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

BUSINESS Buy high, sell low

Wall Street on Monday suffered its worst drop since the October 1987 stock market crash, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 554 points and prompting an early close of trading for the first time since President Reagan was shot in 1981.

The 7.2 percent plunge in the Dow industrials followed a rout in Asia that spread to Europe and North America. “I smell a whiff of panic in the air,” said David Dreman, chairman of Dreman Value Management LLC. “Investors finally realize the market is overpriced.”

But the bears’ romp was short-lived.

The next day, Wall Street staged one of the most dramatic rebounds in its history as the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 337.17 points, its largest point increase ever, as stock trading volume handily blew past all records.

The Dow’s gain, a 4.7 percent surge that took the widely watched index of 30 blue-chip stocks to 7,498.32, recouped 60 percent of Monday’s record 554-point rout.

The recovery reflected a wholesale rush by small and institutional investors back into the market one scant day after a confidence-challenging plunge.

U.S. investors’ show of confidence also spurred big rallies elsewhere around the world as the Asian markets continued their roller coaster existence of late.

WORLD Welcome to the White House

In a remarkable public display, Chinese President Jiang Zemin and President Clinton clashed Wednesday over the meaning of the Tiananmen Square massacre and China’s refusal to foster democracy.

Dismissing loud protests outside the White House as a “political disturbance,” Jiang said the bloody crackdown in 1989 that killed possibly hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators was necessary because the they “seriously disrupted social stability and jeopardized state security.”

Clinton shot back: “I think it should be obvious to everyone that we have a very different view of the meaning of the events in Tiananmen Square.”

The public debate vividly demonstrated that despite the pomp and circumstance of the first SinoU.S. summit in 12 years, the differing views on human rights remain a major stumbling block in the relationship.

SPOKANE Ahh, never mind

Could three-quarters of Spokane residents really want to change the name of their city to Spokane Falls?

Well, no, they couldn’t.

The company that did a poll for The Spokesman-Review transposed the numbers, resulting in a Front Page story that shocked many readers, if only because columnist Doug Clark was behind the name change.

“I think this is clear cut,” said Del Ali, an analyst for Mason-Dixon Political/Media Research Inc., who conducted the poll.

The next day the poll was back on Page One with the right numbers: Three-quarters of Spokane residents really were in their right minds after all.

NATION American justice

In a Cambridge, Mass., case that riveted audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, a 19-year-old British au pair was convicted Thursday of shaking a baby in her care to death.

“I didn’t do anything,” Louise Woodward said through loud sobs when the verdict was read.

It took the jury three days to find Woodward guilty of second-degree murder in the death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen.

Woodward was given a mandatory life sentence.

Britons were fiercely critical of American justice, knocking its televised courtrooms, elected prosecutors and the practice of shackling the accused. Some 100,000 people called a Sky Television phone-in line, the overwhelming majority of them insisting that Woodward had an unfair trial.

Quietly into the night

After Republicans expressed concern that the Senate campaign finance investigation could lead to a probe of GOP practices, Sen. Fred Thompson Friday suspended the hearings, saying he had run out of quality witnesses who could testify about Democratic campaign irregularities.

Thompson also acknowledged that his Senate Governmental Affairs Committee had failed to come up with enough evidence to prove President Clinton broke any campaign laws.

“As far as I could tell, there was no smoking gun” in the au pair trial either, Thompson said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

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