Copyright 2002 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.  
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
June 28, 2002 Friday Three Star Edition
SECTION: NEWS ; Pg. A9

LENGTH: 666 words

HEADLINE: NATION/WORLD

BYLINE: From News Services

BODY:
WASHINGTON

House GOP scrambles

for Medicare bill votes

House Republicans hunted Thursday for the final votes needed to pass Medicare prescription drug legislation. They brushed aside Democratic charges that the bill was crafted to help the GOP at the polls rather than older adults at the pharmacy.

"No bill before its time," Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., quipped as the GOP high command sought to coax a dwindling band of rebels into the fold.

The legislation would commit $320 billion over the next decade to establish a system of Medicare prescription drug coverage through the private insurance industry. Costs would be heavily subsidized for low-income Medicare beneficiaries. Under a typical plan, others would pay a monthly premium of roughly $33 and an annual deductible of about $250. The government would pay 80 percent of the next $1,000 of drug costs and 50 percent of the subsequent $1,000.

WASHINGTON

Senate panel backs

appeals court nomination

The Senate Judiciary Committee sent the nomination of Arkansas lawyer Lavenski Smith for the U.S. Appeals Court to the full Senate for approval.

The panel voted 19-0 on Thursday to move Smith's nomination to the floor for a vote. If confirmed, Smith will serve on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. That court covers Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and Arkansas.

Smith is a lawyer and former business professor who served a year on the Arkansas Supreme Court as an appointee of Gov. Mike Huckabee. Smith ran unsuccessfully for the state Court of Appeals in 2000 and now serves on the state Public Service Commission.

WASHINGTON

Blood banks urgently

need summer donations

Blood banks are issuing urgent appeals for people to donate this summer, warning that dire blood shortages could hit hospitals within weeks.

Summer shortages are common as frequent donors go on vacation and school blood drives dry up. But blood banks told the government Thursday that this summer slump started earlier and seems worsened by post-Sept. 11 donor apathy as well as a decrease in people eligible to give because of new precautions against mad cow disease.

Almost half of the American Red Cross' blood donor regions and one-third of the nation's independent blood banks have tight supplies - a day's supply of blood or less on hand. The Red Cross provides about half the nation's blood supply, and independent banks represented by the group America's Blood Centers supply the other half.

SWITZERLAND

China, Russia propose

ban on weapons in space

In a challenge to U.S. plans for a missile defense shield, China and Russia on Thursday submitted a joint proposal to the Conference on Disarmament for a new international treaty to ban weapons in outer space.

It marked the first joint Russia-China initiative on the issue, which has long been a priority for Beijing because of its fears that U.S. development of a missile defense will inevitably involve outer space.

The proposal seems certain to deepen the divisions that have dogged the conference - the world's main body for negotiating arms-control treaties - since 1996. The Russian-Chinese plan followed the U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to permit development of defense systems to guard against terrorist threats.

FRANCE

U.S. Air Force plane

crashes, killing pilot

A U.S. Air Force A10 on a training mission crashed Thursday in a forest in eastern France, killing the pilot, the Air Force said.

The plane, a single-seat anti-tank "Warthog," crashed in a forest near the towns of Domptail and Saint-Pierremont, south of the city of Nancy, said Staff Sgt. Cindy York, a spokeswoman for the Air Force public affairs office in Spangdahlem, Germany.

The Air Force said the name of the pilot, who was with the 81st Fighter Squadron, was being withheld until next of kin have been notified. The plane was not carrying either live or depleted-uranium munitions.

LOAD-DATE: June 28, 2002