Copyright 2000 The Atlanta Constitution
The Atlanta
Journal and Constitution
February 20, 2000, Sunday, Home Edition
SECTION: News; Pg. 8A
LENGTH: 661 words
HEADLINE:
NATION IN BRIEF
BYLINE: From our news services
SOURCE: AJC
BODY:
Clinton
pledges $ 223 million in education grants
President Clinton offered $ 223
million in education and job training grants Saturday to help low-income
Americans succeed in the information age economy. He called it a "lifeline of
opportunity" for young people willing to work.
"We need to make sure our
children are prepared for this new economy by helping every child enter school
ready to learn and graduate ready to succeed, " Clinton said in his weekly radio
address.
Clinton said the $ 223 million in federal grants would be made
available to help 44,000 young people aged 14 to 21 in 36 low-income areas as
diverse as the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, inner-city Baltimore and the
Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota. They will be distributed to
urban, rural and American Indian communities and will range from $ 4 million to
$ 11 million each.
In Georgia, the Department of Labor will receive more
than $ 3.6 million.
GOP: Stop penalizing over-65 workers
Social
Security beneficiaries, now losing billions of dollars in benefits, shouldn't be
penalized for staying on the job after turning 65, the chairman of a House panel
that oversees the national retirement plan said Saturday. The House could vote
as early as March 2 on a GOP plan to repeal Social Security's "earnings penalty"
for working Americans 65 to 69, Rep. Clay Shaw (R-Fla.) said in the weekly
Republican radio address. Passage could mean bigger benefit checks for workers
who stay on the job after they pass retirement age.
Testing
infants' hearing pays language benefits
Spotting babies'
hearing problems very early in life appears to substantially
improve their chances of having reasonably normal vocabularies, even though
their speech still may be poor, a study shows. New technology using electrodes
or ear probes can quickly detect infants' poor
hearing. Currently, 27 states require this
testing on newborns, and similar laws are in the works in
several more. A study at the University of Colorado is the largest yet to see
whether this testing, which typically costs around $ 25, pays off. The results
suggest it does, because the first six months of life seem to be critical to
language development.
Marines recall terror, triumph of Iwo Jima
More than 600 Marines who endured indescribable carnage on Iwo Jima gathered
this weekend in Washington to relive the Corps' bloodiest battle and talk over
what the 55 years since have brought their country. Many among these veterans
speak with sadness of the dwindling numbers of men and women now choosing
military service as a career. The battle began Feb. 19, 1945. After merciless
fighting, five Marines and a Navy corpsman raised the American flag on Iwo
Jima's Mount Suribachi four days later, an event that came to symbolize being a
Marine.
'Cats' closing down after record-setting run
"Cats," the
longest-running production in Broadway history, will close on June 25 after
almost 18 years and $ 380 million in sales. The musical, at the Winter Garden
Theater in New York, will end its run after 7,397 performances. The closing,
which has been rumored for several months, was confirmed Saturday by Peter
Brown, a spokesman for Andrew Lloyd Webber, the musical's composer.
NAACP targets S.C. flag, Bush plan in Fla.
The NAACP decided
Saturday to continue its economic boycott against South Carolina over the
state's flying of the Confederate flag atop its Capitol. " It is not just a
piece of cloth. This is about the dignity of people," Kweisi Mfume, the
president of the civil rights group, said at the NAACP's 91st annual meeting in
Washington. Leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People also announced plans for a march next month on the Florida Capitol in
Tallahassee to protest Gov. Jeb Bush's move to eliminate racial and gender
considerations in admissions at the state's 10 public universities and in
granting state contracts.
LOAD-DATE: February 20, 2000
