Numbers
$2.7 billion Total sum Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi reportedly says he'll pay 270 families of victims of Pan Am Flight 103 if the U.S. and U.N. agree to lift sanctions against his country

$500 million Pan Am insurance settlement paid out to 270 victims' families in 1996

30% Percentage of young Californians who are overweight. The Oakland school district is rolling out the nation's first district-wide ban on selling junk food in school buildings

77% Percentage of young Californians considered out of shape

100 Estimated number of couches burned by drunken University of Colorado students in University Hill, a residential area in the college town of Boulder

$1,000 Amount of new local fine for keeping upholstered furniture on a porch or outdoors in University Hill

41% Percentage of Americans who think the U.S. is winning the war on terrorism

66% Percentage of Americans in January who thought the U.S. was winning the war on terrorism

Sources: Reuters, BBC, N.Y. Times, USA Today

22 years ago in TIME
When TOM BROKAW steps down from the NBC Nightly News anchor's chair in 2004, he will have been with the peacock network for 36 years. In 1980, three years before he took over as anchor of the evening news show, Brokaw was fighting a morning-show ratings war as host of Today, beating CBS's Charles Kuralt and running neck and neck with ABC's David Hartman.

Tom Brokaw [is] NBC's Mr. Clean, an experienced journalist with the snub nose and boyish good looks of the class president, the boy most likely to succeed...Brokaw, 40, has something of the manner of a friendly corporate lawyer...[His] problem is certainly not laziness. Married to his college girlfriend, a former Miss South Dakota, he was NBC's White House correspondent for three years. He now lives with his wife and three daughters in Manhattan. He often jogs four miles in Central Park before he leaves for the office at 5 a.m., and recently he has taken on the added job of writing and delivering the news on Today, a chore that used to be handled by Floyd Kalber. Brokaw's drawback rather is something he cannot do much about: his frosty demeanor. It is a failing that he readily admits — and dismisses. Says he: "When you're on for two hours, five days a week, if you try to be something that you are not, it will show through." --TIME, Dec. 1, 1980

Arafat's "Zero" Motivation
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has been free from the Israeli siege on his headquarters for one month — long enough, arguably, to demonstrate whether he is sincere this time about cracking down on Palestinian terrorists. In the current environment, though, it seems Arafat's desires, whatever they may be, are not enough. His security forces were so battered by recent Israeli military incursions that they are almost completely ineffectual, according to Arafat's senior aides. "Our capability is zero," Jibril Rajoub, head of preventive security in the West Bank, told TIME. "Our motivation also is zero." In today's climate, Palestinian commanders are loath to be seen doing the Israelis' bidding by arresting militants. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of Arafat's Fatah organization, has claimed responsibility for three of the nine fatal terrorist attacks on Israelis since Arafat was freed. Palestinian cabinet ministers say Arafat has no incentive to stop paying Brigades activists because they will only turn to new paymasters in the radical Islamic group Hamas, Fatah's rival. "We look at them as would-be members," says a senior Hamas official. Close aides to Arafat doubt that the Palestinian leader actually wants the terror attacks to stop, since the Israeli retaliations that inevitably follow deflect attention from his pledges to reform his corrupt and dictatorial government. Arafat last week signed a long-delayed Basic Law, a kind of pre-state constitution, but in private he's avoiding committing himself to a date for the elections he has promised. "This man doesn't want to change," says an Arafat aide. Meanwhile, Israeli military officials say they have given up on him as a partner in containing terrorism. "To count on Arafat to bring security was a joke, and it will continue to be a joke," says an Israeli army officer. BY MATT REES/RAMALLAH With Jamil Hamad/Bethlehem and Aharon Klein/Jerusalem

Flying Air Wolfowitz
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has been leading the charge in the Bush Administration for Washington to take on Saddam Hussein. Brent Scowcroft, George Bush Sr.'s National Security Adviser, now working as an international consultant, is more closely aligned with G.O.P. centrists, notably Secretary of State Colin Powell, who question the wisdom of waging war to topple the Iraqi President. In a pairing some observers thought was odd, Scowcroft joined Wolfowitz last week on a 20-hour nonstop flight to Singapore, where the Deputy Secretary was giving a speech at a three-day security conference (Scowcroft had been invited to attend the same meeting as a delegate). The accommodations were cozy: Scowcroft was the sole private citizen to spend the long flight in Wolfowitz's private quarters. Some speculated that Scowcroft got the invite because Wolfowitz wanted to pull him into his corner. "Paul wants to reach out to more Republicans like Scowcroft and get them to think his way on the danger Saddam represents," said a Wolfowitz associate. "He's tired of getting picked on by the Powell crowd." Scowcroft seemed unaware of any lobbying effort. "I'm just hitching a ride," he said. BY MARK THOMPSON

Getting Testy over Tests
A surefire way to commit political suicide a few months ago was to oppose more school testing. The name of the landmark education bill President Bush signed in January — the No Child Left Behind Act — reflected the prevailing mood: to resist standardized tests was to desert kids. The legislation, which mandates annual testing in Grades 3 through 8, passed overwhelmingly. But as state legislatures sew up their budgets and students dive into year-end exams, a change is afoot — the sacred cow of school testing is getting tested itself.

The Governor of Vermont has taken the most dramatic stance: Democrat Howard Dean said he would be willing to forgo $25 million in federal Title I funds in order to avoid the expense and annoyance of carrying out the new legislation. That's a position he's allowed to take under the law, which ties a state's Title I dollars to adoption of the bill's accountability standards. "Our school system here is a good deal better than most, and we got that way by holding schools accountable our way," says Dean, who is expected to run for President in 2004. Dean says the cost of complying with the law may far outweigh the money the Federal Government provides in exchange. He has asked superintendents in Vermont to report back with an estimate.

In Los Angeles the school board voted to explore alternatives to — and possibly abandon — California's state test, the Stanford 9; San Francisco is weighing a similar measure. School officials in Cleveland, Ohio, dropped from 16 to 13 the number of tests required from kindergarten through eighth grade. And in Nebraska, a state with an unusual assessment system that mixes state exams with more flexible local tests, the education commissioner, Doug Christensen, says he's convinced he can comply with the No Child Left Behind Act and maintain the state's current testing program. "We're hoping we can get out of that 'testing every year' part that starts in 2005," says Christensen. "We don't believe in testing kids to death."

The stepped-up criticism of the law and its requirements is to be expected, says U.S. Department of Education Under Secretary Eugene Hickok. "Implementation is always more painful than rhetoric," he says. "But there will be no backing off." Washington sounds defiant, and so do some educators and politicians in the states. Looks like the fight is on.

Goodbye To Hollywood?
Will the City of Angels have to clip its wings? Just one week after Los Angeles residents learned they will vote this November on whether the San Fernando Valley should secede from the city, a new study fueled talk that the entertainment capital known as Hollywood could also strike out on its own. L.A.'s Local Agency Formation Commission, a state-approved group that fights urban sprawl, announced last week that Hollywood — a now somewhat tarnished area hoping to revive its golden era — could pay its own bills and thrive as a stand-alone entity. If voters decide to break off both areas, it would reduce L.A.'s population by approximately 1.5 million people, or roughly 40%. Secession of the San Fernando Valley alone would cause L.A.--currently the country's second largest city — to drop a notch down to third place, behind Chicago. (The Valley itself would rank as the U.S.'s sixth largest city.) Should Hollywood also become autonomous, its parameters would encompass landmarks such as Griffith Park, Paramount Studios and, of course, the Hollywood sign. BY JEFFREY RESSNER

Japan's Hooligan Alert
When the brackets were drawn for this year's World Cup soccer tournament, England's games were assigned to Japan and not to the other co-host, South Korea. But to the Japanese, England plus soccer equals one thing: trouble. So the country is on full-scale alert for a hooligan invasion, especially when rivals Argentina and England face off in Sapporo on June 7. Hotels have established Brit-free zones to keep troublemakers away from everybody else. Merchants with shops near stadiums are boarding up their windows. Organizers will try to keep fans from different countries away from one another after games by posting exit signs leading in one direction in one language (say, English) and exit signs pointing the opposite way in another language (say, Spanish). Hooligans, they figure, aren't bilingual. The police are calling in reinforcements, including rugby players, to help control crowds. Britain is lending 20 hooligan spotters to scan the immigration lines at Narita International Airport. Police also are stocking up on net-shooting rifles, a la Spider-Man, that can snare up to three people at a time. "I promise we'll catch every hooligan in a great big net," Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara says. "No one will get away." BY TIM LARIMER

Verbatim
"You don't expect a war. You don't want a war. But, as the saying goes, keep your powder dry." GEORGE FERNANDES, Indian Defense Minister, on his country's conflict with Pakistan

"I think I'd be too hard on a boy--every day, trying to make him a man, getting him ready for white people." CHRIS ROCK, comedian, on why he is glad his wife is expecting a girl

"It was an organization full of fine people who loved America, but the organization didn't meet the times." GEORGE W. BUSH, endorsing the FBI's reorganization plan

"There is a real cost to the openness of a free society if every group needs to be concerned that the fbi is listening in." DAVID D. COLE, law professor, Georgetown University, on Justice Department proposals to loosen restrictions on the FBI

"I apologize to all the faithful of this archdiocese, which I love so much...for the scandal that has occurred because of my sinfulness." ARCHBISHOP REMBERT G. WEAKLAND of Milwaukee, who is retiring after allegations that he sexually abused a student

"I think it's a shut-up fund." ELLEN MARIANI, on why she sued rather than accept money from the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund

Sources: AP (3), New York Times (3)

The Big Airport Revolt
A key aspect of Washington's aviation-security plan is seriously flawed, and the 39 managers of the country's largest airports have taken the bold step of saying so in a strongly worded joint letter sent last week to Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta. A copy of the letter, obtained by TIME, bluntly takes on the new agency charged with fixing security, the Transportation Security Administration. The letter says the bomb-detection devices the TSA has ordered installed by Dec. 31 will create crowds of people in terminals who could be targets for attacks; the machines would be installed near terminal entrances and thus create huge congestion there. The devices would quickly become outdated, the letter adds, yet require big construction costs. The directors from airports including those in Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Miami, San Francisco and Washington say the TSA's one-size-fits-all security system cannot — and should not — be carried out in the next seven months. For the first time, they call on Mineta to stop or slow the process immediately by getting Congress to back off the deadlines. "Somebody needed to tell the truth," says Jeff Fegan, the director in Dallas and one of the letter's authors. Mineta's office says he has no intention of trying to change the law. BY SALLY B. DONNELLY

Tongues That Go out of Style
Linguists at the University Of Manchester in Britain last week called attention to the world's endangered languages, some of which have as few as three speakers. Here is a stat that will leave you speechless: experts say 50% of the world's 6,000 languages may be extinct by 2050. These tongues include Tofa, spoken by some 200 in Siberia, and Votic, used by 30 people on the Russian coast of the Gulf of Finland. Other examples:

NORTH AMERICA With roughly 85,000 speakers left, Pennsylvania German, featured in the hit 1985 film Witness, is on the wane, as are most Native American languages. Also in danger: Gullah, spoken by descendants of former slaves, mostly on the islands off South Carolina and Georgia.

--MIDDLE EAST Modern Aramaic (400,000 speakers) is a descendant of Aramaic, thought to have been Jesus' native tongue. Found in the Talmud, it was the main spoken language of Galilee in the 1st centuries B.C. and A.D.

--ASIA Many are trying to save the southern Chinese Nushu, perhaps the world's only language just for women. Often written on silk screens, one of its popular sayings is "Beside a well, one does not thirst. Beside a sister, one does not despair."

--SOUTH AMERICA Among the 300 tongues of Lowland Amazonia are Oro Win (three speakers) and Piraha (300), which has a sound like kids imitating motors and has the fewest consonants (eight) and vowels (three) discovered in a language.

--EUROPE Faeroese (50,000 speakers) doesn't get protected by the European Union minority-language bureau: the Faeroe Islands don't belong. Others at risk are Sardinian, from the Italian island of Sardinia, and Yiddish, on the wane since World War II.

--AUSTRALIA The country's Aboriginal languages, such as the tribal Queensland tongues Wanyi, Wakka Wakka and Kullilli, are dying fast — at an estimated rate of one every three years.

Will the Church Get Tough?
America's 285 Roman Catholic bishops are nearing agreement on a new, one-strike-and-you're-out policy for priests who commit child sexual abuse. The agreement, still being polished by a handful of bishops and Cardinals around the country, is expected to be ready for debate and a vote when the rest of the church's top leadership meets in Dallas next week. "No one knows exactly what they will do," said a source. "But they will approve some form of zero-tolerance policy." After years in which some dioceses quietly reassigned troubled clerics or settled disputes out of court, the approach is designed to encourage local bishops to take swift action. The new policy will affirm the power of all bishops to remove priests from public ministry and bar them from church offices — or defrock them altogether. The bishops are also mulling the creation of lay review boards to assess allegations of abuse and give bishops advice about matching punishments to crimes. BY MICHAEL DUFFY