Inequalities, Health-Care Coverage, Estate Tax CHARLES ANDREWS The author of the forthcoming From Capitalism to Equality, Andrews said today: “Before we celebrate the economy’s alleged prosperity and progress, we should tally the exhaustion it is causing. The average husband-and-wife family works six hours today for every five hours worked in 1979. The percentage of employees who work 49 hours a week or more rose from 13 percent in 1976 to 20 percent today. If there is a bit of prosperity today in our role as consumers, the deeper truth is that today’s economy consumes people’s lives.” SARA NICHOLS National spokesperson…

WILL GLENNON Glennon is author of Fathering: Strengthening Connection with Your Children No Matter Where They Are, for which he interviewed 180 fathers, aged 15 to 87, almost all of whom cried during their interviews. He said today: “Fathers need to get deeply engaged in the upbringing of their children. Fathers don’t want to be isolated, children don’t want them to be disconnected and mothers don’t want them to be absent — physically or emotionally. But we have patterns of how we raise our children which keep fathers distant, cost them emotionally, cause pain in their relationships, making boys more…

The following analysts are available for interviews about the U.S. visit by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat scheduled to begin on Wednesday: NASEER ARURI Professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, former board member of Amnesty International and author of The Obstruction of Peace: The U.S., Israel, and the Palestinians, Aruri said today: “The approach of Syria’s Hafez Assad toward Israel was based on equality, land for peace, an international framework, and normalization with Israel after it fully withdraws from occupied territory. By contrast, Arafat’s approach — despite lip service to the contrary — is open-ended. It would…

Brookings Leads; Left-of-Center Think Tanks Decrease WASHINGTON — A study released today found that conservative think tanks and the centrist Brookings Institution dominated much of the national media debate last year. Of the 25 leading think tanks studied, Brookings had the most citations (2,883), twice as many media mentions as the next-ranked conservative/libertarian Cato Institute (1,428 cites). The conservative Heritage Foundation, which had rivaled Brookings in prominence a few years ago, has fallen to third place (1,419 cites), while the conservative American Enterprise Institute (1,263 cites) is the fourth most cited think tank in the U.S. media. These four think…

The following analysts are available to comment on the Microsoft decision: NORMAN HAWKER Hawker is a law professor at Western Michigan University specializing in antitrust issues. JUDY SLOAN Sloan is a professor at Southwestern University Law School in Los Angeles. ROBERT LANDE Lande is senior research scholar at the American Antitrust Institute and professor of law at the University of Baltimore. More Information For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167 More Information More Information

MARTIN A. LEE Author of The Beast Reawakens, a book on neofascism, Lee said today: “President Clinton’s visit to Germany comes at a time when that country is mired in a major political scandal, involving secret slush funds and illegal influence-peddling by big business. The scandal has resulted in the fall from grace of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl and several other leaders of the Christian Democratic Union, now the main opposition party in Germany. Thus far, U.S. officials have yet to acknowledge the role that the U.S. government played in setting the stage for this scandal. For years, Washington turned…

WILLIAM HARTUNG Senior research fellow at the World Policy Institute and co-author of the recent report “Tangled Web: The Marketing of Missile Defense, 1994-2000,” Hartung said today: “In its ongoing effort to ‘triangulate’ by co-opting Republican issues, the Clinton administration has met right-wing missile defense boosters more than half way. Meanwhile, Republicans have stepped up their calls for an elaborate, multi-tiered system akin to Ronald Reagan’s ill-fated Star Wars scheme. The nation’s four major missile contractors — Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and TRW — are looking to missile defense to revive them from mismanagement and technical problems that have slashed…

United Airlines said today it intends to buy U.S. Airways. The following analysts are available for interviews: PAUL HUDSON Executive director of the Aviation Consumer Action Project, Hudson said today: “If this merger is approved without major divesting of routes and other restrictions, the ‘Big Six’ will quickly become the ‘Big Three’ and U.S. airline passengers will be the major losers. No airline should control more than 25 percent to 30 percent of the nation’s airline seats or over 40 percent of seats in a particular region. This merger would give United dominant control of most routes in the Northeast…

SIMONA SHARONI Author of Gender and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Sharoni is currently a professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She said today: “If there is any relationship between the recent mini-intifada and the negotiations, it is that the two issues that have been central to the protests — the Palestinian refugees and the release of political prisoners — have not been seriously addressed. Those who are familiar with the Oslo Accords, its supplements and its rocky implementation should not be surprised that Palestinians have once again taken to the streets…. If Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon is designed to…

ROBERT E. SCOTT An international trade economist with the Economic Policy Institute and author of the recently released report “China and the States,” Scott said today: “In April, the Clinton administration published several hundred pages of state-by-state ‘opportunity reports’ purporting to show that ‘the passage of PNTR [Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China]…would open new export and employment opportunities in all 50 states.’ These reports were issued in an attempt to persuade Congress to approve the recently negotiated trade deal with China to ease its entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). However, these reports not only fail to provide…