0.47 0.47 TITLE: Russian Supply Craft Blasts Off on Schedule 0.53 0.77 A Russian Progress-35 cargo craft blasted off on Saturday with an emergency repair kit, oxygen reserves, food and water for the crippled Mir orbiting station. 0.21 0.21 Docking with the Mir is expected on Monday. 0.45 0.56 Reporters tracked the movements of the craft on screens at mission control in Korolyov near Moscow. 0.30 0.30 Officials gathered in front of the screens applauded when Progress separated from the booster at an altitude of around 125 miles. 0.55 0.67 Progress was carrying 1.5 tons of supplies for the Mir space station, which has two Russians and an American aboard and lost up to half its electric power in a collision with an earlier unmanned supply craft on June 25. 0.14 0.14 "The crew is expecting special equipment from the Earth which will help them to make a visit to the damaged Spektr module," Viktor Blagov, deputy flight director, said on Friday, adding that parcels from the crew's families were also on board. ------------------------ 1.13 1.13 TITLE: Japanese Wins Hot Dog Eating Contest 1.52 1.80 A 135-pound furniture delivery worker from Japan wolfed down 24 1/2 hot dogs in 12 minutes to edge a 100-pound countryman and a 330-pound American and win the world hot dog eating contest. 1.38 1.49 Hirofumi Nakajima, 22, of Kiofu, Japan, broke his own world record and won the contest for a second year, defeating 22 challengers at Brooklyn's Coney Island, a New York City amusement park known for its roller coaster and its hot dogs. 1.40 1.60 An eating contest has been held there every Fourth of July since 1916 as a publicity stunt for Nathan's Famous hot dogs, which opened at the Atlantic Ocean park that year. 1.23 1.28 Nakajima won a large emerald and brass trophy, a Mustard-Yellow International Belt and a 20-pack take-out order for Nathan's hot dogs. The champ said he was "very happy," admitting that he had been worried when the American, Ed Krachie, 34, took the lead midway through the eat-off. 1.49 1.55 Krachie, however, said he felt like throwing up and slowed down, finishing third with 20 hot dogs. He is a two-time champ who holds the American record of 22 hot dogs in 12 minutes. 1.33 1.42 Second place went to Kazutoyo Arai, 30, of Saitama, Japan, who ate 24 hot dogs before time was called. 1.02 1.09 Nakajima said he was "going for a record from the very beginning" of the contest. "Concentration was the key" to winning, he said, adding that he was trying to concentrate on himself and not on the news media photographing the event. 0.34 0.34 "It's not important to me but it would have been great to bring it home for America," a disappointed Krachie said. "I'm getting too old for this." 0.76 0.83 Nakijima has also won several eating contests in Japan, where he ate 15 bowls of noodle soup, 100 pieces of sushi, five plates of wheat noodles, five plates of beef over rice and five plates of curry over rice. 0.91 1.11 The National Hot Dog Council estimates Americans will eat 88 million hot dogs at Independence Day picnics. ------------------------ 1.22 1.23 TITLE: White House Wants Some Medicare Changes Studied 1.63 1.96 The White House is urging Congress to postpone some proposed changes to Medicare and consider them as part of a long-term solution to the federal health problem and not part of next year's budget. 0.72 0.82 Medicare provisions in the Senate bill included gradually raising the eligibility age from 65 to 67 and linking Medicare premiums to family income. 1.58 1.74 White House budget director Franklin Raines said Thursday that those measures were not needed to balance the budget by 2002 and should be considered "as part of a bipartisan process to address the long-term financing challenges facing Medicare." 0.79 0.86 There was general agreement to set up a commission to study the future of Medicare, which will be strained when baby boomers start retiring less than 15 years from now. 1.55 1.66 Raines wrote the chairmen of the House and Senate budget committees outlining provisions in spending bills passed by the two chambers that he said either violated the balanced budget agreement negotiated between Congress and the White House or presented the White House with policy concerns. 1.05 1.10 "We expect and will insist that the final budget legislation conform to the budget agreement," he wrote in a 20-page list of objections and concerns about the Medicare health program for people over age 65, the state-federal Medicaid program for the poor and other domestic programs. 1.33 1.44 The House and the Senate next week were expected to start working out the differences between their two versions of the spending bill. The White House hoped provisions it found most objectionable could be addressed in those negotiations. 0.62 0.62 Raines' letter did not raise any threat of a veto. 1.24 1.37 He also noted White House concern about Medicaid funding for disabled children who are losing their Supplememental Social Security income because of new eligibility definitions. 0.85 1.04 The White House also objected to a provision that would expand and prolong a ban on using Medicaid money for abortions.