Week In Review A Look Back At The Top Stories From The Last Week

NATION

Keeping her own counsel

A long summer and fall of probing for scandalous behavior at the White House sputtered to an anti-climax Tuesday as Attorney General Janet Reno announced her decision not to seek an independent counsel to investigate suspected violations of law by President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.

“This decision was mine, and it was based on the facts and the law, not pressure or politics or any other factor,” Reno said.

Congressional Republicans quickly pounced on Reno, saying her focus on fund-raising phone calls ignored evidence of a wider conspiracy to evade campaign finance laws.

“The American people have no confidence in this Justice Department to conduct an impartial investigation of the president and his closest advisers,” said Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., chairman of a House committee conducting a campaign finance investigation.

Reno also overrode the written objections of FBI Director Louis Freeh, who curried favor with congressional Republicans by advocating in a not-so-mysteriously leaked position paper that the Justice Department faces a conflict of interest in investigating an array of allegations against the White House.

Student killer

A group of West Paducah, Ky., students was praying, hands clasped silently in the high school lobby Monday, when a 14-year-old freshman pulled a .22-caliber handgun from his backpack and fired - killing three and wounding five.

The shooting occurred just before classes were to start at Heath High School in a main lobby crowded with students. As the firing began, witnesses said, teenagers ran screaming down the halls, diving into classrooms for cover.

“Everybody was so calm at first,” said Trent Mathis, 17, a senior who was less than 20 feet from the prayer group when the staccato of gunfire echoed through the lobby. “And then you could see the fear on everyone’s faces. That’s when I knew it wasn’t a joke.”

Michael Carneal was charged as a juvenile with murder.

WORLD

Think locally, act globally

Representatives of 166 nations met in Kyoto, Japan, last week to negotiate a pact to curb global warming. By the end of the week the biggest obstacle to reaching an agreement appeared to be that one of those nations was the United States.

Under pressure from American business and industry leaders, not to mention conservative members of Congress, the major U.S. concession in Kyoto so far has been to send Al Gore.

Many of the other 165 nations say the U.S. position does not call for enough reductions in emissions of greenhouse gasses.

The U.S. reluctance to agree to more stringent proposals is driven by concern that American business and workers would be at a competitive disadvantage if emissions limits force the country to go on an energy diet.

REGION

College merger plan

Washington State University would take over at Eastern Washington University under a proposal released Monday by state Sen. Jim West, R-Spokane.

West, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, asked the presidents of both schools to prepare a detailed merger plan that the Legislature could consider in January.

The plan, which would take up to four years to complete, is aimed at stabilizing EWU’s enrollment, which has fallen 1,000 students in four years.

“This is the window of opportunity,” said West, who quietly has been meeting with community leaders and policy analysts to gauge support for the plan. “Eastern needs something, and this is one of many different ideas on how to do it.”

Friday, the EWU board of trustees rejected the plan outright.

BUSINESS

On the job

The government reported Friday that the American economy showed surprising strength last month, creating 404,000 jobs as the unemployment rate edged down to a 24-year low and wages surged.

Yet the jump in jobs and wages comes with little sign of inflation. And the recent economic troubles in Asia, marked by financial turmoil and currency devaluations, will probably mean lower-cost imports into the United States, putting further downward pressure on consumer prices.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 photos

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by News Editor Kevin Graman from wire reports