THE WEEK

By KATHLEEN ADAMS, JANICE HOROWITZ, LINA LOFARO, MICHAEL QUINN, JEFFERY C. RUBIN, ALAIN L. SANDERS, ANASTASIA TOUFEXIS AND SIDNEY URQUHART

NATION

PACKING IT IN

Before a hushed and somber Senate, a teary Bob Packwood told his colleagues, "It is my duty to resign." The Oregon Republican's decision followed a stunning and unanimous vote by the Ethics Committee to recommend his expulsion. The committee issued its final report on the case, which found that Packwood had engaged in sexual misconduct against nearly a score of women, improperly sought a job for his wife from lobbyists and altered pertinent evidence. What ensued was a gripping 24-hour endgame that saw Packwood first declaring his intention to fight on in the full Senate, then slowly realizing he lacked the votes to keep his seat, which he will formally vacate on Oct. 1. Delaware's William Roth is poised to assume Packwood's chairmanship of the powerful Finance Committee--at a time when the committee has Medicare and welfare reform on its plate.

CONGRESS TO THE DEFENSE

Back from summer vacation, Congress rolled up its sleeves to begin tackling the nation's toughest issue: the budget. Though generally trumpeting their frugality, both the Senate and the House passed defense-spending bills that exceed the President's request by more than $6 billion each. Numerous differences remain to be resolved between the Senate's $243 billion defense measure and the House's $244 billion version. Among them: a Senate decision to stop funding more B-2 bombers.

FIRST WACO, NOW RUBY RIDGE

A rapt Senate panel listened sympathetically to white separatist Randy Weaver's account of the deadly standoff that occurred between his family and the FBI at his remote Ruby Ridge, Idaho, cabin in 1992. The encounter, which began when federal agents came to arrest Weaver on firearms charges, resulted in the shooting death of Weaver's wife, his son and a federal marshal--and accusations that the FBI used excessive force to end the siege and then tried to cover it up. In their testimony, federal law-enforcement officials defended their initial decision to bring firearms charges against Weaver. The Justice Department is investigating the case, and five FBI officials have been suspended.

GOING, GOING...

The Democrats' dim chances to recapture the Senate next year faded even more when Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell, 76, one of the chamber's most liberal members, said he would retire at the end of his current term. He becomes the seventh Demo crat to announce he will step down, a number that now endangers the Democrats' ability even to retain enough seats to sustain a filibuster.

STARR STRUCK

Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr's investigation suffered its first major setback when an Arkansas federal judge threw out one of the two indictments Starr recently obtained against Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker. Judge Henry Woods ruled that charges growing out of a cable-TV deal, which alleged Tucker had falsified a loan application and schemed to evade taxes, dealt with matters beyond the counsel's Whitewater jurisdiction. Starr said he would appeal.

THE "FUHRMAN TRIAL"

The murder trial of O.J. Simpson was once again awash in the racial animus of former L.A.P.D. detective Mark Fuhrman. A series of witnesses vividly testified before the jury about the detective's vocal hatred of blacks and his repeated use of the epithet nigger. Fuhrman was dramatically dragooned back into the courtroom, where (with the jury absent) he invoked his privilege against self-incrimination when asked about his truthfulness and the possible planting of evidence in the case. At the behest of the prosecution, an appeals court reversed a ruling issued by Judge Lance Ito that would have allowed him to tell jurors about Fuhrman's "unavailability" to testify further. The decision left the defense team--which had been poised to end its case without putting Simpson on the stand--to ponder its next move.

WORLD

AN ACCORD IN BOSNIA... Bosnia, Croatia and Yugo slavia--the latter acting for the Bosnian Serbs--reached an agreement that maintains Bosnia's territorial integrity but creates a separate Bosnian Serb state within its borders. The talks, held in Geneva, were "an important milestone in the search for peace," said U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke. Further negotiations on the deal, which gives the aggressor Serbs a full 49% of Bosnia, are to resume this week.

...BUT NATO KEEPS BOMBING

Unfortunately, the agreement made no mention of a cease-fire, and as the Bosnian Serbs failed to withdraw their heavy weapons from around Sarajevo, nato escalated its military campaign, doubling its target list and extending the scope of the air war across Bosnia. As poor weather frustrated bombing efforts and Serb resistance appeared to be holding firm, a nato official admitted, "It might take a longer campaign to inflict significant damage...This may be a question of lasting attrition, grinding them down rather than overwhelming them with a series of spectacular strikes in a couple of days."

HILLARY HITS HARD IN BEIJING

First Lady Hillary Clinton, speaking in Beijing at the U.N.'s Fourth World Conference on Women, denounced the abuse of women around the world and unflinchingly criticized her Chinese-government hosts. Although she did not mention China by name, she clearly targeted Beijing when she denounced forced abortions and sterilizations, and when she said, "Freedom means the right of people to assemble, organize and debate openly." The Chinese people's access to the conference has been carefully restricted by the government, and many foreign delegates have been harassed. To rousing cheers, Mrs. Clinton also detailed a host of other abuses suffered by women worldwide: female infanticide, slavery, forced prostitution, domestic violence, genital mutilation, bride burning and rape. Later, she explained rather genteelly that "to me, it was important to express how I felt and to do so as clearly as I could."

FRANCE BLASTED FOR NUKE TEST

Setting off a furor of antinuclear protest throughout Europe and the South Pacific, France exploded an underground atomic device at its Polynesian test site, Mururoa Atoll. President Jacques Chirac remained adamant that the tests were necessary for France to maintain its independent nuclear arsenal. But he left open the possibility that the planned eight-blast program might be cut short: "If we have the information that we need to move to simulation, it is clear I will stop the explosions." Hundreds of rioters in Tahiti, protesting the action of the islands' colonial ruler, fire-bombed the Territorial Assembly in the French Polynesian capital of Papeete, along with dozens of other buildings, and gutted the passenger terminal at the international airport.

LUIS BATTERS EASTERN CARIBBEAN

With winds of more than 130 m.p.h., Hurricane Luis roared over the Leeward Islands of the eastern Caribbean, killing at least 16 people and heavily damaging homes, hospitals and boats. Hardest hit: St. Martin, where eight people were confirmed dead, and Antigua, where as many as 80% of houses were damaged. Puerto Rico was spared when Luis turned sharply northwest just 24 hours before landfall was expected.

BOMBINGS CONTINUE IN FRANCE The latest in a series of bombings across France wounded 14 people outside a Jewish school in a suburb of Lyons; an earlier explosion in a crowded Paris street market wounded four others. Police believed the six bombs planted over the past six weeks were the work of Muslim militants, who have vowed to punish France for what they claim is its support of Algeria's government in its struggle with fundamentalists. By the end of the week, authorities had rounded up 31 suspects.

PLANTING BUSHES IN ASIA

Former President George Bush, visiting Vietnam with his wife Barbara on a four-day trip sponsored by Citibank, defended his decision not to open diplomatic relations with Vietnam while he was in office. "I'm not a revisionist. I disagree with McNamara," he said, referring to former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, a principal architect of the U.S. war against Vietnam, who recently said that the war was "terribly wrong." Next stop for the Bushes: China, on a visit sponsored by an Illinois fertilizer company; then they travel to Japan under the auspices of a group run by the wife of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon of Unification Church fame.

--By Kathleen Adams, Janice Horowitz, Lina Lofaro, Michael Quinn, Jeffery C. Rubin, Alain L. Sanders, Anastasia Toufexis and Sidney Urquhart