NOTEBOOK

By KATHLEEN ADAMS, JANICE M. HOROWITZ, NADYA LABI, LINA LOFARO, EMILY MITCHELL, MEGAN RUTHERFORD AND ALAIN L. SANDERS

WINNERS & LOSERS

YOUR TRUE COLORS ARE SHOWING

[WINNERS]

THE FOUNDING FATHERS The line-item veto is judged unconstitutional. Madison can stop spinning in his grave

REPRESENTATIVE DAN BURTON Forget the faux bipartisanship. Dan issues 101 subpoenas, all aimed at the White House

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT Sixteen descendants of F.D.R. say their jaunty forebear should be depicted in a wheelchair

[& LOSERS]

REPRESENTATIVE TOM DELAY Civility fails as the testy No. 3 Republican is led off the floor after shoving colleague David Obey

HONG KONG Tiananmen Square with boutiques? New, no more Mr. Nice Guy rulers nix civil liberties

THE CIA Sorry, old boy. Aloof agency admits it knew all along poison gas was in Iraqi ammo dumps

LAST STOP...WHEREVER

You have every right, according to the Supreme Court, to believe that you will one day be an angel, a bull in Wyoming or the captain of the Starship Hale-Bopp. In 1944 the court ruled that the free exercise of religion "embraces the right to maintain theories of life and of death and of the hereafter which are rank heresy to followers of the orthodox faiths." By that definition, just about anything goes. In the Encyclopedia of American Religions, J. Gordon Melton lists more than 2,100 religions. Herewith, a few of the more unorthodox ones--all of which, by the way, are tax exempt:

Forget about sheep: cloning is as old as mankind--according to the Raelian Movement, which claims 35,000 members. Raelians believe extraterrestrials called Elohim cloned humans and in 1973 contacted Rael, a Frenchman whose mother was inseminated by aliens. Rael now teaches a sensual technique designed to inspire awareness of infinity. Raelians hope to build an embassy in Jerusalem to signal humanity's readiness to welcome the Elohim.

Founded in 1954, the Aetherius Society preaches that our negative Karma slows our spiritual rebirth in space. But despite our collective bad behavior, we are still aided by friendly, invisible space beings called Cosmic Masters. In 1958, Sir George King, a British yoga expert and the religion's founder, was told to prepare mankind for the Lord of Karma. After his coming, the Chosen will eventually merge with other life streams, becoming stars and planets.

Build it, and divinity will come. That's the hope of the Trinity Foundation, which is trying to erect the Templar, a pyramid of pink granite and obsidian with a 500-sq.-ft. base. It does not call itself a religion, but Trinity has certainly mapped out the hereafter. Communicating through the movement's founder, Norma Milanovich, the space being Kuthumi says that the Templar will transform Earth into a star and transport us to the divine realm of the Fifth Dimension.

TIME IS UNCLE SAM'S MONEY

The nonpartisan Tax Foundation reported that the average American spends 1 hr. and 53 min. of each workday just to pay the Federal Government. Here's how your day breaks down according to where some of that cash is going:

DEBT INTEREST 22 min. 33 sec.

SOCIAL SECURITY 20 min. 18 sec.

DEFENSE 17 min. 58 sec.

MEDICAID 5 min. 31 sec.

AFDC Aid to Families with Dependent Children 21 sec.

NEA National Endowment of the Arts 1/2 sec.

(During 1997, approximately 7.6% of federal spending will be financed by borrowing)

HEALTH REPORT

THE GOOD NEWS

Put the heat on. The risk of heart attack--a major cause of postoperative death--can be cut in half by warming a patient to normal temperatures during SURGERY. Body temperature tends to plummet during an operation, which can cause arteries to constrict and blood pressure to soar. The cost of warming up? Just $15 for a special no-chill blanket.

Another slice of lox, please. A major study, which followed 2,000 subjects for 30 years, concludes that a mere seven ounces of fish a week can cut by 60% the risk of having a HEART ATTACK. That goes for both lean and fatty fish.

Breasts, not bottles. More new moms are BREAST-FEEDING today than at any time over the past 15 years. Experts believe breast milk is the best form of nutrition for babies.

THE BAD NEWS

Blooming too early? At age 8, fully 48% of black girls and 15% of white girls begin to show the first signs of PUBERTY, though 11 is the age when most doctors start to look for it. Researchers are worried that the early onset may be owing to chemicals in the environment that mimic the action of estrogen. As for the racial disparity, they can't explain it.

Hold the salt, even for junior. Infants on a low-salt diet for the first six months of life--consuming slightly more than half a teaspoonful a day--had lower BLOOD PRESSURE readings 15 years later than those who ate three times as much.

There may be a new heartbreak of PSORIASIS. An ultraviolet-light therapy called PUVA, when used for years to treat severe psoriasis, significantly raises the risk of the deadly skin cancer melanoma.

Sources--GOOD NEWS: Journal of the American Medical Association; New England Journal of Medicine; Pediatrics; BAD NEWS: Pediatrics; Hypertension; New England Journal of Medicine

FOLLOW-UP

A year ago, TIME devoted a cover story to the nation's abandonment of its four-decades-long struggle to desegregate its educational system. "The combination of legal revisionism and residential segregation," we wrote, "is effectively ending America's bold attempt to integrate the public schools." This month the Harvard Project on School Desegregation issued an alarming update: the 1991-94 period, the latest for which statistics are available, saw the largest shift back toward segregation for blacks since the landmark 1954 desegregation decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. And black students are not the only ones to suffer increasing isolation. Notes education professor Gary Orfield, co-author of the study: "One of our most sobering findings is that the group that is going to become the predominant minority population in this country, the Latinos, is even more isolated than the blacks. They're being locked into inferior, impoverished schools, and that means their future is threatened." Orfield's prediction: even more rapid escalation of current trends.