JOBLESS PLAN OKd: Congress approved a $5.8 billion extension ofunemployment benefits in a direct political challenge to the WhiteHouse, which says a recovering economy makes the plan unnecessary.Story on Page 3. BANK LINK TO CIA: The CIA used the scandal-ridden Bank of Credit andCommerce International to keep tabs on the activities ofinternational terrorists and drug traffickers, an official of theintelligence agency disclosed. Story on this page. MIA PANEL VOTED: The Senate Rules Committee approved theestablishment of a temporary panel to investigate the fate ofmilitary personnel still listed as missing from the Vietnam War.Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), a Vietnam War veteran, is expected tobe its chairman. Story on this page. ATLANTIS OFF: Atlantis thundered into orbit with five astronauts anda satellite designed to enhance space communications. Story on Page7. TALKS SET: President Bush announced that Turkey and Greece agreed totalks on their 17-year dispute over the divided Mediterranean islandof Cyprus. Story on Page 8. IRAQ FACES FAMINE: Its food supply network devastated by the PersianGulf war, Iraq is suffering a high incidence of childhoodmalnutrition and facing famine on a massive scale, according to areport from a United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization.Story on Page 8. EC ENTERS CRISIS: Bloodshed without precedent in postwar Yugoslaviawas reported in secessionist Croatia, where European Communityobservers arrived on a mission aimed at extending a cease-fire.Story on Page 8. STILL AT ODDS: Secretary of State James A. Baker III met withPalestinian leaders, but the issue of who would representPalestinians in a peace conference was left unresolved. Stories onPage 9. SENATE REWARDS ITSELF: Senators gave final approval to a$23,200-a-year pay raise - for themselves. The increase was includedby voice vote in a $2.3 billion spending bill for the legislativebranch of government, which Bush is expected to sign. It will closethe gap between the $101,900 that senators have been making and the$125,100 paid House members. In a vote on the defense budget, theSenate refused to let military women have abortions at U.S.government hospitals overseas. HEALTH BILL UNVEILED: Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) introduced anational health bill that would require all employers to providehealth insurance to their workers or pay a 9 percent payroll tax tohelp the government provide it. Anyone not covered on the job or byMedicare would be enrolled in a new federally run program withbenefits similar to Medicare's. They would pay some fees, but carefor the poor or nearly poor would be free or subsidized. D'AMATO CASE CLOSED: The Senate Ethics Committee announced 'caseclosed' on a series of charges of wrongdoing against Alfonse M.D'Amato (R-N.Y.), with one finding of negligence. The panel foundthat he acted improperly by allowing his brother to use his office onbehalf of a defense contractor. The 19-month investigation, whichcost $686,378, uncovered insufficient evidence on 15 counts thatD'Amato improperly used influence to help contributors and friends,the panel said. AN APOLOGY: A story Friday on Bush's visit to the site of the Nazimassacre of 100,000 Jews and others at Babi Yar in Soviet Ukrainesaid that a monument there portrays a woman and her children about tobe shot by Ukrainian Nazis who took part in the killings. Themonument itself does not mention Ukrainian participation. And to theextent that historians know, the people who committed the atrocitiesat Babi Yar were German Nazis. The Sun-Times apologizes for itserror.
