News Briefs

February 27, 1996
Web posted at: 1:15 p.m. EST

Extension expected for Whitewater hearings

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle and Democrats are expected Tuesday to offer Republicans an extension for Whitewater hearings. The extension will last about four more weeks, Daschle's spokeswoman told CNN.

The Democrat proposal, however, falls far short of Republican demands for an indefinite extension beyond the Senate Whitewater Committee's current limit of Thursday. Republicans say key Whitewater witnesses will be unavailable in the next few weeks.

"The notion that Republicans would have an open-ended extension is not acceptable to the [Democratic] caucus," said Ranit Schmelzer, Daschle's spokeswoman.

Minnie Pearl hospitalized

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (CNN) -- Legendary country comedian Minnie Pearl was hospitalized Monday, and doctors were examining her for a possible brain seizure or stroke, her spokeswoman said.

Doctors had not yet diagnosed the 83-year-old Pearl's ailment as of late Monday. Spokeswoman Judy Seal did not give further information.

Pearl, whose enthusiastic "Howdy" reverberated off Grand Ole Opry walls for more than 50 years, spent 20 years on the rural parody "Hee-Haw" as Grandpa Jones strummed the banjo and she rang out folk songs.

Pearl's trademark is a flowered straw hat with a dangling price tag. She appeared weekly on The Nashville Network until a stroke in 1991. She has not performed since then.

Grand Ole Opry

FDA investigates claims of diluted apple juice

TAMPA, Florida (CNN) -- The Food and Drug Administration announced Monday it has begun an investigation looking into complaints that products sold as 100 percent apple juice were diluted with sugar water.

The agency made its announcement nearly a week after Minute Maid juices sued six suppliers of apple juice concentrate in Tampa federal court, claiming they sold diluted products.

Minute Maid is withdrawing all 100 percent apple juice products from warehouses, but not grocery stores because its nutrient value has not been significantly cut from FDA standards.

The agency said, without elaboration, that other brand names are affected. The FDA said U.S. apple juice sellers, who paid $10 a gallon for 100 percent concentrate but got the equivalent of 90 percent juice, were defrauded by their juice suppliers.

Overseas counterfeiting no threat, report says

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A congressional report released Tuesday said that although counterfeiting of U.S. currency overseas is increasing, it poses no threat to the nation's economy.

The report said that in fiscal 1994, an estimated $208.7 million of counterfeit currency was in circulation, a tiny fraction of the $380 billion of U.S. currency.

The General Accounting Office in its report, however, said the exact extent of the counterfeiting problem "is impossible to determine."

The agency, the investigative arm of Congress, reported that while Treasury Department and Secret Service officials believe the "counterfeiting was not economically significant, they considered any counterfeiting to be a serious problem."

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