The Week July 31 -August 6

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NATION

Health-Care Maneuvers

While President Clinton attempted to turn up the heat on Congress with aggressive health-care campaigning, Senate majority leader George Mitchell finally put his cards on the table and released his much anticipated compromise bill. Mitchell proposed to cover 95% of Americans by the year 2000 through a combination of voluntary measures, insurance reforms and federal subsidies -- with an employer mandate only as a last resort. The Mitchell blueprint, embraced by Clinton, was immediately blasted by Republicans for doing too much and by Democratic liberals for doing too little. House Democratic leaders fretted that the watered-down package might undercut their own more ambitious proposal.

The Whitewater Hearings

Congressional hearings on Whitewater got nasty. As a series of White House and Treasury Department officials testified before committees in both the House and Senate, Republicans -- and some Democrats -- zeroed in on Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman, claiming he had been less than forthcoming about the department's contacts with the White House over an investigation into the failed S&L at the center of Whitewater. Former White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum was blasted for urging Altman not to recuse himself from overseeing ( the investigation.

A New Whitewater Prosecutor

In a surprise move on Friday, a special three-member judicial panel charged with administering the newly re-enacted independent-counsel law appointed Kenneth Starr, the Bush Administration's Solicitor General, to replace Robert Fiske as the special Whitewater prosecutor. The court said its decision was no reflection on Fiske's capabilities or integrity but stemmed from the need to maintain "the appearance of independence." In the law's absence, Fiske was specially appointed by Attorney General Janet Reno earlier this year.

Abortion Wars

In the wake of angry demands by abortion-rights groups for greater protection following the July 29 double murder at a clinic in Pensacola, Florida, the Justice Department mobilized an interagency task force to investigate antiabortion terrorist acts and deployed squads of U.S. marshals to stand guard at clinics around the country.

Smoking Out Nicotine

Cigarettes came one puff closer to being regulated by the Federal Government when an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration concluded that the nicotine they deliver can be addictive.

Racial Gerrymandering

A North Carolina federal court upheld a 160-mile-long, serpentine-shaped congressional district designed to ensure a majority black electorate. In a headline-grabbing voting-rights opinion, the Supreme Court last year ordered that the district be re-examined. The latest decision, coming on the heels of a contrary Louisiana federal ruling that struck down another black district, virtually assures that the practice of racial gerrymandering will be reviewed by the high court once again.

WORLD

NATO Jets Hit Bosnian Serbs