Notebook

By Harriet Barovick, John Cooper, Lina Lofaro, Michele Orecklin and Flora Tartakovsky

WINNERS & LOSERS

[WINNERS]

TRENT LOTT G.O.P. leader herds 99 other Senate egos into bipartisan deal. And not a single hair out of place!

SADDAM HUSSEIN Just cuz you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not spying on you. And Richard Butler's balding!

CALISTA FLOCKHART It's just nerves! New Mayo Clinic study shows fidgeting prevents weight gain

[& LOSERS]

HENRY HYDE The House's lead prosecutor and his 12 Hamilton Burgers are told by Senate to forget the Jane Does

LISA MCREE GMA host fired. Looked like Joan Lunden, sounded like Joan Lunden, but wasn't Joan Lunden

MICHAEL EISNER Weaker Disney nets CEO half 1997's $9.9 mil bonus. Mickey gets Velveeta. Chip eats Dale

NBA BY THE NUMBERS

$287,500 New minimum NBA salary

$272,500 Current minimum salary

80 Number of players (out of 411 total) who make less than $300,000

12 Number of majority owners (out of 29 total) who are billionaires

$14 million New maximum salary (no previous limit)

$20 million Salary Scottie Pippen had reportedly been hoping to get this season as a free agent but won't

$9 million NBA commissioner David Stern's reported salary

5 Number of players currently slated to make more than $14 million (in descending order of salary: Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Shaquille O'Neal, David Robinson and Kevin Garnett)

25% Share of total NBA salary money earned by the 20 highest-paid players

5 Number of seasons a player has to play to become an unrestricted free agent under new contract (up from three under old contract)

4.82 Length in seasons of the average NBA career

55% Share of total NBA revenue that is earmarked for players in last three years of contract

57.2% Share of NBA revenue that went to players during the '97-'98 season

70% Share of NHL revenue that will be earned by hockey players this season

$500 million Estimated amount lost by players because of lockout

$0 Amount of national television revenue lost by owners because of lockout (thanks to guaranteed contracts)

$10.50 Price of Boston Celtics stock the day before the NBA strike was settled (the Celtics are the only publicly held team)

$14.63 Closing price of Celtics stock on day of settlement

$20 Price of Celtics stock a year ago

$200,000 Amount the Gottlieb family in Boston says its four parking lots near the FleetCenter have lost because of lockout

40% Percentage by which Reebok has decreased production of Allen Iverson basketball shoes

1.7 Average rating for NBA games last season on TNT and TBS

1.7 Average rating for movies selected to replace NBA games

32% Portion of fans in a survey who say they blame the players for the lockout

37% Fans in the survey who say they blame the owners

53% Fans in the survey who say they have missed pro basketball "only a little" or "not at all"

191 Length in days of lockout

180 Length in days (and counting) that Tim Floyd has or hasn't been coach of the Bulls

Sources include: NBA, New York Times, Sports Illustrated, USAToday, CNN, AP Online, Boston Globe and Daily News

PULSE

INVISIBLE MAN Dennis Hastert? Wasn't he the guy on that show? Or is he the one who invented that thing? You know the one I mean.

Number of press mentions the week they were nominated for Speaker of the House

Newt Gingrich 2,111 Bob Livingston 1,093 Dennis Hastert 659

Source: Nexis

THE RULES

I LOVE NY The buzz in New York is that Hillary Clinton is mulling a run for the Senate in 2000. But why New York--a state in which she has many admirers but no apparent roots to speak of (unless you count attendance at numerous fund raisers)? First, of course, there's an open seat--unlike, say, in her native Illinois. Second, New York has astonishingly loose residency requirements: all she has to do is live there on Election Day--maybe in a nice hotel suite. Other states are less accommodating. Illinois demands you live there at least 30 days and be a registered Illinois voter, while Arkansas exacts from its Senators a harsh two years of residency. All of which may put Hillary in a New York state of mind.

FOLLOW-UP

REPRIEVE Four years ago this month, New Orleans teenager Shareef Cousin briefly became America's youngest condemned man. Charged at 16 with killing Michael Gerardi, 25, in a French Quarter street robbery, the clean-cut Cousin never quite fit the part. After his conviction, appeals lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith unearthed a host of prosecutorial misdeeds, including false police statements and suppressed evidence that placed Cousin squarely in the middle of a recreation-league basketball game at the time of the murder.

Three months after a January 1998 article in TIME by Christopher John Farley and James Willwerth that drew national attention to the case, the Louisiana state supreme court ordered a new trial. Cousin angrily refused a deal prosecutors offered last week: time served in exchange for a no-contest plea to manslaughter. With the new trial set to begin this week, New Orleans district attorney Harry Connick Sr. blinked and dropped the charges.

But Cousin, now 20, still faces time: shortly before his original trial, he admitted--under pressure, he says, from the judge and his trial lawyer--to committing four robberies. Cousin claims those charges were false or overstated. "It's a big victory getting off death row," he admits. "But it hasn't sunk in yet because I'm still in jail." The robbery charges are currently on appeal.

NUMBERS

615 million Number of passengers who flew with U.S. airlines in 1998

0 Number of people who died in crashes of any U.S. airliners in 1998--a new record

1 Rank of Tennessee in the final USA Today/ESPN and AP Top 25 college-football polls

24 Rank of Tennessee among Top 25 teams in terms of graduation rates

27 Percent of Tennessee football players who actually graduate

83 Rank of Monica on the list of most popular names for newborn girls in 1997

97 Rank of Monica on the list of most popular names for newborn girls in 1998

$114 million Grosses for A Bug's Life, the top holiday film, during the last six weeks of 1998

$150 million Revenues during the same period for Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda--the first time a top-grossing video game has outearned a top-grossing film

Sources: USA Today, Boston Globe, Rocky Mountain News, Baby Names!, Business WireSources: USA Today, Boston Globe, Rocky Mountain News,