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December 8, 1995
Web posted at: 1:45 a.m. EST
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A new AIDS-fighting drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration Thursday will become available to the public Saturday.
The drug saquinavir disables the enzyme that allows the virus to replicate itself. It is the first protease inhibitor approved anywhere in the world.
Taken with other medicines which work on other parts of the virus, the combination can help stall the development of AIDS symptoms.
Saquinavir is manufactured by Hoffman-La Roche Inc., of Nutley, New Jersey, and will cost $5,800 a year wholesale.
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (CNN) -- It was 54 years ago Thursday at 7:55 a.m. Hawaii time when the Japanese began their attack on Pearl Harbor, an event that drew the United States into World War II.
Former Chief Petty Officer John Finn, 86, returned to Pearl Harbor Thursday along with other veterans to commemorate the surprise attack upon the USS Arizona in 1941 that killed 2,403 men, women, and children.
Finn kept firing his machine gun at the attacking Japanese planes, despite numerous wounds. "I heard a horrible roar astern of me," the retired Navy officer said. "It made a wingover down towards the hangars where I was headed. I said, 'Hey, this is the real thing.'"
Finn is one of 15 survivors who received the Medal of Honor for heroism in the attack.
Many civilians were killed, but the greatest loss of life was aboard the Arizona. Many of its 1,177 crewmen remain entombed in the sunken hull.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Senate narrowly passed and sent on to the White House Thursday a spending bill that changes President Clinton's crime-fighting program.
The measure, passed 50 to 48, includes large cuts for the Commerce and State Departments.
The Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill calls for ending the Clinton administration's program that would put 100,000 new police officers on the street. Instead, the money would go to local governments, which would decide how to spend the money on anti-crime programs.
Republicans say that their plan cuts bureaucracy and that local governments know the best way to use crime-fighting money in their communities.
Democrats warn that sending money to communities in lump sums could result in cities using it for prosecutors and probation officers instead of putting more police on the streets.
The president is expected to veto the bill.
MEMPHIS, Tennessee (CNN) -- St. Jude's Children's Hospital is $1 million richer, thanks to a fast-food restaurant's game and an anonymous donor's charity.
The donor sent the Memphis hospital an "instant winner" game piece from the McDonald's Monopoly game promotion. The plain, white envelope that held the piece had been postmarked in Dallas and had no return address.
The fast-food giant confirmed it is a winning piece: one of only three $1 million tickets issued. Odds of finding one are more than 206 million-to-one.
McDonald's said it will honor the donation, even though the official rules state that game pieces are non-transferable.
St. Jude's specializes in treating children's catastrophic diseases. Patients receive treatment regardless of their ability to pay.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- James Reston, the former New York Times reporter and columnist whose award-winning prose graced the paper's pages for 50 years, has died. He was 86.
Reston, a native of Scotland, died Wednesday at his home in Washington after a long battle against cancer, his son Thomas Reston said.
Reston has been called the greatest journalist of his generation. He won two Pulitzer Prizes. The first was for breaking news coverage of the Allies' plan for forming the United Nations in 1945. The second was for coverage of the 1956 presidential campaign.
Presidents were known to have confided in Reston and to have integrated his suggestions into their national policy.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- A needle used to stab a 6-year-old girl on a subway train was apparently free of blood or other body fluids that can transmit the AIDS virus, prosecutors said Thursday.
Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney, confirmed newspaper reports on police testing but would not comment further.
Collette Lopez was stabbed in the leg by an escaped mental patient while traveling last weekend with her mother and sister. She was tested for the AIDS virus Tuesday, but won't get the results for three to four weeks.
Doctors say it is unlikely Lopez would contract AIDS through the needle wound. However, she will be tested frequently over the next few months.
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