Listen To This3lesson 26

Virginia State authorities and agents from five federal law enforcement organizations raided the Leesburg, Virginia headquarters of independent presidential candidate, Lyndon LaRouche, this morning. NPR's Frank Browning reports. "Three key members of the LaRouche organization were arrested this morning as scores of law enforcement agents swept in for a 6:45 am raid. Jeffrey and Michelle Steinberg were arrested on federal charges of credit card fraud and tax evasion. And another member of LaRouche's inner circle was also charged with obstruction of justice. A federal grand jury in Boston has been investigating the LaRouche organization for several months in relation to charges that it has been involved in a variety of financial frauds of unsuspecting supporters. Ten of LaRouche's followers have been charged with fraud so far. The criminal scheme, allegedly involved some 200,000 unauthorized credit card charges totaling more than $1,000,000. The Internal Revenue Service and Virginia authorities are also investigating a variety of other criminal charges. I'm Frank Browning reporting."


The Supreme Court began its 1986-87 term today under new Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The court agreed to decide whether government-run airports may prohibit the distribution of literature inside terminals. The Justices will also consider the right of ethnic and religious minorities to file racial discrimination suits.


Japan has lowered its prime lending rate in a move designed to stimulate its economy and improve demand for US imports. The cut from 3.5% to 3% is part of a sweeping agreement reached today between the United States and Japan. In addition to cutting its prime rate, Japan has agreed to coordinate its foreign exchange policy with the US


Today is the first Monday in October, and that means the opening day of the new Supreme Court term. NPR's legal affairs correspondent, Nina Totenberg was at the court this morning when the gavel went down. Nina:
"Well, as you know, by now, Terry, this was a rather special beginning with a new Chief Justice, William Rehnquist at the helm, and a new Justice, Antonin Scalia, in the junior Justice's chair."
"So what was it like?"
"Well, I gotta tell you. To someone who had never been at the court before, it may have looked quite normal. But to me, it was really quite strange. Very weird, in fact. For fifteen years, we watched this Court with Chief Justice Burger in the center of the bench. And now the whole Court has played a kind of musical chairs, with justice Rehnquist, who used to sit at the far right, moving to the center to run the Court. Chief Justice Burger is gone. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who I used to look across the room at and used to look rather placid to me across the room, is now sitting just over my shoulder above me. Chief Justice Rehnquist seemed a tad nervous as he opened the term this morning. As far as the new Justice, Antonin Scalia, he waited only about ten minutes during the first case argued this morning before he joined in peppering the lawyers with questions. Actually he started to ask a question even earlier, but was cut off by Justice O'Connor, and sort of hung back while a couple of other Justices asked questions. And then, Justice Seebans, who sits next to Justice Scalia, looked at Scalia as if to say 'Okay Kid, your turn now.'
"Well, I can report to you, in general, that the Justices looked well rested and rather pleased at the look of the new Court. This morning's session was spirited with all of the Justices asking questions and a couple of them smiling rather broadly at the sight of Justice Scalia tearing into the attorneys arguing their cases."
"Okay. What about the upcoming term? What cases can we look forward to?"
"Well, you know, Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote that, in the United States, almost every pressing social question eventually reaches the Supreme Court. And while last term was an unusual blockbuster of a year, this term is no slouch either."
"Later this month, the Court will hear what is probably the last broad based challenge to the death penalty. The Court must decide if capital punishment should be invalidated if statistics show that it's imposed disproportionately more often on blacks than on whites, or more often on the killers of whites than on the killers of blacks. The decision in this case, will have an enormous impact on the more than 1,700 men and women currently on death row."
"Last year, the Court issued major decisions in the affirmative action area. What about this year?"
"Well, last year, the Court ruled than affirmative action is generally acceptable in hiring, but not in lay-offs. This year, the Court will focus its attention on affirmative action in promotions and when that kind of affirmative action, if ever, is permissible. The Court will also hear a major sex discrimination case involving pregnancy. At issue is a California law that requires all employers to provide women up to four months disability leave for pregnancy. A California bank is challenging the law, claiming that it discriminates against men who do not get that kind of disability leave when they are ill. The bank claims that the California law violates a federal law which bans any sort of discrimination based on pregnancy. Then, there's another case that involves the federal law banning discrimination against the handicapped in employment. The question in this case is whether people who have a communicable disease, like AIDS or tuberculosis, can be denied jobs because of their disease. In this case, a school system fired a teacher who had tuberculosis."
"What about the area of separation of Church and State, cases involving religion?"
"There are a whole slew of these cases again this year, but two stand out as particularly interesting. One case pits the evangelical Christian community against the nation's educators. Louisiana passed a law that requires all schools that teach the theory of evolution to teach creationism alongside it as an alternative theory: creationism being the theory that God created man whole without any evolution. When this law was passed in Louisiana, it was challenged in court by the Quasi-independent state school board, which argued that creationism has no scientific basis, only a religious basis. A federal court struck down the law ruling that it, in effect, amounted to an endorsement of religion, and Louisiana's governor appealed to the Supreme Court."
"In a second religion case, the Court will decide if religious and political groups have the right to distribute literature inside government run airport terminals. Sound familiar? When Los Angeles tried to ban the distribution of such literature, a minister from Jews for Jesus challenged the ban in court. The lower courts ruled that airports are public forums much like parks and sidewalks, and that the government could not can the distribution of political or religious literature there. Los Angeles appealed to the Supreme Court, and today the High Court agreed to review the case. There'll be lots of other fascinating cases this year on questions as diverse as gambling on Indian preservations to presidential versus congressional powers. Today, as I said, was just the beginning."
"Thank you, NPR's legal affairs correspondent, Nina Totenberg."


Scientists at the National Cancer Institute said they have found a new method for treating cancers of the lung, liver and colon in test animals. The scientists report the method cured cancer of the liver and colon in mice. NPR's Lori Garrett has details.
Doctor Steven Rosenberg has done it again. Last year, Rosenberg stunned the medical community with word he had successfully treated some human cancer patients with a revolutionary type of therapy. But some of the patients suffered serious side effects from the treatment. One died as a result. So Rosenberg has been busy working on improvements. Today, in Science magazine, Rosenberg reports studies in mice show he may have found the right treatment.
Rosenberg is working on ways to trick the body's immune system into successfully attacking tumor cells. The immune system is complicated. Any successful attack on cancer cells involves a vast army of special immune chemicals and cells. A key chemical is Interleukin-2. It stimulates cells of the immune system to do their jobs and kill enemy targets such as cancer cells. Interleukin-2 is now readily available, cheaply manufactured because it can be made through genetic engineering techniques.
Rosenberg and his colleagues initially tried to grow human white blood cells in the laboratory in dishes full of Interleukin-2. The idea was to stimulate those white blood cells, make them good fighters, and then inject them back into the cancer patients where they would tackle the enemy tumor cells. It worked, but the doses of Interleukin-2 that were required were toxic, even deadly.
Now, Rosenberg is trying something new on mice. Instead of withdrawing white blood cells and treating them in the laboratory, Rosenberg removes pieces of the actual tumors. He then grows those tumor cells in the lab in dishes full of Interleukin-2. In a few days, the tumor cells die, leaving only a handful of lymphocytes. These are cells that were attached to the tumors, but were previously unable to kill them. Now, activated by their incubation with Interleukin-2, these lymphocytes are ready to fight. Rosenberg injects these specially primed lymphocytes into the mice. He also injects more Interleukin-2, but in small enough doses that no side effects are noticed. And he injects one more thing: a chemical that suppresses the rest of the immune system so that nothing will interfere with the work of the primed killer cells.
The results are nothing short of astonishing. Now remember this is mice, but for all mice with advanced cancers of the colon, this treatment eliminated 100% of the tumors. Half of the mice with lung cancer were cured. All of the mice with cancer of the liver were cured.
Now, Rosenberg's laboratory is growing similar killer cells for human beings, and the National Cancer Institute plans to begin human experimental treatment soon. Although this study appears quite hopeful, it must be remembered that this work so far only involves mice. Whether results will be as dramatic in human beings remains to be seen. I'm Gorrett reporting.