The New York Times

TAX DEBATE - Republican leaders in the House scrambled to head off a revolt by moderates within the party and avert a humiliating defeat on their signature issue of tax cuts.

KENNEDY - John F. Kennedy Jr. turned sharply away from Martha's Vineyard just before his plane began plunging toward the sea Friday night, Federal investigators said, leading several authorities on aviation to conclude that he had become lost or disoriented.

GUN LAWS - Two major gun makers are negotiating with the New York State Attorney General, Eliot L. Spitzer, over a lawsuit he plans to file against gun manufacturers.

ISRAEL - The fate of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is one of the thorniest issues as Israel negotiates a final peace with the Palestinians, and the settler population has the potential to act as a destabilizing force.

CHINA - In what could be the start of a broad crackdown, dozens of leaders of the Buddhist Law movement were detained by the police in 14 Chinese cities, according to a Hong Kong-based human rights group.

CUBA - In the heaviest exodus since 1994, more than 1,500 Cubans have made it ashore in South Florida, not on rafts but in the boats of smugglers, who bring them in close enough to swim ashore or launch a small dinghy.

MEDICAL ETHICS - In an attempt to settle a bitter feud over who should get donated organs, a panel of independent experts recommended that scarce livers be distributed across broad geographic areas so that the sickest patients receive them first.

UNIVERSITY APPOINTMENT - New York Gov. Pataki and Mayor Giuliani have selected Matthew Goldstein, the president of Adelphi University, as their choice to be the next Chancellor of the City University of New York.

TRADE DEFICIT - A surge of imports driven by the continued strength of the American economy pushed the U.S. trade deficit to another record in May -- over $21 billion, a figure fueled by rising oil prices and growing evidence that China is using exports to support its lagging economy.

UN AND US - Opening a new rift between the Pentagon and the United Nations, Defense Secretary Cohen and Gen. Henry Shelton, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, criticized the U.N. for not moving faster to create a new police force and civil administration in Kosovo.

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