And now, back to the other news

Though the fallout over the Nov. 7 election and the legal challenges to it have dominated news coverage for the past five weeks, other significant events have happened. Here’s some of the news you might have missed:

AROUND THE U.S.

Alabama strikes marriage ban

Alabama voters quietly removed a 1901 state law, the last one in the nation, banning marriage between black and white people. The U.S. Supreme Court had struck down such laws in 1967, but it took the ballot initiative to have it removed from Alabama’s Constitution.

Retarded killer’s death on hold

In Huntsville, Texas, Johnny Paul Penry, a mentally retarded man who raped and murdered a woman in 1979, was granted a stay of execution by the U.S. Supreme Court less than four hours before he was to be killed by lethal injection. The court later said it would hear Penry’s appeal to clarify how much opportunity jurors in death penalty cases should have to consider a defendant’s intelligence. The execution remains on hold until the justices issue a ruling, expected by July.

LAPD corruption convictions

Fourteen months after a rogue police officer told investigators of a widespread culture of corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department, three officers were convicted of framing gang members. These convictions, the first in the scandal, followed the dismissal of more than 100 criminal cases tainted by police abuses and the imposition of federal oversight of the department. The verdicts, in which a fourth officer was acquitted, were a harsh blow to the police because the jury members accepted the word of lifelong street criminals over that of seasoned police officers, a striking loss of credibility for the force.

Drug roadblocks barred

The U.S. Supreme Court drew some limits on police officers conducting traffic checks to search for drugs. The court ruled that stopping traffic at checkpoints to interdict drugs is going too far. The court’s 6-3 decision said a government’s general interest in reducing crime could not override the general rule that a police search requires some ground for suspicion.

Recession talk resurfaces

[AP photo] A Palestinian youth uses a slingshot to hurl stones at an Israeli tank in Gaza. The violence between Israelis and Palestinians continued as Israeli Prime MInister Ehud Barak agreed to new elections in Israel.

After the longest economic expansion in American history, and with the latest economic report showing the economy still growing at a decent 2.4 percent annual rate, recession talk is suddenly upon us.

Part of that talk comes from the fact the economy is slowing — the third quarter’s growth was less than half the rate of the second quarter — and some comes from fear that the fall in technology stocks may be signaling a problem.

And then there is politics. “We may well be on the front edge of a recession,” Dick Cheney, the Republican vice president-elect, said recently.

Cheney used the recession warning as a pitch for a tax cut soon after (as he sees it) he and Gov. George W. Bush take office. He’d be happy if any recession is blamed on the Clinton administration.

Black and white and loved all over

Of all the attempts of the Chinese Communist government to win over Washington, none has attracted so much advance good will as the delivery of two sad-eyed giant pandas named Mei Xiang and Tian Tian. China will receive $1-million a year from the National Zoo, where officials expect the pair will become an instant star attraction and hope they will relax enough to produce the viable offspring that eluded their predecessors, the late Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing.

AROUND THE WORLD

Clinton tours Vietnam

Throngs of people mobbed President Clinton wherever he went during his trip to Vietnam. He was the first American president to visit the country since the end of the war 25 years ago.

Mideast update

Hope for a renewed peace continued to dim as the violence continued. An attack on a school bus killed two and maimed several children. Israel responded with an intense bombardment of Palestinian territory. Egypt, one of Israel’s two Arab allies, temporarily broke off diplomatic relations. Two days later, Israeli soldiers shot to death a carful of Palestinians in Gaza, that was followed by another terror bombing inside Israel. Two people were wounded and scores injured in the town of Hadera.Facing political turmoil at home, Prime Minister Ehud Barak agreed to hold elections in the spring. He later said he would resign and hold elections within two months. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his intention to seek re-election.

Milosevic tries a comeback

The ousted Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic began work on a comeback attempt. He made two television appearances, one to announce plans to lead his Socialist Party of Serbia in Serbian parliamentary elections in December.

Peru’s Fujimori out

Peru’s President Alberto Fujimori was the longest-serving leader in South America, and the continent’s most authoritarian, until he submitted his resignation to the Congress in an unsigned fax from Japan. Succeeding him was Valentin Paniagua, who had just been elected president of the Congress. Fujimori had suffered a series of scandals since his tainted re-election to a third term in May and was finally brought down by a videotape showing his former intelligence chief, Vladimoiro Montesinos, bribing a congressman.

Doctor-assisted suicide approved

Dutch lawmakers approved a bill allowing doctors to assist seriously ill and suffering patients in their wish to die. The law, which is expected to go into effect next year, will make the Netherlands the first country to legalize doctor-assisted suicide, a practice that was widely tolerated but technically remained a crime.

Battered, bruised and coming down

The long-lived and, in recent years, much-derided Mir space station will be intentionally crashed into the Pacific Ocean in February. The station, which was launched in 1985, was supposed to have lasted just three years, but over time, as it survived electrical blackouts, computer crashes, fires and a puncture by another spacecraft, the Mir became for many beleaguered Russian citizens a symbol of their nation’s technological ingenuity and perseverance.

Austrian tunnel fire kills 159

Austrian soldiers working day and night extracted the bodies of 159 skiers from the charred ruins of a cable car that was destroyed by a flash fire in an Alpine tunnel. The skiers were making their way to the Kitzsteinhorn glacier when fire erupted in the rear of the cable car, most likely because of a technical defect, and was fanned by the updraft in the tunnel. Only 12 passengers were able to escape by smashing windows in the cable car and clambering down the tunnel to safety. The deaths were particularly unsettling since they are only the latest resulting from a string of fires in Alpine tunnels in recent years.

Mexico gets new president

Vicente Fox, wearing cowboy boots and promising change, became the president of Mexico on Dec. 1. His swearing-in marked the end of seven decades of one-party rule and the start of a newly democratic era in the nation.

Chretien remains in office

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s Liberal Party firmly held on to power in national elections, and strengthened its majority in Parliament. The victory followed one of the most bitter and personalized campaigns in Canadian history.

Chretien, who took a big gamble by calling an early election, became the first prime minister in 50 years to take a majority of the seats in the House of Commons in three consecutive elections.

The victory will continue Liberal policies of supporting a strong federal government and spending to support the economy. The party has promised to recycle budget surpluses through tax cuts. Close relations with the United States on political and economic matters are unlikely to change.

Aristide’s win contested

In Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected president in a contest boycotted by opposition parties and foreign observer missions. Aristide was restored to power by U.S. troops six years ago after he was toppled by a military coup. He reluctantly turned over power to his prime minister, Rene Laval, after considering constitutional changes to allow him to serve a second consecutive term.

The Provisional Electoral Council, controlled by Aristide’s party, estimated that 60.5 percent of eligible voters turned out despite calls for a boycott. But Aristide’s rivals said the actual figure could be in the single digits. The dueling estimates were more than just a test of Aristide’s popularity. The turnout also could determine whether foreign governments and international organizations accept the results; the State Department said it believes few Haitians participated.

Pinochet arrest delayed by appeal

When a Chilean judge charged Gen. Augusto Pinochet in the kidnappings of opponents after he overthrew the Socialist government of Salvador Allende in 1973, and then ordered the general’s house arrest, relatives of the country’s disappeared uncorked bottles of champagne. But the retired dictator’s lawyers appealed, arguing that the arrest order was not preceded by a formal interrogation. The appeals court voted to suspend the arrest order until it decides whether to uphold or repeal his indictment of the 85-year-old general.

Fighting mad cow disease

First the British outlawed meat and bone parts in animal feed to try to prevent the spread of mad cow disease. Then the French — watching their own cases of mad cow increase — did too. Now all 15 of the European Union’s members have banned the feed, and also ordered that cattle over 30 months old are to be removed from the food chain unless they test free of the disease.

Tinker, Tailor, American ...

The cold war made a brief comeback in a trial that seemed intended to show that Russia still has secrets worth stealing, to wit: a rocket-propelled torpedo system called the Squall that Russia would like to sell to foreign navies. The case was that of a former naval intelligence officer, Edmond Pope, who was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 20 years for acquiring allegedly secret information about the Squall. President Vladimir Putin took the role of a leader, and former spy, who backs his intelligence chiefs. But after a clemency-board recommendation, Putin agreed to pardon the American.

Global warming treaty on ice

A three-year effort to conclude an international treaty on global warming collapsed when the United States and the European Union failed to resolve a dispute over how to curb the release of greenhouse gases that scientists say pose one of the most grave threats to the world’s environment.

The climactic round of negotiations, which brought representatives of more than 170 nations to the Netherlands, fell apart after some EU countries, notably Germany, rejected an 11th-hour compromise.

The countries claimed the compromise would allow the United States to escape too much of its responsibility as the world’s biggest polluter.

The conference’s demise leaves the international campaign to fight global warming in disarray at a time when scientists contend there is convincing evidence that the buildup of heat-trapping chemicals in the atmosphere may cause average temperatures to rise by 6 degrees to 12 degrees Fahrenheit this century.

Decline in African HIV cases

The number of people who became infected with the AIDS virus in sub-Saharan Africa decreased this year for the first time since the epidemic began three decades ago, according to a United Nations AIDS Program report.

About 3.8-million people will become infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in sub-Saharan Africa this year, compared with about 4-million last year, the report said. Officials of UNAIDS, a joint program run by the United Nations, the World Health Organization and the World Bank, don’t know whether the slight decline marks a true turning point in the epidemic or a momentary pause. Nevertheless, the drop raises the possibility that the epidemic may be stabilizing in Africa.

-- Compiled by Ron Brackett with information from the New York Times, Washington Post and Associated Press.