U.S.

Week In Review

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

October 27, 2000 / 3:51 PM EDT / CBS

The closest U.S. presidential race in 20 years and violence in the Middle East dominated headlines this week.

The waning days of the race became increasingly nasty with questions of character, dueling Social Security plans and dire predictions of global warming. Both Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush were caught up short by an independent assessment of their social security reform plans.

CBS News estimates Bush and Gore are flat-even at 205 electoral votes each. It takes 270 to be elected. Less than two weeks before Election Day, the presidential race remains neck-and-neck in Florida, Michigan, Missouri and Wisconsin. Other states worth watching are Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Tennessee and California, where the polls are tightening.

In the Middle East, Israeli troops and Palestinians exchanged gunfire in the West Bank, and Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Barak declared a "time out" to the peace talks. Palestinian activists declared Friday a "day of rage" and asked Palestinian worshipers to march from mosques to Israeli checkpoints after noon prayers, the highlight of the Muslim religious week. More Palestinians died in renewed clashes with Israeli troops in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as the Jewish state strengthened security in fear of suicide bombings. The renewed violence came after a few days of relative calm and was expected to hamper efforts by U.S. President Bill Clinton to revive peace talks.

On Wednesday authorities in Yemen detained two suspected accomplices in the deadly attack on the U.S.S. Cole. Sources told said one is a carpenter who admits working on the boat that carried the explosives and the other, a woman who says she bought the car used to transport the boat to the harbor. The Pentagon acknowledged on Wednesday that U.S. forces at some Persian Gulf bases are on the highest alert. Most U.S. Navy ships in the region have taken to Sea, to better protect themselves.

On Friday, Microsoft said hackers broke into the company's computer network and gained access to blueprints for the company's latest software. Microsoft confirmed that the hackers did in fact access their source codes, but say the codes have not been tampered with in any way. Source codes are the building blocks of computer programs, and Microsoft's codes are the most coveted in the industry. With access to the source codes of Microsoft's operating systems, competitors could easily write programs that challenge the dominance of the computer giant's Office suite of word processing, spreadsheet and other applications. The company is working with the FBI, the Commerce Department and the National Security Council to solve the case, according to Microsoft spokesman Mark Murray.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was given a warm welcome upon her historic arrival to North Korea. She is the highest-ranking U.S. official to go to North Korea since the war in the 1950s. Albright reported an offhand remark y the country's leader suggesting that to ease relations with the U.S., he'll stop testing long-range missiles. Albright quoted Kim Jong-IL as saying that the 1998 launch of a rocket capable of putting a satellite in orbit -- or delivering a warhead to U.S. territory -- will not be repeated.

During the recovery of the sailors killed aboard the Russian submarine Kursk, the Russian Navy revealed it had found a message from a doomed survivor of the explosions that sank the sub. A note found on the body of Kursk crewman Lt. Dmitry Kolesnikov says he and 22 other sailors on the doomed submarine did survive the explosions which eventually turned the submarine into a death chamber.

Three straight World Series titles, four in the last five years, the New York Yakees find themselves in the midst of another dynasty. The team, thought to be too old and too banged-up to make it this far, became the first team in a quarter-century to win three straight World Series championships, beating the New York Mets 4 games to 2.