THE WEEK

By KATHLEEN ADAMS, LINA LOFARO, MICHAEL QUINN, JEFFERY C. RUBIN, ALAIN L. SANDERS AND SIDNEY URQUHART

NATION

G.O.P.'S MEDICARE CURE PASSES

A major battle line of the 1996 campaign was drawn on Thursday when, by a narrow and nearly solid party-line vote of 231 to 201, the House approved the Republicans' plan to overhaul Medicare. President Clinton's response: "I will not let you destroy Medicare, and I will veto this bill." The plan, hailed by the G.O.P. as a historic rescue of the program, seeks to achieve $270 billion in savings over seven years by raising premiums, limiting payments to providers and encouraging seniors to opt for what legislators hope will be cheaper HMO and private-insurance plans subsidized by the government. The package was denounced by Democrats as the product of "another day of infamy" designed to finance a $245 billion G.O.P. tax cut for the wealthy. The Senate is expected to approve a similar overhaul.

TAX CUTS GET A BOOST

In the Senate Finance Committee, the G.O.P.'s tax cut moved forward. On a party-line 11-to-9 vote, the panel approved the $245 billion G.O.P. tax-cut package that, among other things, would create a $500-per-child tax credit for couples earning up to $110,000 and slash capital-gains taxes.

THE MILLION MAN MARCH

Hundreds of thousands of black men heeded Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan's call to go to Washington and join in the Million Man March. Participants said they had come to the spirited and celebratory rally in front of the Capitol to condemn racism, declare their own personal sense of purpose and responsibility, and pledge to their families and communities their best efforts to build a more equitable and violence-free society. Among those who spoke at the rally: poet Maya Angelou and civil rights activists Jesse Jackson, Joseph Lowery and Rosa Parks. Delivering a two-hour, meandering address laced with fiery denunciations of white racism and the white establishment, Farrakhan urged black men to renew their moral and spiritual dimension and take charge of their own destiny.

THE POLITICAL FALLOUT

Reflecting the ambivalent feelings of many other Americans regarding the march--and in particular the concern over Farrakhan's record of hate-tinged rhetoric against whites and Jews--President Clinton told a Texas audience that "1 million men are right to be standing up for personal responsibility, but 1 million men do not make right one man's message of malice and division." Clinton condemned both white and black racism and urged the races to come together. To that end, a bipartisan, bi-racial group of congressional representatives asked the President to set up a national commission on race relations. For his part, Farrakhan said he expects to become a major political force and that he would help spearhead a new black voter-registration drive.

READ MY LIPS

President Clinton offhandedly told a Houston campaign audience that he had raised taxes "too much" in his 1993 budget package. After gleeful Republicans pounced on the comment and fuming Democrats let out the political equivalent of a primal scream (many placed their careers on the line when they backed the President in 1993), Clinton retreated and said voting for that package had been "the right thing to do."

A NAVY ACQUITTAL

Captain Everett Greene, the former head of the Navy's equal-opportunity unit and the highest naval officer to be court-martialed since World War II, was acquitted of sexual-harassment charges by a jury of senior naval officers. Greene had steadfastly maintained throughout the proceedings that friendly letters and notes to two female subordinates had been misconstrued as advances.

AN ARSON ACQUITTAL

A biracial federal jury acquitted Christopher Lynn Johnson, the son of a black activist, of charges that he burned down Alabama's Randolph County High School last year. The school was gutted following the furor that erupted when the school's white principal, Hulond Humphries, unsuccessfully tried to cancel a prom because of interracial dating. The defense suggested that Humphries may have been the real arsonist--an accusation the principal strongly and tearfully denied on the stand.

WORLD

PARIS TRAIN BOMB WOUNDS 29

Hundreds more machine-gun-toting French soldiers took up positions on Parisian streets after already heightened security in the capital failed to prevent another terrorist attack, in this case another homemade bomb that exploded on a commuter train beneath Paris, wounding 29 people. The blast was the eighth recent bombing or attempted bombing that authorities have blamed on the secretive Armed Islamic Group, which claims that France supports the military-backed Algerian regime the group is trying to overthrow.

BOSNIAN TRUCE HOLDS

U.S. mediator Richard Holbrooke received assurance from the Croatian army that it would not seek to recapture the territory in eastern Croatia seized by Serbs, preserving the fragile accord between Bosnia's warring parties. By last Saturday, the fighting had ceased throughout the country, at least for the moment. In Sarajevo streetcar service resumed, and lights blazed in shop windows. But news arrived at week's end that the Serbs may have waged a new campaign of ethnic cleansing in northern Bosnia during the past month, raising fears that 2,000 Muslim men have been massacred.

NATO CHIEF FORCED OUT

A deepening corruption scandal in his home country of Belgium forced Willy Claes to step down from his post as NATO Secretary-General, complicating Bosnian peace efforts. Claes resigned a day after the Belgian Parliament voted to force him to stand trial on charges of corruption, bribery and forgery in connection with a military-contract kickback scandal in the late 1980s, when he was the country's Economics Minister. Claes maintains that he is "totally innocent."

HAMAS EDGES TOWARD P.L.O.

The leader of the militant Palestinian group Hamas, whose bitter opposition to peace with Israel has fueled dozens of suicide bombings against Israelis, said he still opposes the accord on Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank. But in an interview from the Israeli prison where he was jailed for life in 1989, Sheik Ahmed Yassin told an Israeli Arab lawmaker that the agreement could not be ignored and that he was willing to "give it a chance." The pronouncement came as P.L.O. leader Yasser Arafat allowed the previously banned Hamas weekly newspaper Al Watan to resume publication.

SADDAM WINS HANDILY

In an overwhelming victory that should embarrass other politicians who cavalierly throw around the word landslide, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein won a 99.96% approval rating from Iraqi voters and was sworn in for another seven-year term. Even in the once rebellious city of Karbala, not one of the 270,867 cast a vote against Saddam. Of course, there were no other candidates on the ballot, and soldiers were on hand to make sure voters did the right thing.

BUSINESS

A NEW BANKING BEHEMOTH?

In seeking to acquire First Interstate Bancorp, Wells Fargo made what amounts to the largest hostile takeover bid in banking history. If the deal comes off, it will create the eighth largest bank in the U.S., with more than $100 billion in assets.

ENHANCING NICOTINE

According to internal reports from the nation's third largest cigarette maker, tobacco companies have been enhancing nicotine delivery for smokers by adding ammonia-based compounds to cigarettes. The confidential studies, which were obtained by the Wall Street Journal, came from Brown & Williamson (makers of Viceroy and Raleigh). One of them points out that while the company introduced no extra nicotine in its cigarettes, adding ammonium hydroxide appears to provide "increases in impact and satisfaction."

SCIENCE

A BIG, HOT, FARAWAY PLANET

For the first time, astronomers confirm the discovery of a planet circling a star similar to our own. The planet is 160 times more massive than Earth; because its orbit takes the planet so close to its fiery sun in the constellation Pegasus, scientists are convinced that it could not sustain life. Even so, the discovery bolsters theories that other worlds harboring life may indeed exist.

--By Kathleen Adams, Lina Lofaro, Michael Quinn, Jeffery C. Rubin, Alain L. Sanders and Sidney Urquhart