The challengers President Bush most wants to see elected to the Senate were among the first to break with the president on the budget agreement he negotiated with Congress. ``Muggers in pin-striped suits,'' cried Rep. Lynn Martin, the Republican trying to unseat Democratic Sen. Paul Simon. ``They're back at your pocketbook again.'' ``Throw out the leadership of Congress,'' said Martin, apparently excluding Bush from the gang of ``muggers.'' The plan would enact permanent tax increases while leaving spending cuts up to Congress to enact in the future, complained Rep. Newt Gingrich, one of Congress' leading conservatives. Gingrich, R-Ga., also was upset that the plan did not contain enough measures to help businesses. ---&equals; WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush says he'd consider going on television to ask the public to accept the $500 billion deficit-cutting plan, a boost congressional leaders may need to win enough support from worried lawmakers. Bush and leaders of the House and Senate continue searching for votes today for the package, which was unveiled Sunday. In its two-day life span, the plan has drawn barbs from lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans, wary of voting for a record amount of tax increases and spending cuts in an election year. ``Everybody knew this deficit-reduction agreement was an ugly duckling,'' said Sen. James Sasser, D-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. ``Nobody expected it to sprout wings and fly like a swan.'' But Bush put an optimistic face on prospects of approval. ``It will all work out. Everybody will do what's right,'' he told reporters. ---&equals; WEST BERLIN (AP) - East and West fade out today as official ways to describe Germany. Old military occupiers' power will be handed over and scores of foreign diplomats will lose their host country. The new united Germany of almost 78 million people arising at midnight will have to rely on considerable strengths to cope with difficult tasks. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl told a convention of his Christian Democratic Union in Hamburg on Monday that Germany now faces three immense tasks: the reconstruction of formerly Communist East Germany, the completion of European integration and the taking on of a greater international role. ---&equals; NEW YORK (AP) - Women who took at least two alcoholic drinks a day were three times more likely than abstainers to die before age 65, a study found. The difference was nearly two-fold for men in the study, which was based on a national sample of people who died in 1986. For women, 40.7 percent of so-called heavier drinkers died before age 65 versus 13.2 percent of abstainers. For men, the figures were 42.3 percent versus 22.4 percent. Even people classified as moderate or light drinkers showed higher death rates than the abstainers. ---&equals; SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The strategically located Korean peninsula is in the vortex of rapidly developing new relationships that may change the political landscape of Northeast Asia. For he first time since the end of World War II, countries that have been bitter adversaries and battleground enemies are talking to one another. Delicate relations are being slowly, cautiously realigned. Northeast Asia is unique in that it engages the vital interests of four of the world's great powers: the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan and China. The tense and bitterly divided Korean peninsula sits at its geographical heart. All four countries are involved in, and will be affected by, changes in Korea. All four governments have an interest in security and peace on the peninsula and all four have economic reasons for wanting to encourage friendly ties between North and South Korea.
