American Notes

IMPEACHMENT The Senate's Verdict

Although he is serving a twoyear prison sentence for filing false tax returns, Federal Judge Harry E. Claiborne refused to resign from the bench, insisting that he had been wrongfully convicted. The House demonstrated its disbelief by voting for impeachment in July. Last week, after its first impeachment trial in 50 years, the Senate found Claiborne guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanors," removing him from office and stripping him of the $78,700 salary he was drawing while imprisoned at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. Claiborne, 69, became the fifth federal official, all judges, ever ousted by impeachment. HISTORY Rerouting Columbus

Christopher Columbus took only 33 days to cross the Atlantic and discover the New World island he christened San Salvador in 1492. Yet he left no marker, and scholars have spent nearly 500 years since in debating the site. On the eastern rim of the Bahamas, Rum Cay, Grand Turk and Cat Island have been suggested. In 1942 Columbus Biographer Samuel Eliot Morison declared that the landfall was Watling Island, today's San Salvador.

Not so, said the National Geographic Society last week. After a five-year search and computerized scrutiny of documents, including Columbus' log, the society announced it was "98% certain" Columbus landed some 65 miles southeast of San Salvador on flat Samana Cay. The tiny island has long been uninhabited, but a search party stumbled onto pieces of Palmetto ware, a unique pottery made by the regional people Columbus named Indians. Says National Geographic Senior Associate Editor Joseph Judge, who led the search: "This is the solution to the mystery after 500 years." TECHNOLOGY Politics' Unholy Writ

While undergoing tests for a chronic back problem last winter, Republican Senator Paula Hawkins of Florida composed a letter intended to dispel doubts about her political future. "Dear Friend," it read, "I feel great! . . . We are about 30 days behind schedule in our fund raising . . ." The note looked as if it had been handwritten, yet if Hawkins had personally scribbled all 40,000 letters that went out, terminal writer's cramp would have set in. In fact, the note was run through a high-tech copier that duplicates the script.

Hawkins had relied on one of the new technologies that try for the personal touch in politics. The state of the art is the laser printer, which mimics handwriting. Some 100 House members already use laser printers, and the Senate may soon install them as standard office equipment. WILDLIFE Stopping a Skin Trade

Fast-growing financial services and aggressive retailing long ago transformed Singapore into an Asian powerhouse. Yet the island nation is also notorious for a less reputable trade. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has slapped a total ban on wildlife imports from Singapore because of its refusal to obey international protections for rare animals. A typical victim: the pangolin, a cute-as-a-button mammal, rather like an anteater, that is on the endangered list in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand but has been winding up in American-made handbags and cowboy boots. The illicit traffic is covered up with sketchy documents that omit the country of origin.

Singapore insists that the ban penalizes the nation even though it has already decided to abide by the animal-protection covenants in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Moreover, the government protests, the embargo has cut off the legitimate export of some $12 million worth of bred-in-Singapore tropical fish. ABORTION False Advertising

The Problem Pregnancy Center in Fort Worth was listed in the Yellow Pages last year under "abortion information." Pregnant women who telephoned and were inveigled into visiting the center, however, found themselves in the clutches of a right-to-life outfit. Unfair, said the Texas attorney general's office, which brought charges. Last week a jury decided the center had violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and should pay $39,000 in fines and $69,000 in attorneys' fees. The case is expected to encourage action against many of the estimated 400 right-to-life clinics nationwide that falsely suggest they offer abortions. Problem Pregnancy Center Attorney Shelby Sharpe said his client will appeal, but the legal action has already prompted the Yellow Pages to make a change: in the 1986-87 edition, the center is listed under "abortion alternative organizations."