand jury after special prosecutor Kenneth Starr told her six more months of the jury's work would be "strongly in the public interest." Less than a week later, the reason for the extension became apparent: The Associated Press reported the discovery of thousands of pages of hitherto-unknown Whitewater-related documents, found eight months ago in the trunk of an abandoned car. The documents, including a $20,000 cashier's check made out to then-Gov. Bill Clinton, have taken the Whitewater investigation in "new and interesting directions," said a source identified only as "a grand jury witness." The documents opened a new line of inquiry by prosecutors into whether Mr. Clinton told the truth in court testimony regarding his business relationship with longtime friends James and Susan McDougal and their failed Arkansas savings and loan.

Mistaken mistakes

Chinese leader Jiang Zemin wrapped up a triumphant U.S. tour, returning home with a load of lucrative business deals with American companies. Just before leaving the United States, the communist leader caused a stir in an appearance at Harvard. Responding to a question about the Chinese government's bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, he sounded a conciliatory tone, saying the Chinese government has "shortcomings" and has made "mistakes." Two days later, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Mr. Jiang's remarks had been "mistakenly interpreted" and had been the subject of "inaccurate reports."

Standoff in the Gulf

Iraq, required as part of its 1991 Gulf War surrender to allow strict surveillance of its weapons capability, violated that requirement by refusing to allow UN inspectors to visit sites suspected of harboring weapons of mass destruction. Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein threatened to expel American members of the UN inspection teams and warned that any planes making surveillance flights over his country would be shot down. Saddam's actions prompted tough talk, but no immediate action. Firing on spy planes would be "a big mistake," cautioned President Clinton. "Let's just say that I have requested that they respect the decisions of the UN," said Secretary General Kofi Annan, without elaborating. What's Saddam hiding? Britain's Observer newspaper reported that Iraq blocked the UN inspections to prevent discovery of stocks of nerve gas capable of killing millions of people. In Jerusalem, nervous Israelis, concerned about a replay of Iraq's Gulf War Scud missile attacks, lined up to buy gas masks.