(PHOENIX) - It isn't that Jack Dyer can't afford the $131.60 the federal government wants him to fork over.

``It's the point of how ludicrous this is,'' the 45-year-old Glendale resident said.

What has Dyer scratching his head is the Social Security Administration and its insistence that he repay $131.60 in survivor benefits paid to his mother on his behalf 28 years ago.

Dyer wants the federal agency to leave him alone, but a Social Security spokesman says it doesn't forgive a debt simply because it occurred a long time ago.

The origins of this dispute go back to 1957, when Dyer was 3 years old. That year, his father died of a heart attack. As a surviving child, Dyer became eligible for benefits from the Social Security Administration.

The checks went to his mother, who used the money to help care for her son until he was 18.

Dyer had little reason to give any thought to the money until November when a letter arrived from Social Security. It stated that his current disability payments, which he began receiving in April 1998 after osteoarthritis forced him from his auto mechanic job, would be reduced by $131.60 because of Social Security benefits paid in error.

Baffled, Dyer contacted the agency, which told him the overpayment was made to his mother, who has since died, on his behalf in 1972. Apparently, Dyer was working that year and he made too much money to qualify for the full benefit.

Confidentiality laws prevented Bill Payne, spokesman for the Phoenix office of Social Security, from talking specifically about Dyer's case.

He explained, however, that the administration likely knew about the overpayment back in 1972 and that a letter was probably sent to Dyer's mother requesting that it be paid back.

``It wasn't like we just discovered this thing,'' he said.

If an overpayment isn't returned, Payne said, the agency typically collects the money when the beneficiary begins receiving Social Security benefits. That's why it took 28 years for Dyer to hear about the overpayment.

Dyer was told that if he doesn't pay up, the $131.60 will be deducted from a future check. He receives $800 in monthly disability payments.

Social Security has procedures in place allowing citizens to have overpayments reconsidered or waived. Dyer is planning to ask that the overpayment be waived.

``A year ago, everything in the newspaper was saying that they didn't know what they were going to do with the surplus in Social Security, and here they're looking to beat me up for $131.60,'' Dyer said. ``It just rubbed me totally the wrong way.'' &QL; &QL;

BEIJING _ A U.S.-based scholar detained in China for more than five months on vague charges of ``providing confidential materials to foreigners'' was released Saturday.

The scholar, Song Yongyi, a research librarian at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., was detained in August while collecting documents concerning the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution that are widely available in markets and curio shops.

He was formally charged last month with ``the purchase and illegal provision of intelligence to foreigners,'' a move that alarmed academics overseas, who saw a threat to research activities in China, as well as American politicians. Together, the two groups waged a vigorous campaign to gain the release of Song, a Chinese citizen who had been scheduled to become an American citizen weeks after he had been detained.

At 9 p.m. Friday, Song, still in a police office, used his brother's cellular telephone to call his wife in Pennsylvania to say that he was being freed.

``I was so excited, but it was so strange I couldn't believe it,'' said his wife, Helen Yao. She said she had been given no reason for the release of Song, who was expected to arrive in the United States Saturday.

A statement issued Friday by the Chinese Embassy in Washington said Song had been shown ``leniency'' and not prosecuted because he had admitted his ``criminal activities'' and had volunteered information about the ``illegal activities of others.''

Ms. Yao said that in their phone conversation Song had insisted that he had ``never confessed to a crime _ no, never.''

Song's lawyers have said all along that he was in China collecting materials about the Cultural Revolution as part of his job. They denied that involved anything criminal.

The ``leniency'' release is a bittersweet victory for many of Song's dogged supporters, who saw his predicament as a test case not only for academic freedom, but also for legal reform in China.

``Given the state of the process of Chinese judicial reform,'' Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said, ``I think it would be too much to expect that they'd admit to having made a mistake.''

Specter had sponsored a congressional resolution to demand that Song be freed, and he received the first official news of the release at a scheduled meeting with the Chinese ambassador to Washington.

The Chinese government has frequently released political dissidents on medical grounds to rid itself of prisoners whose cases had become public relations problems. Although Song, 50, has bladder cancer, the authorities did not choose that.

Specter and others said the mounting pressure had been extremely effective. China is working to join the World Trade Organization, action that indirectly requires congressional approval.

``I think that the government of China thought that his detention caused more problems than it was worth,'' Specter said. ``If China wants to come into the community of trade, it has to pay attention to things like the norms of criminal practice.''

Legal advisers on the case said China's leaders probably also wanted to avoid a trial that would have been embarrassing.

``His detention was basically unfair, and the Chinese appreciated that once it was brought to the attention of people at a sufficiently high level,'' said Jerome Cohen, an adviser who is an expert on Chinese law. ``They were responding to immediate pressure. But they were also responding to the weakness of their case against Song and the light this case would shed on the problems and weaknesses of China's criminal procedure code.''

Lawyers for Song have complained that he was denied rights guaranteed under Chinese criminal laws while he was detained. He was not allowed to see a lawyer, for example, despite repeated requests.

Likewise, when his 37 days of legally sanctioned detention ended without formal charges, he should have been released, Cohen said. Instead, he was held for months in the basement of a State Security Bureau in what the police called ``supervised residence.''

Song's lawyers said that they had collected evidence that some of the documents used to charge him had been planted and that there were plans to present them at his trial.

Song became the object of a huge petition drive by scholars on four continents. They said their ability to conduct research in China would be severely compromised if Song's case stood as a precedent.

The State Department as well as congressional delegations traveling here pressed for his freedom. Saturday, the American ambassador, Joseph Prueher, said he hoped the release was ``a harbinger of continued open academic research in China.''

Specter introduced a bill this week to give Song American citizenship.

Ms. Yao said her husband had not been aware of the campaign on his behalf.

MANCHESTER, England _ For 10 days Mike Tyson, America's bad-boy boxer, has captured the attention of this nation. An outpouring of fan support has squashed political opposition to his arrival. He has stimulated the national economy by buying more than $2 million in watches and jewelry. And though he is not even running for mayor of London, he has kissed his share of babies.

Yes, Tyson had been on his best behavior. But Friday, one day before his heavyweight bout against Julius Francis, Tyson became upset and agitated. Jay Larkin, the senior vice president of programming for Showtime, which is televising the bout, said Tyson went to the Manchester airport instead of staying at his hotel for the weigh-in for his fight Saturday night.

The Sun of London and SkyTV, which has pay-per-view broadcast rights in Europe for the fight, reported that Tyson tried to leave Britain and return to the United States. Larkin said: ``Tyson was upset. He went to the airport. I don't know what he was upset about. His bodyguard, James Anderson, was with him.''

Larkin said he was unsure whether Tyson wanted to leave the country and believed that Anderson talked him into coming back. The Sun reported that members of Tyson's entourage went to the airport, calmed him down and talked him into returning.

Tyson's wife, Monica, and their children did not travel here for the fight, and Tyson was reportedly upset about their absence.

He made the weigh-in an hour late. Reporters who had been told Tyson went to the airport to meet a relative saw Tyson arrive about 4 p.m.

If Tyson was upset, Francis may have added more heat to the fire by keeping Tyson waiting for 10 minutes at the weigh-in. Francis was still in his room when Tyson took a seat on the stage where the scale was and began twirling the small braids on his head. Ten minutes later, Francis arrived. He kept on his black sunglasses for the weigh-in and came in at 244 1/2 pounds. Tyson weighed in at 222 3/4 pounds.

Tyson (46-3) and Francis (21-7), the British heavyweight champion, will meet in the ring at MEN Arena on Saturday night. The 10-round bout will be broadcast on tape delay on Showtime at 10 p.m. ET. On the undercard, Joe Calzaghe (27-0) of Wales will defend his World Boxing Organization supermiddleweight championship against David Starie (22-1) of St. Edmunds, England.

Francis is a heavy underdog in this fight and there isn't much on his resume to suggest that he can beat Tyson. Some reporters here are comparing Francis' situation with that of Buster Douglas, who knocked Tyson out in 1990 and stunned the world of boxing. But Francis is 35 years old, and the speed of his punches can be timed with an hourglass. Plus, he is slow of foot, which means it won't take the 33-year-old Tyson long to track him down.

``The way that Mike has been working in the gym, I can't see any way that Julius Francis can beat him,'' Tommy Brooks, Tyson's trainer, said.

A short fight is not what Tyson needs at this point, but it is probably what he will get. Since Tyson was released from prison in 1995, he has had eight fights and has fought only 28 rounds. Take out the 11 rounds he went against Evander Holyfield in their first bout on Nov. 9, 1996, and Tyson has gone 17 rounds in seven fights.

In the last three years, particularly with the two losses to Holyfield (the second fight ended in a disqualification in the third round when Tyson bit Holyfield's ears), Tyson's confidence has eroded. There is a split among those around Tyson. Some feel he needs to step up in competition and get away from the likes of Orlin Norris and Julius Francis. Others believe he needs a couple of more nonthreatening opponents to build up his confidence.

``What Mike needs is to be in top condition for his fights, and he needs to fight regularly,'' Brooks said. ``That will build his confidence faster than anything will. When a fighter is in condition he believes he can do anything.''

Tyson looks very fit for this fight. By all accounts he has been diligent about training. So, his mind should be clearly focused on Francis.

In his last bout, against Norris, on Oct. 23 in Las Vegas, Tyson was fit and looked sharper than he had in his bout on Jan. 16 against Francois Botha. But then disaster struck when Tyson clipped Norris on the chin after the bell to end the first round. It was ruled an accidental foul. But the bout was ruled a no contest, because Norris said he couldn't continue fighting.

Norris contended that he injured his knee when he fell from the blow after the bell. And yet another Tyson bout had ended in controversy. Nevada told him to fight elsewhere. So, Tyson crossed the Atlantic Ocean looking for acceptance. He has found it. Now, he has to work to keep it.

If Tyson wants to stay on the track toward a heavyweight championship, he will have to avoid any type of misdeeds in his bout against Francis. Another bizarre ending will undo all the good will he has been able to build in England and derail plans for him to make a European tour, making him a tough sell on two continents.

LONDON _ Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams ruled out the possibility Thursday night that the Irish Republican Army will meet a Monday deadline for the beginning of guerrilla disarmament, throwing the future of the fragile Northern Ireland peace settlement into turmoil.

Dashing widespread expectations that the guerrilla force his party represents politically was ready to make a long awaited move on weapons, Adams said, ``It is not easy to get the IRA, or indeed any of the armed groups, to do this speedily. This is the reality.''

Failure to make progress on the issue of disarmament by Monday could bring the eight-week-old power-sharing government in Belfast to a halt and lead to Britain's reimposing direct rule of the conflicted province from London.

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson issued a plea for people to keep ``cool heads'' in the crisis atmosphere that was quickly replacing the optimism that emerged in December with the start-up of the new political institutions in Belfast.

But Adams found himself on the defensive Friday when among those expressing alarm was Seamus Mallon, a senior official of the largest Catholic party in Northern Ireland, the Social Democratic and Labor Party, and a past political ally of Sinn Fein's.

``This is a time of choice for the republican movement,'' Mallon said. ``It cannot continue to claim to act on behalf of the people of Ireland while defying their clearly expressed will that decommissioning happen now.'' Decommissioning is the term used for disarmament in the April 1998 peace settlement.

The comment brought a rebuke Friday night from Adams, who said it ``just flies totally in the face of what Mallon knows our party and our party leadership have done.''

Monday is the day that Canadian Gen. John de Chastelain, head of the independent international panel on decommissioning, is to issue a progress report, and there had been growing anticipation that he would be able to offer evidence of IRA cooperation.

On Friday, Sinn Fein chairman Mitchel McLaughlin dismissed these hopes as ``over-hyped expectations,'' and the Press Association, Britain's domestic news agency, said security sources confirmed that the IRA had told the general that no move on weapons was imminent.

The Ulster Unionists, a Protestant party that is the province's largest and most powerful, has indicated it will consider a report of no progress as cause to withdraw from its leadership positions in the Northern Ireland Assembly and the new cross border bodies with the Republic of Ireland. That threat would put pressure on the British government to intervene first and dismantle the fledging government itself.

In November, David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionists and first minister of the new Legislature, was able to persuade his quarrelsome party to enter government with Sinn Fein only by pledging that he and the other party members in the Assembly leadership would step down if there was not sufficient evidence by February of IRA willingness to put its arms beyond use.

Even with that safety catch, he obtained only 58 percent backing from his 860-member party council for entering the government with Sinn Fein before any disarmament began. Many members of his party harshly criticized his decision to abandon the long-held Unionist ``no guns, no government'' disarmament demand, and he would have little chance of gaining support for continued Ulster Unionist participation now in the absence of any matching IRA move on arms.

Unionists draw support from the Protestant majority who want to keep the province part of Britain, while republicans, most of whom are Catholic, represent those wanting to see Ulster establish stronger links with Ireland.

The Ulster Unionists are in no mood to be conciliatory after the British government announced last week that it planned to reconstitute the Northern Ireland police force and retire its Royal Ulster Constabulary name that is cherished by Protestants. ``Unionists have been stretched to and beyond limit after limit after limit,'' Sir Reg Empey, a senior party official noted for his moderate views, said Friday. ``Our patience is completely exhausted in this matter.''

In the continual seesawing of power and favor in the politics of Northern Ireland, it is the Unionists who are now perceived as having made significant concessions without corresponding responses from republicans. Since Trimble's bold gamble in November, Unionists' frustrations have been given a more sympathetic hearing in places like Dublin, Washington, London and Belfast, where their resistance in the past was more often characterized as obdurate nay-saying.

Trimble has scheduled a vote of his party in Belfast on Feb. 12, but the British government would likely suspend the home rule government before then, rather than see him put his leadership at obvious risk. Trimble has been a calming and progressive force in the Unionist camp, keeping his party engaged in the crisis-ridden peace settlement process in the face of strong opposition from associates who are against the accord and covet his leadership position.

Mandelson said he would base his own actions on Monday's report. ``If it reveals that decommissioning is still on track, I will be guided by that,'' he said. ``If we are going backwards in the process, I will draw the obvious conclusion.''

Mandelson has said he would suspend the assembly if the terms of the review of the peace accord conducted last fall by former Sen. George Mitchell are not being met. The Unionists believe the Mitchell terms call for a start to disarmament by now, and Mallon said Friday that he agreed.

Republicans claim that the only deadline for disarming is the May 2000 date in the original peace settlement, and they argue that the IRA cease-fire, now in its third year, is proof that the clandestine organization is committed to peace.

Adams made his remarks Thursday night at the opening of a new party branch in Newry on the Irish border. He told his audience that it was ``a fundamental mistake in strategy to try and force decommissioning,'' and he urged Unionists to show more patience. Seeking to shift blame for a possible new failure onto them, he said, ``The achievement of this objective has been set back by the way it is being used as a political football by unionists at this time.''

MELBOURNE, Australia _ The women's final was 19 minutes old, and if you were sitting near the court and leaned back, you could hear the Australian fans who had paid their money and made their plans telling one another what they had just witnessed.

``It's not a match; it's a beating.''

``This should be against the law.''

``Who would have thought?''

Lindsay Davenport was already leading by 6-1 against Martina Hingis, ripping the ball past her and at her as if she were wearing a target on her tennis clothes instead of patches sold to the highest bidder.

Davenport would soon be leading by 5-1 in the second set, too, but while Hingis would do her best to change the flow of this lopsided match and keep her four-year winning streak in Melbourne alive, it was ultimately akin to standing at the edge of a waterfall with a bucket.

The Swiss phenom might still be No. 1 on the computer and Davenport No. 2, but there is no question after Davenport's 6-1, 7-5 victory Saturday that Davenport is a better player now.

``I almost made it look easy today,'' Davenport said, shaking her head. ``You don't play that well often in your career. It only happens a handful of times, but you've just got to cherish it.''

The tall and powerful Californian required only 1 hour 5 minutes to beat Hingis for the fourth time in a row and to win her third Grand Slam title. ``I kept looking at the time and just tried to keep it over an hour; at least I made that,'' said Hingis, who evened the second set at 5-5 before falling back for good.

``It's just too hard to play you mentally,'' Hingis said to Davenport, her voice quavering, during the awards ceremony.

That is quite an admission from the player acknowledged as the sport's leading tactician, but it is understandable considering that Davenport has not lost a set against Hingis (or even been pushed to a tiebreaker) in their last four matches. The American simply generates too much consistent pace and depth for Hingis to put her fine tennis mind to good use.

``I definitely had a lot of confidence going out there,'' Davenport said. ``You know a player doesn't like to play you when you have that kind of record against them.''

Davenport has now won the U.S. Open, Wimbledon and the Australian Open, and if she ever learns how to slide on clay, she just might make a run at the French Open, too. ``I always thought this was one I could win, because it was on hardcourts, and that's what I'm most comfortable on,'' Davenport said.

Hingis is still chasing the title at Roland Garros, too, but the last person to defeat Hingis in singles here was Amanda Coetzer in January 1996. Since then, she had won 27 straight matches and the last three titles on the same Rebound Ace surface she plays on at home in Switzerland and Florida. Hingis also had won the doubles the last three years here, with three different partners. But her doubles winning streak came to an end on Friday when she and Mary Pierce were beaten in three sets in the final by the Australian Rennae Stubbs and the American Lisa Raymond.

And it was certainly an ominous sign for Hingis that when she took the court under overcast skies Saturday, Stubbs and Raymond, both friends of Davenport's, were sitting in the front row of the players' box, just in front of Davenport's coach, Robert Van't Hof.

``They make this crazy job easier,'' Davenport said of Stubbs and Raymond in her victory speech. ``We're going to have to celebrate now.''

But Davenport saved her most emotional words for Van't Hof, the fellow Californian who has coached her for the last four years and helped guide her rise from a gifted and slightly ungainly contender to a champion. ``He's been with me through everything and made all my dreams come true,'' she said.

Van't Hof, a laid-back Californian, is a generally impassive sort on the sideline, but even he had to crack a smile or two as he watched Davenport's overwhelming play in the first 13 games of the match, as she cracked big ground strokes and serves and forced Hingis to lunge too far left and right for her own good.

Asked if he had ever seen her play that well, Van't Hof responded, ``No.''

There had been concerns about the state of Davenport's fitness because of a strained left groin that she sustained earlier in the tournament. The injury had caused her occasional pain in her semifinal victory over Jennifer Capriati and caused her to retire from the semifinals of the doubles when Hingis and Pierce jumped out to a 5-0 lead against her and her partner, Corina Morariu.

But Van't Hof made it clear that Davenport had retired only because she wanted to avoid aggravating the injury, not because it was severely restricting her movement. And though she played Saturday with her upper left leg wrapped, it certainly did not affect her ground strokes, serve or confidence.

WASHINGTON _ After decades of denials, the government is conceding that workers who helped make nuclear weapons beginning at the dawn of the atomic age were exposed to radiation and chemicals that produced cancer and early death.

The new finding _ that radiation exposure led to higher-than-normal rates of a wide range of cancers among workers at 14 nuclear weapons plants _ raises the prospect of compensation to them. Although officials cautioned that any decision on that was a long way off, they said a package could total tens of millions of dollars for a group that might well include hundreds of families.

The new conclusion comes from the government's most comprehensive review of studies of worker health and raw health data. The review accepts the conclusion of many of those studies, some of them done under contract for the government, that workers were made sick by their exposure.

The finding goes far beyond an acknowledgment by the government last July that one substance handled by weapons workers, beryllium, had caused some of them to become ill from breathing beryllium dust.

Of the new conclusion, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said in an interview, ``This is the first time that the government is acknowledging that people got cancer from radiation exposure in the plants.''

The finding is detailed in a draft report prepared by officials of the Energy Department and the White House with the cooperation of a dozen government agencies.

President Clinton ordered the study in July, when the Energy Department concluded that some of the workers at plants that had supplied beryllium to the government for bomb-making had developed beryllium disease, an incurable lung ailment. The president asked for a broad study that would include the effects of radiation and chemical hazards from uranium, plutonium and other substances.

He also asked the group to develop a policy on compensation, but that work has not been completed.

Legislation proposed by Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., whose constituents include some of the beryllium disease patients, calls for payments to an estimated 500 to 1,000 former workers who either have the illness or are at high risk of developing it. Total payments in the beryllium cases could range from $15 million to $30 million a year, officials said.

One question that Congress would have to resolve in the beryllium compensation, and that would have to be addressed in any compensation plan developed as a result of the cancer finding, is whether to make payments to survivors.

In the 57 years since the Manhattan Project began processing radioactive materials to produce bombs, the government has until now minimized the hazards of radiation and chemicals, criticized epidemiological studies that raised related questions and spent tens of millions of dollars in defending itself against lawsuits charging that the bomb plants had made workers sick.

``In the past, the role of government was to take a hike,'' Richardson said, ``and I think that was wrong.''

One expert on nuclear weapons manufacturing, Robert Alvarez, a former Energy Department official, welcomed the government's conclusion that many of its critics had been correct.

``A review of the studies by a body impaneled by the president is official recognition,'' Alvarez said. ``That's what makes this a big deal.''

Daniel J. Guttman, a lawyer for the Paper, Allied-Industrial Chemical and Energy Workers Union, which represents workers at 11 weapons factories, said of the draft conclusions, ``That's stunning.''

``The prior story line is, `What's the big deal, the risks were marginal,' '' said Guttman, former executive director of a commission formed by the Clinton administration to look into improper radiation experiments using human subjects.

Richard D. Miller, a policy analyst with the union, said the change was remarkable because the Energy Department and its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission, had ``spared no resources in seeking to defeat claims'' by employees who said they had been made sick by radiation or chemicals.

Richardson addressed a related issue last July, describing the problem of workers employed by private companies that had processed beryllium for weapons use. They could rarely collect worker's compensation, a program geared to injury rather than illness, and in any event their symptoms or diseases frequently did not emerge until years after their employment ended. Also, he said, the contractors who ran the factories for the government argued that the link to the workplace could not be demonstrated.

Richardson said then that the government should pay for workers made sick by beryllium, a toxic metal, and that radiation and chemical exposures should be studied. That statement led to President Clinton's request for the task force report.

At one site that figured in the report's draft, K-25, a now-shuttered Tennessee factory for enriching uranium, Mike Church, the president of the Energy Workers' local, said, ``It would be a start in the right direction, trying to get help for these people, that the government is finally stepping forward.''

The industrial process used at the plant exposed workers to radiation and chemical hazards from uranium, plutonium and fluorine. The union says workers at the plant have higher than expected rates of leukemia, cancer of the lung and bladder, vision problems and chronic fatigue syndrome, among other health problems. The draft report, though, says only that workers there show more lung cancer than the population at large. The study does not list another plant that used the same industrial process, at Paducah, Ky., where workers recently learned that their exposure included plutonium as well as uranium.

nn

The government has the names of workers and former employees who died from cancer or other causes. Researchers using government records have calculated the expected rates of various fatal cancers from such groups. In some cases these rates are drawn from epidemiological studies of general populations, in other cases they are drawn from studies of workers in the weapons complex who have been exposed to lower amounts of radiation.

Among 14 plants, according to the draft report, a total of 22 categories of cancer, ranging from bone to bladder to leukemia, occurred more often than expected. &UR; &LR;

The cancers listed in the report, most of them fatal, are presumed to be caused by radiation and chemicals, although the report does not address the precise scientific mechanisms and does not clearly divide between chemicals and radiation in some cases.

It also leaves open the question of how to compensate people who worked in the complex and suffered illnesses now found at elevated levels among their co-workers but which may not all be occupationally related. It also raises the prospect that workers will get sick in years to come from past exposures. Among the other problems, acknowledged by officials at the Energy Department, is that records of radiation doses and other exposures are poor at many sites.

The cancers were found among nearly 600,000 people who have worked in nuclear weapons production since the start of World War II. They range from leukemia and Hodgkin's lymphoma to cancer of the prostate, kidney, salivary gland and lung.

In addition to several other operations at Oak Ridge, Tenn., where K-25 operated, the draft also says that elevated cancer levels were found at Savannah River in South Carolina and Hanford, in eastern Washington state, where plutonium was manufactured; Rocky Flats, near Denver, where the plutonium was shaped into weapons components, the Fernald Feed Materials Center, near Cincinnati, where uranium was processed, and at the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories.

Some of the findings are drawn from epidemiological studies performed from the mid-1960s onward, some of them disavowed by the government at the time they were published. Others are from data gathered by the Energy Department, which now owns the plants, its predecessor the Atomic Energy Commission, or their contractors. None of the research was done specifically for this study, which is due to be finished in March.

The report does not sum up the cancers, but a senior government official familiar with its contents and preparation, said in an interview that ``my guess, we could be talking about hundreds of cases, in a population of hundreds of thousands.''

But Alvarez said that the number of victims would depend on how many diseases are linked to radiation; if, as some epidemiologists believe, radiation damages the human immune system and thus leaves people vulnerable to a wide variety of diseases beyond those cancers usually associated with radiation, then the number could rise to the thousands.

The draft, however, explicitly states that the scientific questions of causation were outside the task force's mandate.

MALIBU, Calif. _ The tools of winning aren't always a paint brush and canvas. Sometimes a hard hat and hammer are required.

On Friday, Pepperdine needed the heavy-duty stuff. The result might not have been a thing of beauty, but the Waves' 69-58 West Coast Conference victory over visiting San Francisco sure looks pretty in the win-loss column.

These days, that's all that matters for surging Pepperdine (15-5, 5-0), now in the midst of a season-high seven-game winning streak after starting WCC play with five straight victories for the first time since 1992-93.

San Francisco (13-5, 1-4), a preseason favorite to challenge for the conference crown, is fading fast after losing four of five games. At one point this year, the Dons won 12 straight and threatened to crack the top-25 national rankings.

But that seems a long time ago.

Brandon Armstrong and Tezale Archie each had 14 points to lead Pepperdine. Tommie Prince added 13.

The Dons got 10 points each from Darrell Tucker, Kenyon Jones and Russell Hinder, but turned the ball over 24 times. They were particularly careless in the second half, turning it over 14 times while wilting under Pepperdine's fullcourt press.

``The coach told us at halftime we weren't pressuring like we were supposed to,'' Prince said. ``So what we tried to do was bring out the pressure on their guards, then things started to fall into place. They got the turnover and we started to get the momentum.''

San Francisco led 30-29 after a sloppy first half and the Waves were fortunate to be that close after finishing on a 6-0 run. Armstrong, who had 12 points in the half, capped the run off with a 3-pointer in the final seconds. Kelvin Gibbs also had a big 3-pointer.

``We had to close the gap and try not to go into the half down too much,'' Pepperdine coach Jan van Breda Kolff said. ``Then we hit the back-to-back 3s to cut it to one. I thought that was a key part of the game.''

The two teams combined for 20 turnovers in the first half, and neither club shot particularly well. Pepperdine made 11 of 26 shots and misfired on 9 of 15 3-pointers. The Waves were even worse at the free throw line, making just 3 of 8.

The Dons were slightly better, connecting on 12 of 28 from the field, including 2 of 6 3-pointers.

Russell Hinder had seven points to lead San Francisco.

The erratic play wasn't surprising. San Francisco and Pepperdine are the top two defensive teams in the conference, giving up 63.5 and 63.9 points per game, respectively.

The difference was Pepperdine's ability to settle down offensively in the second half, especially over the first 10 minutes, when it outscored the Dons 18-5 to take a 47-37 lead.

By cutting down the turnovers and increasing their shooting percentage, the Waves defense, always a strength, became even more effective.

``We were giving them a lot of respect (in the first half),'' Prince said. ``We weren't playing like we practiced the whole week, the way we were supposed to.''

That clearly changed in the second half for Pepperdine, which hosts Santa Clara today at 5 p.m.

``We should have never been (down) in the first place,'' Prince said. ``We should have come out playing hard from the get go.''

EDITORS:

BKN-KNICKS-HAWKS (Atlanta) will not move in tonight's New York Times News Service file.

The N.Y. Times News Service.

MANCHESTER, N.H. _ As Steve Forbes plies the narrow, snowy roads here selling his conservative message, a second campaign is going on behind the scenes, led by a formidable grass-roots organization that is aiming especially at three crucial New Hampshire groups: Catholics, anti-tax activists and gun owners.

Whether Forbes is meeting with Cardinal Bernard Law, the archbishop of Boston, to discuss abortion; telling the Gun Owners of New Hampshire of his love of skeet shooting, or gaining the support of top officials of the 10,000-member Granite State Taxpayers Association, the state's largest anti-tax group, the Forbes organization is hitting all the buttons on issues critical to New Hampshire conservatives.

This tripartite group, which the Forbes campaign began organizing as far back as last March, is made up of people like Emile Beaulieu of Goffstown, a conservative activist who unsuccessfully ran for governor of New Hampshire in 1998 and is now promoting Forbes to his vast network of conservative friends.

Beaulieu has been making phone calls, putting up signs and speaking on behalf of Forbes.

``Steve Forbes believes in God, family and morality, and he doesn't owe lobbyists anything,'' Beaulieu said. ``That's what I'm telling people, and people around here know and trust me.''

Setting up Forbes as the conservative alternative to front-runner George W. Bush is the cornerstone of the Forbes strategy, both in New Hampshire and throughout the country. The campaign's task is to build on Forbes' strong second-place showing in Iowa and establish him as someone who can not only dent Bush, but also be considered a viable presidential candidate, even though he has never held public office.

The Forbes campaign is less concerned about Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who they feel will drop from the pack, a victim of a lack of financing and his decision to enter only a handful of primaries.

``He's not our target,'' William Dal Col, the Forbes campaign manager, said of McCain. ``We're going after the front-runner. If he has a significant falloff, people are going to question whether he's up to the task.''

In Iowa, a grass-roots effort brought in many new conservative supporters, and Forbes is trying to re-create that success in New Hampshire, but with adaptations to account for the state's different political and social culture.

``There's the potential for Steve to do well with the disenfranchised,'' said Paul Young, the Forbes campaign's senior political adviser for New Hampshire. ``Many of these people are independent. Many of them are Democrats who have become Republicans. Many are cynical. We have the potential to give a different message to these independent voters.''

Where Iowa Republicans are dominated by Christian conservatives _ more than 40 percent of Iowa Republicans called themselves born again _ New Hampshire is more than 40 percent Catholic. Of course, many Catholics do not adhere to the church's anti-abortion stand, and the state is about equally divided between abortion-rights advocates and anti-abortion campaigners.

In New Hampshire, Forbes has taken a more subtle approach on abortion. Gone are surprise visits from anti-abortion activists like Phyllis Schlafly. In their place are more muted statements about the sanctity of life and a ``New Birth of Freedom'' message that includes the ``freedom to be born'' refrain Forbes repeats at every stop.

The state's formidable anti-tax organizations are the second part of the equation. This is a state with no income tax and no sales tax _ a place where every candidate signs an anti-tax pledge.

To anti-tax activists here, Forbes' call for a flat income tax is a dream come true.

``Steve Forbes has the best tax plan in place, he's been the most consistent of all candidates,'' said George Lovejoy, president of the Granite State Taxpayers Association and a former state senator.

``There is no other candidate like him,'' Lovejoy said. ``He's been steady and hasn't vacillated. This is something we knew about him in advance. He's not one to switch back and forth. We are using our influence wherever we can.''

That means providing membership lists to the Forbes campaign, inviting Forbes volunteers to speak at meetings of anti-tax activists, helping with a direct-mail campaign directed at anti-tax voters and taking out ads in local newspapers.

``We will do whatever he asks us to do,'' Lovejoy said.

More than 30,000 people belong to the Gun Owners of New Hampshire, and, while the organization does not make endorsements, Forbes has the backing of many of its leaders.

Gun owners are a significant part of our base,'' said Dal Col, the Forbes campaign manager. ``They are strong activists, they vote and they turn out the vote.''

To that end, Forbes has been a frequent speaker at meetings of gun owners groups.

At a group's recent forum, Forbes told a story about how when he was young, ``I desperately wanted a shotgun.''

``My father was skeptical,'' he con- tinued, but after persisting he got one. His father told him having the gun was a lesson in responsibility, and, Forbes said, ``It's a lesson that children in the future should have a chance to learn.''

``Steve Forbes has gone out of his way to talk to us,'' said Craig Peter- son, president of the gun group. &QL;

ATLANTA _ Neil O'Donnell was heading to the Newark, N.J., airport for a trip to Nashville, Tenn., last summer. He told his friends in Madison, N.J., that he was going to play for the Tennessee Titans.

``People back home in New Jersey didn't even know who they were,'' O'Donnell said.

Pittsburgh, they knew. New York, they knew. Cincinnati, they knew. The soft-spoken O'Donnell had played in those hard-edged cities, even advancing to a Super Bowl once.

And while O'Donnell was thinking about his next career move, quarterback Paul Justin was being asked to join the St. Louis Rams. At least Justin knew the team's quarterback, Kurt Warner, who was a star in the Arena Football League and NFL Europe.

``His background was my background,'' Justin said.

So here are the backup quarterbacks for the Super Bowl teams: two players winding up as unlikely endnotes. O'Donnell and Justin got to know each other in 1998 when they played in Cincinnati, where quarterbacks go to learn how to deal with defeat.

What are the odds of two backup quarterbacks for the Bengals winding up in the Super Bowl a year later?

O'Donnell plays behind the chronically aching Steve McNair, whose turf toe injury is so painful that in training camp O'Donnell took almost every snap. Even this week _ as he did last week and the week before _ O'Donnell took half of the snaps in practice to help him get ready in case McNair can't stand the pain any longer. O'Donnell posted a 4-1 record this season as a starter when a back injury sidelined McNair.

Meanwhile, Justin watches in wonder at Warner's performance. Warner threw 41 touchdown passes this season, a number only Dan Marino has surpassed, and was named the National Football League's most valuable player.

``I've done mostly mop-up,'' Justin said, ``but I ran the team when I was in there.''

Still, he took no snaps this week, just like last week and the week before.

``I don't get any snaps,'' he said. ``I know the position from memory.''

Essentially, O'Donnell's career had been going downhill since he joined the Jets in 1996, presumably in his prime. He was fresh off leading the Steelers to a Super Bowl appearance.

But O'Donnell saw the Jets crash to a 1-15 record in 1996 and suffered a hamstring injury when he was backpedaling during a pregame warmup. Then he went through a demeaning season in 1997 under Bill Parcells, who never demonstrated unwavering confidence in O'Donnell, a former Pro Bowl player.

By 1998, O'Donnell was in Cincinnati, and then this season he became a Titan. He was actually familiar with the Titans, who were the Houston Oilers when he played against them twice a year as the Steelers' quarterback in the early 1990s.

``It was a new start,'' O'Donnell said. ``Sometimes in this business you have to put things behind you. Football became fun again. That's what it's all about: working hard every day, and then winning Sunday. I once told myself if I don't have fun week in and week out, get out.''

Thus, four years after a loss to the Dallas Cowboys in the Super Bowl, the 33-year-old O'Donnell returns to the title game. He is so happy in Nashville that he talks of moving to Music City, of ending his career playing for coach Jeff Fisher, of living in a city that he knew little about.

So is he becoming a country and western music fan, too?

``Slow, real slow,'' O'Donnell said.

In contrast to a solid NFL career enjoyed by O'Donnell, Justin, who was undrafted out of Arizona State, has started only 10 NFL games going back to a season on the sideline with Chicago in 1991.

Then there is the gap in 1992 and 1993 when he sat out. If one wanted to see him play over the next few years one went indoors to see the Arizona Rattlers of the Arena League, or to Frankfurt, Germany, and what was then the World League.

The Arena League, Justin said, taught him to recognize defenses quickly and move smartly across a 50-yard-long field that has only eight players a side. When he made it to Europe, Justin was starting on a big playing field. His experiences as starter gave him the confidence to believe he can get things done if the unthinkable happens to Warner.

``I understand I can go in at any time,'' the 31-year-old Justin said. ``That's my whole career.''

That career included four seasons with the Colts, two seasons in Frankfurt and a chance to throw 14 passes this season. But you cannot take that away from him.

``I love football,'' Justin said. ``It's kept me going. And if you try to take it away, I'll knock your head off.''

ATLANTA _ The National Football League has found itself in an unwelcome spotlight at various times this season because of violent incidents that led to criminal charges against its players. In the case that drew the most attention, Rae Carruth, a wide receiver for the Carolina Panthers, was charged with murder, accused of orchestrating the drive-by shooting of a woman who had become pregnant while they were dating.

So the subject of violence seemed unavoidable when commissioner Paul Tagliabue delivered his annual status report to the news media Friday, and indeed, Tagliabue did not try to steer clear of it. While acknowledging that he would prefer to preside over a league in which no players had been accused of violent crimes, he said professional football players, despite public perception, had behaved better than society at large.

The behavior of NFL players was one of several subjects the commissioner discussed. Other topics included the continued scarcity of black head coaches, a perceived decline in sportsmanship and the status of the instant replay, which Tagliabue said he liked this season while admitting that it might need some tweaking.

Tagliabue's address took place against a backdrop of remarkable prosperity for the league. Buyers are lining up to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for franchises, cities are clamoring to bring football to their back yards and players are making more money than ever. &QL;

Yet one thing that continues to dog the NFL is the perception that its players, because they play a violent sport, are prone to rage off the field. That notion, Tagliabue said, is false.

``The track record of our players is far better than society at large,'' Tagliabue said, ``and any number of studies have shown that clearly.''

APBnews.com, a Web site that focuses on crime news, recently did a criminal background check of all players on the teams playing in Super Bowl XXXIV, the St. Louis Rams and the Tennessee Titans.

According to APBnews.com, the Titans have six players who have been charged in the past with criminal offenses, and the Rams have seven. The Web site said players with criminal records include the Rams' Tony Horne, who pleaded guilty in 1992 to a misdemeanor drug charge; the Rams' Justin Watson, who pleaded guilty in 1994 to theft and paid a $100 fine; and the Titans' Lorenzo Neal, who pleaded no contest in 1995 to a drug charge.

The most prominent conviction involves the Rams' Leonard Little, who pleaded guilty in 1998 to involuntary manslaughter in a drunken-driving case in which a woman was killed. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail, and Tagliabue suspended him for eight games.

This is what the league has had to deal with _ a perception that its players commit lots of crimes. Yet the reality may be different. For instance, an article last year by Alfred Blumstein and Jeff Benedict in Chance magazine, which is published by the American Statistical Association, reported that the crime rate among professional football players was much lower than that among other people of the same age and racial background overall.

``We don't tolerate and we don't condone misconduct,'' said Tagliabue. ``We do strike a balance with giving people a second chance.''

Tagliabue also commented on the recent trend in which a head coach retires and handpicks a friend on the staff as his successor. It happened in Miami with Jimmy Johnson and Dave Wannstedt, in New York with Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick, and it will probably happen in St. Louis when Dick Vermeil retires and hands over the reigns to his offensive coordinator, Mike Martz.

None of those situations include a black coach. In addition, such highly qualified black assistants as Atlanta's offensive line coach, Art Shell, have received little interest from teams with head coaching vacancies.

Tagliabue countered, ``The reality is one-third of all coaches are African-American and a growing number of coordinators are African-American.''

On the decline of sportsmanship, both during games and after them, Tagliabue and others in the league office have grown concerned. After St. Louis beat Tampa Bay in the National Football Conference title game, Rams cornerback Devin Bush and Buccaneers lineman Frank Middleton got into a scuffle that has led to an investigation by the St. Louis police.

``We are concerned with what seems to be deteriorating conduct,'' Tagliabue said, asserting that such actions were juvenile.

This season the league banned the controversial throat-slashing gesture. In the off-season, the competition committee may look for ways to further penalize players who go too far.

&UR; For SATURDAY PMs &LR;

Here are the top news stories from The New York Times News Service for PMs of Saturday, January 28.

The PMs news desk, 212-556-1927, opens at 7 a.m. Eastern Time. To get story repeats before this hour call 212-621-1595 for reruns on AP DataFeatures or 214-980-8305 or 8367 for repeats on UPI DataNews.

&UR; NATIONAL _ GENERAL (Moved in ``a'' category) &LR;

SCI-MS-DRUG (Gaithersburg, Md.) _ A cancer chemotherapy drug is the first effective treatment for certain forms of advanced multiple sclerosis and should be approved for that use, according to a unanimous recommendation by a panel of scientific experts to the FDA. By Sheryl Gay Stolberg. 800 words.

CUBAN-BOY-FATHER (Hanava) _ ``The suffering that I have is not just because I see his room empty,'' Juan Miguel said during a one-hour interview at the offices of the Cuban National Assembly. ``It is knowing he is not next to me, and seeing what has happened to him.'' By David Gonzalez. (Scheduled to move by 9:45 p.m. ET in ``i'' news file.) 1,100 words.

With photo, NYT25.

RELIGION-COLUMN (Undated) _ The weekly religion column. By Gustav Niebuhr.

SCI-MS-DRUG (Washington) _ An FDA advisory panel will review a drug called Novantrone for multiple sclerosis. If it is approved it will be the first treatment for ``secondary progressive'' MS, which eventually affects half the people who get MS. By Sheryl Gay Stolberg. (800 words)

SCI-GLENN-SPACE (Washington) _ NASA presents the results of its medical experiments on the aged astronaut-senator John Glenn during his flight in the fall of 1998. By Warren E. Leary. (800 words)

&UR; CAMPAIGN _ (Moved in ``p'' category) &LR;

NEGATIVE-CAMPAIGN (Manchester, N.H.) _ These days, the candidates see nabobs of negativism everywhere. All this talk by the candidates of how mean they are being to one another has more than a few New Hampshire voters bewildered. Given the history of truly vituperative primary campaigns here, this year's strikes a lot of people as being closer in tone to high tea than ``High Noon.'' By Peter Marks.

&UR; WASHINGTON _ (Moved in ``w'' category) &LR;

BOMB-PRODUCTION-DANGER (Washington) _ An examination of the dangers of Cold War bomb production. By Matthew L. Wald.

CLINTON-GUNS-ASSESS (Undated) _ A news analysis: While President Clinton's proposal to license all new handgun buyers is unlikely to become a reality anytime soon, it is already helping to ratchet up the debate over what many regard as the next battleground for gun control. By Fox Butterfield. 1,000 words.

&UR; BUSINESS DAY _ (Moved in ``f'' category) &LR;

TIME-SHARES (Smugglers' Notch, Vt.) _ More than 2 million Americans have bought time shares since the housing concept was imported from Europe in the early 1970s. Time shares boomed in the '90s, vaulting the business from a modest $300 million industry in 1978 _ when it was plagued by what one expert called the high-pressure, ``silk shirt, gold chain crowd'' _ to an estimated $3.5 billion industry in 1999. By Edwin McDowell.

(ART ADV: Graphic is being sent to NYT graphic clients.)

AIRPLANE-BEDS (Undated) _ The battle among airlines for the premium-fare passenger by offering luxury more typical of a cruise ship has risen to this: One major airline will soon introduce a private cabin equipped with a double bed. The cabin will go for about $18,500 a couple. The airlines have good reason to be concerned about their passengers' comfort. Surveys of business travelers, who account for about half of the industry's profits, have revealed that executives would like a sound snooze during long flights. By David J. Morrow. 1,300 words.

With photo.

JAPAN-BORROW (Tokyo) _ In a striking demonstration of how precarious the Japan's financial situation has become, the government plans to borrow money directly from banks to fulfill its obligations to local governments. By Stephanie Strom. 1,500 words.

&UR; COMMENTARY (Moved in ``k'' category) &LR;

RICH-COLUMN (Undated) Frank Rich writes about the presidential campaign

LEWIS-COLUMN (Undated) Anthony Lewis on campaign finance reform.

&UR; SPORTS (Moved in ``s'' category) &LR;

FBN-RHODEN-COLUMN (Atlanta) _ Sports of The Times column on the Super Bowl, and how teams in the NFL could use some mentoring for its younger players. By William C. Rhoden.

FBN-SUPER-BACKUPS (Atlanta) _ With both the Rams' Kurt Warner and the Titans' Steve McNair hobbled somewhat with leg injuries, the backups _ Paul Justin and Neil O'Donnell _ could play a role in Sunday's Super Bowl. And O'Donnell's the one with far more experience. By Gerald Eskenazi.

&UR; ENTERTAINMENT (Moved in ``e' category)

&LR;

COSMIC-MAPS (New York) _ Astrophysicists at the new Haydn Planetarium here are creating the first 3-D maps of the galaxy and universe, which is also affecting the way they see the cosmos. By Sarah Boxer. (1600 words)

With photo.

EUROPE-HERITAGE (Brussels, Belgium) _ With the creation of the European Community, people are pushing the idea of a single European heritage, but that idea is open to contentious interpretation. By Michael Z. Wise. (1400 words)

MIND-SPORTS (New York) _ Will sporting events of the mind ever outdraw the Super Bowl? Probably not. Still, that is the dream of Tony Buzan, a British author and lecturer on the brain and learning. Buzan and two friends created the Mind Sports Olympiad, an annual event in London, now in its fourth year, where ``mental athletes'' vie for gold, silver and bronze medals in 40 events including Scrabble, bridge and chess. One of the highlights of the Olympiad is the World Memory Championships, and on Feb. 5 in Manhattan, contestants will compete to see who will represent the United States at this year's world competition in August. By Laurence Zuckerman.

BRITAIN-WHITBREAD (London) _ On a culture war in England: Beowulf vs. Harry Potter. By Sarah Lyall.

WOLF-THEATER (New York) _ Marc Wolf, the man of many voices in ``Another American: Asking and Telling,'' his one-man play.'' By Jesse McKinley.

&UR; NYT News Service &LR; &QL;

&LR; LOS ANGELES _ A three-day break gave the Los Angeles Lakers the rest they needed. A third-quarter knockout earned them a rare break during the game.

It was all about fresh starts and fresh legs Friday night at Staples Center, as the Lakers _ off for three days after a devastating overtime loss at Utah _ bullied the Milwaukee Bucks into early submission, then cruised to a 117-89 victory.

Shaquille O'Neal staked them to an early lead with a 26-point first half and, for the first time in a long time, got a long ride on the bench, sitting the last nine minutes of the game. O'Neal's 33 minutes were his lowest in weeks, but he finished with a game-high 30 points, eight rebounds, four assists and four blocked shots. His efficient evening included 13-for-18 shooting and a 4-for-5 night at the foul line.

Kobe Bryant (23 points) and Glen Rice (19 points) also took most of the fourth quarter off, as coach Phil Jackson turned the game over to seldom-used Devean George, Travis Knight and John Salley.

Ron Harper finished with a season-high 10 assists.

Just like that, the Lakers' brief losing skid (two games) was over. They never seemed in danger of suffering their first three-game losing streak of the season.

They shot 52.9 percent, the double-digit lead was established by halftime and the Bucks only once cut it to single digits, early in the third quarter.

O'Neal's 26-point first half propelled the Lakers to a 67-55 halftime lead, but he had ample assistance. Harper dished out nine assists _ a Lakers season high for one half, and his personal high this season _ as the offense hummed to a 65.9 percent shooting clip.

O'Neal made 11 of 13 shots from the field and was 4 of 5 from the foul line to go with five rebounds and three blocked shots before the break.

Bryant and Rice also clicked early, scoring 16 and 10 points respectively in the half.

But it took a late charge in the second quarter for the Lakers to get that double-digit breathing room.

For a while, the Bucks matched the Lakers basket for basket and briefly took a one-point lead 48-47 midway through the second quarter. Then O'Neal exploded for 11 points in less than three minutes to fuel a 16-5 Laker run to close out the half.

O'Neal was 6 for 7 in the second quarter and got four of his buckets on passes from Harper.

Though the Lakers had lost four of their last six games, they've maintained their confidence throughout and it was only a matter of time before their precision returned to previous levels.

``I think we all know that we played good enough to win in three of those four losses,'' Jackson said, explaining the Lakers' good spirits this week. ``Those things happen in the course of a season, and you take those things, you don't let them multiply, you don't let it break down your will or your ability to believe in yourselves as a group.''

That sentiment was prevalent throughout the ranks, even after back-to-back losses to Western Conference rivals Portland and Utah.

``I think they've been through enough wars that they know this is part of things that happen in the course of a season,'' Jackson said. ``We feel confident that we've been in places to win ballgames, and how do you throw out the baby with the bath water when you lose ballgames that are close? That's part of basketball.''

The New York Times said in an editorial for Saturday, Jan. 29:

The Tennessee Titans? The St. Louis Rams? Who are these guys? There is something atonal, and vaguely counterfeit, about the names of the two teams that on Sunday evening will play each other in Super Bowl XXXIV for the National Football League championship. After all, weren't the Titans the Houston Oilers for 37 years, until they migrated to Tennessee two years ago? Weren't the St. Louis Rams for 50 years the Los Angeles Rams?

All true. But what is equally true is that these teams, wherever they came from, deserve to be where they are now. Both lost only three games all season, both have quality players and good coaches. Both also represent a new generation of upstarts in the NFL, a group that includes teams like the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Carolina Panthers and the Indianapolis Colts. The traditional powers _ teams like the Green Bay Packers, the Dallas Cowboys, the San Francisco 49ers, the Buffalo Bills, the Denver Broncos _ made little impact in the playoffs this year or did not get there at all.

Some people put the blame for this state of affairs on ``parity,'' another word for league-wide mediocrity, and nobody has yet confused these two teams with, say, the 49er dynasty of the 1980s. Even so, it's nice to see some new faces at playoff time. We already know what the Packers' Brett Favre looks like, and what the 49ers' Jerry Rice can do. It is time now to bring on the Titans' Steve McNair, only the second black quarterback in the 34-year history of the Super Bowl, or the Rams' Kurt Warner, who knocked around in football's equivalent of the bush leagues before making it to the big time. It is time to watch what Orlando Pace, the Rams' massive young offensive tackle, and Jevon Kearse, the Titans' overpowering pass rusher, as fast as he is big, can do. And who knows? We might have a genuinely exciting Super Bowl.

LOS ANGELES _ There was one out in the bottom of the eighth inning and the Cal State Northridge baseball team needed something to salvage its season opener.

Down by four runs to Nevada with the bases empty, coach Mike Batesole removed senior Adrian Mendoza, deciding to give freshman Aaron McKenzie his first NCAA at-bat.

``Get in there and get me a double,`` Batesole said.

Knowing that a freshman's job is to do what the coach says, McKenzie did just that, launching a drive high off the right-field wall to ignite a six-run inning as the Matadors won 8-6 in front of 537 fans at Matador Field.

``Tomorrow, I'm going to tell him to hit a home run,`` Batesole joked.

It was a bold move to go with the freshman at one of the game's crucial moments, especially considering Mendoza was 2 for 2. But Batesole has no reservations about going with underclassmen (three freshmen and four sophomores started the opener). Nor does he have much of a choice.

The Matadors are recovering from the three-month elimination of the baseball program in the summer of 1997. The recruiting class from that year, who would now be juniors, suffered from the program's uncertainty.

``I've seen him do it in batting practice a lot,`` Batesole said of McKenzie. ``He had two strikes on him and worked it to a full count those weren't freshman at-bats.``

McKenzie finished off what he started, singling in second basemen Eric Horvat to complete CSUN's rally. He wasn't the only underclassmen to get into the act.

Sophomore third baseman Jason Gorman followed McKenzie's double with one of his own, scoring McKenzie. One out later, three consecutive walks issued by losing pitcher George Moran (0-1) added another run. Horvat, who homered in the fifth inning, lined a single into right to bring the Matadors within one.

J.T. Stotts, a sophomore shortstop, then gave CSUN its first lead since the fourth inning, nearly taking the pitcher's head off with a hard liner up the middle, scoring two.

Right-handed starter Mike Frick, CSUN's ace, sailed into the fourth inning but was then rocked for six runs on seven consecutive hits, including back-to-back home runs by Nevada first baseman Don Price and third baseman Alex Rangel. He allowed six runs, five earned, in five innings.

Merrill Dunn (1-0) picked up the win with 2 innings of scoreless ball. Left-hander Andy Davidson pitched the ninth and picked up the save, striking out the final two batters.

``I think it was a good statement,`` McKenzie said. ``Nevada was a ranked team (No. 30 in Baseball America). It was an awesome way to start the season.''

The New York Times said in an editorial for Saturday, Jan. 29:

New York's Republican presidential primary March 7 has not been attracting the kind of national attention that state party leaders had hoped. Instead of becoming a key early vote in the presidential nominating process, New York's Republican primary now makes news as a national embarrassment. The reason is that Gov. George W. Bush of Texas and his New York henchmen _ Gov. George Pataki and the Republican Party chairman, William Powers _ have indulged in a shameful display of Soviet-style politics. In the name of protecting New York's voters from extraneous candidates, they are now battling in a variety of federal and state courts to force out candidates who are challenging their own favorite _ Bush.

After a hearing in federal court Friday, Bush's competitors are encouraged about the possibility that District Court Judge Edward Korman of Brooklyn will declare the state's Republican primary system unconstitutional, given the tangle of rules concocted by party leaders to limit competition by invalidating ballot petitions from candidates. Without such judicial relief from a Bush-rigged election, only about a dozen of the 31 congressional districts in the state are currently certain to give voters a full choice among the three Republican candidates who tried to get their names on the state's ballots. Besides Bush, they are S. John McCain and Steve Forbes. Alan Keyes and Gary Bauer took one look at New York's despotic rules and gave the state a pass, although Keyes, who did surprisingly well in the Iowa caucuses, is hoping the federal court will order his name on the state's ballots.

So far Forbes has spent more than $750,000 to get the necessary signatures in all the state's districts, or about $15 per signature. McCain, the main target of Bush's New York bouncers, has managed to stay on ballots in only about half the state's congressional districts. Forbes, miffed that Bush supporters on Long Island have tried to block his name from ballots there, has retaliated by asking a state court to determine whether the Bush team committed fraud while gathering signatures in the Bronx.

A whole string of Bush supporters in the Bronx, whose handwriting seemed astonishingly similar, apparently signed petitions using their last names first, much in the same manner as the official voter registration list. A system like California's, which requires no signatures for well-known candidates, would eliminate such nonsense.

Meanwhile the recipient of New York's electoral largess, Bush, has come up with a lame justification of the machinations that benefit him _ states' rights. Just as he has ceded the tough questions about use of the Confederate flag in South Carolina to South Carolinians, Bush has said New York's ballot controversy is best handled by New York's Republican leaders. This is not leadership, it is ducking the issue.

It is time for Bush to call off his ballot gladiators. It is also time for Pataki to stop pandering to Bush and to start lobbying the state Legislature to clear up this undemocratic mess by March 7. If he will not do so, there is no reason the Legislature cannot take action on its own.

The New York Times said in an editorial for Saturday, Jan. 29:

Governments across Europe and beyond are rightly alarmed that the far-right, xenophobic Freedom Party is about to be invited to take part in Austria's next government. Austria's two other main parties, the Socialists and the conservative People's Party, could have kept Freedom out of power, either by continuing their 13-year-old power-sharing arrangement or by permitting the largest party, the Socialists, to form a minority government. But agreement could not be reached on either approach and now the conservatives appear close to sealing a coalition deal with the Freedom Party and its demagogic leader, Joerg Haider.

The Freedom Party has risen to the cusp of power by calling for the expulsion of immigrants in language that deliberately echoes Nazi phraseology. Haider has also praised Hitler's labor policies, described Nazi concentration camps as legitimate punishment camps and glorified veterans of the murderous SS. Haider has since apologized for some of his remarks and insisted on his party's democratic credentials. But he has not been convincing. The Freedom Party's rhetoric, and the racist thinking behind it, has no place in the government of a European democracy.

The party's rise to power in Austria is particularly disturbing because of that country's long history of anti-Semitism and its wartime collaboration with Hitler. Austrian voters seem remarkably indifferent to world opinion. They elected Kurt Waldheim as their president in 1986, even after it was clear that he had lied to cover up his activities as a German army officer in the Balkans during World War II. Waldheim's election to the largely figurehead post of president was regrettable. Allowing Haider's party to play a decisive role in government would be far worse.

Propelled by Haider's energetic and reckless populism, the Freedom Party has become a growing political force in Austria. It finished in second place in October elections with 27 percent of the vote, slightly more than the mainstream conservatives. That performance entitles it to a strong voice in parliament. But no principle of democracy obliges other parties to invite Haider's hate-mongering into government. &QL;

Here is a list of &UR; NATIONAL &LR; stories and general ADVISORIES that moved Friday, January 28, through 2:30 a.m. today, on The N.Y. Times News Service.

The stories go backward to 6:30 a.m. the previous day. Included is story number, keyword, wordage, time sent (Eastern), priority code and category code.

ADVISORIES

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NEW YORK TIMES CORRECTIONS FOR SATURDAY, JAN. 29

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EDITORS: The story BOMB-PRODUCTION-DANGER by Matthew L. Wald has been delayed

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A9879 BC-FRONTPAGE-2NDLD-NYT 838 21:16 U V

(Eds: Lead story is now NIRELAND-TALKS; BOMB-PRODUCTION-DANGER is off-lead)

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The Seattle Post-Intelligencer plans to move the following stories for clien

A9800 BC-THE-INSIDE-STORY-NYT 803 19:58 U V

Editors:

A9772 BC-HEARST-NEWS-BUDGET-2NDLD-WRITETHRU-HNS 1032 19:36 U V

Friday, Jan. 28, 2000

A9763 BC-FINFRONTS-NYT 399 19:28 U V

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A9757 BC-TIMES-EXPRESS-BUDGET-NYT 568 19:25 U V

(js)

A5720 BC-REVIEW-BUDGET-NYT 859 19:03 U V

A9734 BC-REVIEW-BUDGET-NYT 860 19:01 U V

A9704 BC-EARLY-FRONTPAGE-NYT 481 18:38 U V

(gm)

A9694 BC-GRAPHICS-BUDGET-NYT 430 18:28 U V

A9687 BC-SPOT/FEATURE-BUDGET-BOS 623 18:20 U V

For Release SATURDAY AMs, January 29, 2000

A9637 BC-SPOT-BJT29-COX UPDATE 1358 17:54 R V

A9626 BC-SUPERBOWL-ADVISORY-NYT 246 17:44 U V

(lh)

A9623 BC-SPORTS-BJT29-COX 905 17:42 R V

A9610 BC-BUSINESS-BJT29-COX 723 17:38 R V

A9582 AM-PAGE1-CONSIDER-NYT 546 17:06 U V

Here are the stories New York Times editors are considering for the Page 1 of

A9575 BC-STATES-BUDGET 402 17:04 U V

THIS IS THE STATES NEWS SERVICE BUDGET FOR JAN. 28, 2000. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUEST

A9561 BC-PRIEST-ADVISORY-NYT 260 16:49 U V

(gm)

A9545 BC-HEARST-NEWS-BUDGET-1STLD-WRITETHRU-HNS 803 16:08 U V

Friday, Jan. 28, 2000

A9515 BC-SUNDAY-$ADV30-BUDGET-BOS 207 15:56 S V

For Release SUNDAY, January 30, 2000

A9504 AM-ADD-NYT-BUDGET 519 15:53 U V

A9446 BC-GRAPHICS-EARLY-BUDGET-NYT 464 14:45 U V

A9433 AM-NYT-BUDGET 1244 14:27 U V

(gm)

A9417 BC-HEARST-NEWS-BUDGET-HNS 342 14:13 U V

Friday, Jan. 28, 2000

A9404 BC-FEATURE-BUDGET-ART-BOS 790 14:04 U V

ART ADV.: A photo with FBN-BELICHICK is being transmitted to NYT Photo Service s

A9385 BC-SPOT-BJT29-COX 1353 13:56 U V

A9225 BC-HEARST-FEATURE-BUDGET-HNS 795 11:34 R V

Friday, Jan. 28, 2000

A9193 BC-FEATURES-BJT29-COX 892 11:02 R V

A9191 BC-COMMENTARY-BJT29-COX 734 11:01 R V

A9169 BC-CALDWELL-JOURNALS-NYTSF 979 10:45 R V

A9136 BC-GREETINGS-NYT 164 07:59 U V

EDITORS:

NATIONAL GENERAL

A0173 BC-OVERPAY-AZR 463 00:06 R A

SURPRISE! IT'S TIME TO PAY UP

A0172 BC-PRIESTS1-$ADV30-METHOD-KAN 313 00:03 S A

SIDEBAR TO PRIESTS DAY 1

A0170 BC-BC-PRIESTS-BUDGET-KAN 315 00:01 S A

BUDGET FOR PRIESTS SERIES

A0171 BC-PASSION-AZR 1605 00:02 R A

MCCAIN BLUNTNESS: ASSET OR LIABILITY?

A0168 BC-NY-INITIALS-DOC-NYT 738 00:01 U A

CLINIC SAYS IT WAS TOLD OF DOCTOR'S BRAIN AILMENT

A0164 BC-OBIT-DENMAN-NYT 288 23:57 U A

(ATTN: N.Y.)

A0161 BC-OBIT-GULDA-NYT 727 23:54 U A

(ATTN: Austria)

A0158 BC-CHRISTIES-INVESTIGATE-NYT 562 23:53 U A

CHRISTIE'S SAYS IT IS COOPERATING WITH ANTITRUST INQUIRY IN ART WORLD

A0156 BC-OBIT-HASKELL-ART-NYT 451 23:52 U A

(ATTN: ENGLAND)

A0154 BC-OBIT-LOGUE-NYT 841 23:51 U A

(Attn: Conn., Mass., N.Y.)

A0147 BC-EXP-AIRPLANE-BEDS-1STLD-WRITETHRU-NYT 448 23:48 U A

AIRLINES START CATERING TO THOSE WHO'D RATHER SLEEP

A0146 BC-COOP-KAN 816 23:47 R A

TWO SLAYINGS THIS WEEK RELATED TO OCTOBER 1998 KILLING, SAY POLICE

A0144 BC-COLUMN-DOTCOM-ARROGANCE-NYT 779 23:46 U A

COMMENTARY: OF RUDENESS AND RICHES

A0129 BC-R.I.-POLICE-DEATH-NYT 203 23:33 U A

OFFICERS ACCIDENTALLY GUN DOWN COLLEAGUE

A0123 BC-NEVADA-ROAD-ART-2NDTAKE-NYT 370 23:30 U A

ELKO: fish populations.

A0122 BC-NEVADA-ROAD-ART-840(2TAKES)-NYT 988 23:30 U A

DISPUTE OVER ROAD IN NEVADA RALLIES ANTI-GOVERNMENT FORCES

A0117 BC-NY-DIALLO-TRIAL-2NDTAKE-NYT 320 23:24 U A

NEW YORK: he said.

A0116 BC-NY-DIALLO-TRIAL-1000(2TAKES)-NYT 1055 23:23 U A

FOR OFFICERS IN DIALLO CASE, A YEAR OF SCORN AND ISOLATION

A0104 BC-RELIGION-COLUMN-NYT 779 23:15 U A

BUDDHISM NEARS MAINSTREAM IN U.S., AUTHOR SAYS

A0001 BC-EXP-CUBAN-BOY-NYT 425 22:56 U A

LAWYERS FOR CUBAN BOY'S MIAMI RELATIVES GET LECTURE FROM JUDGE

A9989 BC-SCI-GLENN-SPACE-NYT 776 22:50 U A

(Attn: Ohio, Fla., Texas)

A9980 BC-PHOTO-UPDATE-NYT 2971 22:42 U A

A9956 BC-EXP-BOMB-PRODUCTION-DANGER-NYT 458 22:31 U A

U.S. ADMITS EARLY NUCLEAR WORKERS WERE HARMED

A9951 BC-TECHTRAINING-SHOW29-COX 295 22:27 U A

A9950 BC-SHELLS-RANCH29-COX 425 22:27 U A

A9949 BC-DELTA-WEATHER29-COX 452 22:27 U A

A9948 BC-CORNEL-WEST29-COX 610 22:26 U A

A9937 BC-EXP-CUBA-BOY-FATHER-NYT 424 22:08 U A

FROM A DISTANCE, CUBAN FATHER WAITS

A9933 BC-EXP-NY-MCCAIN-BALLOT-NYT 380 22:05 U A

IN POSSIBLE BREAK FOR McCAIN, JUDGE ASSAILS N.Y. BALLOT RULES

A9930 BC-EXP-ECON-REPORT-NYT 431 22:03 U A

ECONOMY'S FAST PACE MAKES ACTION BY FED APPEAR LIKELY

A9928 BC-EXP-DIALLO-TRIAL-NYT 443 22:02 U A

4 OFFICERS PREPARE TO TELL THEIR VERSION OF DIALLO SHOOTING

A9922 BC-CUBA-BOY-FATHER-ART-NYT 1001 21:54 U A

FROM A DISTANCE, CUBAN FATHER WAITS

A9921 BC-EXP-BUSH-N.H.-NYT 421 21:51 U A

IN CASE HE FALTERS IN N.H., BUSH STEPS UP EFFORTS ELSEWHERE

A9920 BC-NY-PSYCHIC-WORKFARE-NYT 518 21:51 U A

NEW YORK DROPS PSYCHIC TRAINING FROM WELFARE-TO-WORK PROGRAM

A9911 BC-EXP-AIRPLANE-BEDS-NYT 431 21:45 U A

AIRLINES START CATERING TO THOSE WHO'D RATHER SLEEP

A9908 BC-EXP-STORM-SOUTH-NYT 427 21:44 U A

MUCH OF SOUTHEAST IS STRUCK BY HEAVY SNOW STORM

A9906 BC-PIMP-SPI 1479 21:41 U A

MIAMI TRIAL TARGETS `AMERICA'S PIMP'

A9904 BC-CLINTON-NYT 929 21:40 U A

(ATTN: Ill.)

A9901 BC-GRAPHIC-FILES-NYT 262 21:39 U A

A9886 BC-EXP-CUBAN-BOY-NYT 425 21:26 U A

LAWYERS FOR CUBAN BOY'S MIAMI RELATIVES GET LECTURE FROM JUDGE

A9874 BC-CLINTON-GUNS-ASSESS-NYT 1043 21:09 U A

ANALYSIS: CLINTON REFRAMES GUN ISSUE

A9873 BC-NAVY-MORALE-SPI 1455 21:08 U A

SURVEY REFLECTS FRUSTRATION, MORALE PROBLEMS AMONG NAVY JUNIOR OFFICERS

A9863 BC-WINTERSOUTH29-COX 1002 21:00 U A

A9858 BC-STORM-SOUTH-ART-NYT 728 20:57 U A

(ATTN: Tenn., Miss., Ark., Ga., Ala., N.C.)

A9854 BC-CUBAN-BOY-NYT 825 20:54 U A

LAWYERS FOR CUBAN BOY'S MIAMI RELATIVES GET A LECTURE FROM JUDGE

A9850 BC-EXP-NEGATIVE-CAMPAIGN-NYT 427 20:49 U A

LATEST POLITICAL TRICK: ACCUSE YOUR OPPONENT OF BEING NEGATIVE

A9836 BC-SCI-MS-DRUG-650&ADD-NYT 859 20:39 U A

(Attn: Wash., Mass.)

A9837 BC-GIRL-GANG-TEXAS-HNS 426 20:39 U A

(For use by New York Times News Service clients)

A9835 BC-NAVY-MORALE-SPI 1455 20:35 U A

SURVEY REFLECTS FRUSTRATION, MORALE PROBLEMS AMONG NAVY JUNIOR OFFICERS

A9823 BC-COKEMAIN29-COX 676 20:20 U A

A9822 BC-BONFIRE29-COX 1567 20:19 U A

A9819 BC-POLICEMAN-SHOT-BOS 1167 20:13 U A

FELLOW OFFICERS MISTAKENLY SHOOT, KILL OFF-DUTY PATROLMAN

A9801 BC-CUBAN-BOY-BOS 1353 19:59 U A

CITIZENSHIP MOVE DROPPED, CUBAN BOY A LITTLE CLOSER TO HOME

A9792 BC-EXP-PENTAGON-RECRUIT-NYT 420 19:52 U A

PENTAGON DRAFTING CELEBRITIES FOR TAPED ACTION

A9790 BC-BUDGET-LADN 415 19:50 U A

The Los Angeles Daily News plans to move the following general stories for u

A9775 BC-NEW-AMERICA-COLBERT-NYTSF 951 19:38 U A

WHAT'S AT STAKE IN CALIFORNIA'S ANTI-GAY PROP. 22

A9773 BC-NEW-AMERICA-GONZALEZ-NYTSF 968 19:37 U A

FORGOTTEN FAMILY VALUES

A9774 BC-NEW-AMERICA-MONIFA-NYTSF 820 19:38 U A

40 ACRES AND A MULE PLUS INTEREST

A9769 BC-NEW-AMERICA-ADVISORY-NU-NYTSF 667 19:34 U A

NEW AMERICA NEWS SERVICE ADVISORY

A9766 BC-PRIEST-ADVISORY-KAN 75 19:31 R A

EMBARGO REMINDER

A9744 BC-PRIESTS2-$ADV31-2NDTAKE-KAN 1054 19:11 S A

DAY TWO OF PRIEST SERIES

A9743 BC-PRIESTS2-$ADV31-TWOTAKES-KAN 1128 19:10 S A

DAY TWO OF PRIEST SERIES

A9735 BC-BC-PRIESTS1-$ADV30-2NDTAKE-KAN-KAN 1200 19:02 S A

PRIEST1: DAY ONE OF PRIESTS SERIES

A9732 BC-BC-PRIESTS1-$ADV30-TWOTAKES-KAN-KAN 1024 19:00 S A

PRIEST1: DAY ONE OF PRIESTS SERIES

A9721 BC-ABERNATHY-COX 695 18:54 R A

A9723 BC-RUDOLPH-COX 897 18:55 R A

A9720 BC-BC-PRIESTS1-$ADV30-2NDTAKE-KAN-KAN 1191 18:53 S A

PRIEST1: DAY ONE OF PRIESTS SERIES

A9718 BC-BC-PRIESTS1-$ADV30-TWOTAKES-KAN-KAN 1014 18:51 S A

PRIEST1: DAY ONE OF PRIESTS SERIES

A9712 BC-BC-PRIESTS-BUDGET-KAN 275 18:42 S A

BUDGET FOR PRIESTS SERIES

A9709 BC-SPOT/FEATURE-BUDGET-BOS 676 18:40 U A

For Release SATURDAY AMs, January 29, 2000

A9705 BC-ELIMINATE-SCI-MARS-LANDER-NYT 32 18:38 U A

A9696 BC-GRAPHICS-BUDGET-NYT 430 18:29 U A

A9686 BC-WEATHER-MAP-NYT 415 18:20 U A

WEATHER

A9651 BC-TEEN-DRIVERS-NYT 257 18:09 U A

TEEN-AGERS JUST SAY `WHOA'

A9650 BC-HIGHWAY-CONGESTION-790&ADD-NYT 997 18:08 U A

(ATTN: Md., N.C.)

A9649 BC-BMW-MINI-ART-NYT 385 18:06 U A

NEW MINI TO SEEK A SPOT (BUT NOT A BIG ONE) ON U.S. STREETS

A9618 BC-SUNDAY-$ADV30-BUDGET-BOS 207 17:40 U A

For Release SUNDAY, January 30, 2000

A9585 BC-NY-TRUANT-OFFICER-ART-NYT 939 17:07 U A

TOUGH TRUANT OFFICER, TRUE ROMANTIC

A9449 BC-GRAPHICS-EARLY-BUDGET-NYT 464 14:46 U A

A9448 BC-GRAPHICS-EARLY-BUDGET-NYT 464 14:46 U A

A9363 BC-SNOWMAKING-AQUIFERS-BOS 1024 13:47 U A

CRITICS SAY SKI AREA SNOWMAKING DRAINING AQUIFERS

A9348 BC-GAYS-SHEPARD-HNS 741 13:34 R A

GAY SON'S DEATH STARTED CRUSADE AGAINST HATE

A9347 BC-UCALIF-ADMISSIONS-HNS 802 13:32 R A

MINORITY APPLICATIONS INCREASE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

A9243 BC-NEW-AMERICA-ADVISORY-NU-NYTSF 72 12:11 U A

A9189 BC-WARNER-ON-WOOD29-COX 394 11:00 R A

A9185 BC-CELLULITE29-COX 1018 10:57 R A

A9181 BC-CALDWELL-part4-NYTSF 1060 10:55 R A

THE CALDWELL JOURNALS: WHITE REPORTERS OUT

A9182 BC-CALDWELL-part5-NYTSF 1119 10:56 R A

THE CALDWELL JOURNALS: BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL

A9180 BC-CALDWELL-part3-NYTSF 1234 10:54 R A

THE CALDWELL JOURNALS: MALCOLM X

A9179 BC-CALDWELL-part2-NYTSF 1304 10:53 R A

THE CALDWELL JOURNALS: HARLEM, THE COLONY CONVERGES

A9178 BC-CALDWELL-part1-NYTSF 1273 10:52 R A

THE CALDWELL JOURNALS: HERE COMES THE BOLL WEEVIL

A9170 BC-CALDWELL-JOURNALS-NYTSF 979 10:45 R A

A9158 BC-DISABLED-TWINS-0129-COX 822 10:31 U A

Here is a list of &UR; CAMPAIGN &LR; stories that moved through 2:30 a.m. today, on The N.Y. Times News Service.

The stories go backward to 6:30 a.m. the previous day. Included is story number, keyword, wordage, time sent (Eastern), priority code and category code.

CAMPAIGN

A0138 BC-N.H.-FIRSTVOTER-NYT 1003 23:40 U P

(Attn: N.H., Vt., Mass.)

A0140 BC-CAMPAIGN-BRIEFS-NYT 453 23:41 U P

NEWS IN BRIEF FROM THE CAMPAIGNS

A0135 BC-N.H.-FORBES-ENDORSE-NYT 191 23:39 U P

A NEWSPAPER GOES ALL OUT TO AID FORBES

A0114 BC-NY-MRSCLINTON-NYT 396 23:22 U P

ANTI-SEMITISM AGAIN AN ISSUE IN SENATE RACE

A0106 BC-BRADLEY-1STLD-WRITETHRU-NYT 1073 23:16 U P

BRADLEY MUTES HIS CAMPAIGN FINANCE ATTACK

A9999 BC-BUSH-N.H.-760&ADD-NYT 1038 22:56 U P

(ATTN: Del., S.C. Mass.)

A9994 BC-N.H.-VOTERS-ART-2NDTAKE-NYT 245 22:53 U P

RUMNEY: conservative Republican.

A9993 BC-N.H.-VOICES-ART-2TAKES-NYT 1047 22:52 U P

N.H. VOTERS DEMUR ON ISSUES, YET HAVE FIRMLY HELD VIEWS

A9977 BC-NH-REPUBS-NYT 273 22:42 U P

SUNUNU JOINS BUSH TEAM

A9966 BC-FORBES-NYT 842 22:35 U P

(ATTN: N.H.)

A9957 BC-DEMOCRATS29-1STLD-COX 1278 22:32 U P

A9931 BC-NY-MCCAIN-BALLOT-NYT 785 22:03 U P

JUDGE HINTS AT BREAK FOR MCCAIN ON NEW YORK BALLOT

A9929 BC-CAMPAIGN-BOS 1291 22:02 U P

BRADLEY GOES ON ATTACK; GORE FEELING `POSITIVE'

A9919 BC-NH-ADVANCE30-COX 996 21:50 U P

A9895 BC-DEMOCRATS29-COX 1209 21:34 U P

A9885 BC-CAMPAIGN-BUSH-BOS 351 21:25 U P

EX-N.H. GOVERNOR SUNUNU ENDORSES BUSH

A9883 BC-BRADLEY-NYT 961 21:22 U P

BRADLEY BACKS AWAY FROM A CAMPAIGN FINANCE ATTACK

A9881 BC-BUSH-N.H.-760&ADD-NYT 1038 21:20 U P

(ATTN: Del., S.C. Mass.)

A9839 BC-NEGATIVE-CAMPAIGN-2TAKES(TRIM)-NYT 667 20:40 U P

THE LATEST POLITICAL TRICK: ACCUSE YOUR OPPONENT OF BEING NEGATIVE

A9840 BC-NEGATIVE-CAMPAIGN-2NDTAKE-NYT 639 20:40 U P

MANCHESTER, N.H.: playing field.''

A9827 BC-BRADLEY-ADS-BOS 372 20:23 U P

BRADLEY SPENDING HEAVILY ON TV ADS

A9821 BC-BRADLEY-HEART-BOS 529 20:17 U P

BRADLEY SAYS HEART ACTED UP AGAIN

A9820 BC-POLITICAL-MAEKUP-BOS 723 20:15 U P

MAKEUP EXPERT GIVES CANDIDATES THEIR TV FACES

A9812 BC-CAMPAIGN-FORBES-BOS 436 20:07 U P

FORBES, CARDINAL LAW CONFER

A9810 BC-CAMPAIGN-BUSH-BOS 351 20:06 U P

EX-N.H. GOVERNOR SUNUNU ENDORSES BUSH

A9795 BC-BUSH-ACCESS-BOS 989 19:54 U P

BUSH CAMPAIGN SUFFERING ACCESS GAP

A9793 BC-CAMPAIGN-MCCAIN-BOS 1031 19:53 U P

MCCAIN CAMPAIGN CONFIDENCE ON THE RISE

A9770 BC-BRADLEY-NH-HNS 1077 19:34 U P

BRADLEY ACCUSES GORE OF `TRICKY' WORDS TO DECEIVE VOTERS

A9765 BC-SPOT/FEATURE-BUDGET-SUB2-BOS 690 19:30 U P

(Changes to political category)

A9758 BC-POL-TICKER29-COX-1STLEDE 1834 19:25 U P

A9755 BC-NH-MCCAIN30-COX-1STLEDE 1029 19:21 U P

A9747 BC-SPOT/FEATURE-BUDGET-SUB-BOS 772 19:13 U P

(Changes, additions to political category)

A9717 BC-GOP-2000-HNS 904 18:49 U P

(For use by New York Times News Service clients)

A9710 BC-BUSH-ENDORSE-COX 866 18:41 R P

A9706 BC-ELIMINATE-BUSH-MCCAIN-NYT 33 18:38 U P

A9692 BC-SPOT/FEATURE-BUDGET-BOS 623 18:25 U P

For Release SATURDAY AMs, January 29, 2000

A9647 BC-NH-MCCAIN30-COX 1018 18:05 U P

A9558 BC-POL-TICKER29-COX 1817 16:45 U P

A9382 BC-FIELD-WORKERS-BOS 790 13:55 U P

VOLUNTEERS GET READY TO GET OUT THE VOTE

A9379 BC-GORE-ABORTION-BOS 1364 13:53 U P

GORE RECORD ON ABORTION SCRUTINIZED FOR VERACITY

Here is a list of &UR; WASHINGTON &LR; stories that moved Friday, January 28, through 2:30 a.m. today, on The N.Y. Times News Service.

The stories go backward to 6:30 a.m. the previous day. Included is story number, keyword, wordage, time sent (Eastern), priority code and category code.

WASHINGTON NEWS

A9955 BC-BOMB-PRODUCTION-DANGER-2NDTAKE-NYT 544 22:30 U W

WASHINGTON: as uranium.

A9954 BC-BOMB-PRODUCTION-DANGER-340(2TAKES)-NYT 655 22:30 U W

WASHINGTON: been completed.

A9953 BC-BOMB-PRODUCTION-DANGER-340(2TAKES)-NYT 397 22:29 U W

(ATTN: Tenn., Ky., S.C., Wash., Colo, Ohio)

A9832 BC-CLINTON-SPEECH-MEDIA-NYT 667 20:28 U W

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK: NETWORKS TRIED TO LOOK FORWARD

A9760 BC-CLINTON-RATINGS-NYT 453 19:27 U W

TV VIEWERS GIVE CLINTON THEIR FINAL ANSWER

A9748 BC-PENTAGON-RECRUIT-NYT 591 19:14 U W

PENTAGON TO DRAFT CELEBRITIES FOR TAPED ACTION

A9691 BC-CUBA-ELIAN-0129-COX 994 18:24 U W

A9683 BC-CUBAN-BOY-FEINSTEIN-HNS 614 18:15 U W

FEINSTEIN PREDICTS CUBAN BOY WILL RETURN HOME

A9612 BC-GAYS-COHEN-HNS 496 17:39 U W

PENTAGON TO ISSUE GUIDELINES ON GAYS IN THE MILITARY

A9587 BC-STATES-BUDGET 402 17:08 U W

THIS IS THE STATES NEWS SERVICE BUDGET FOR JAN. 28, 2000. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUEST

A9584 BC-STATES-BUDGET 402 17:07 U W

THIS IS THE STATES NEWS SERVICE BUDGET FOR JAN. 28, 2000. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUEST

A9571 BC-STATES-BUDGET 402 17:01 U W

THIS IS THE STATES NEWS SERVICE BUDGET FOR JAN. 28, 2000. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUEST

A9564 BC-UNION-COST29-COX 396 16:54 U W

A9407 BC--IHT 448 14:07 R I

c.2000 International Herald Tribune &QC;

A9406 BC--IHT 1996 14:05 R I

c.2000 International Herald Tribune &QC;

A9397 BC--IHT 859 14:01 R I

c.2000 International Herald Tribune &QC;

A9399 BC--IHT 1167 14:02 R I

c.2000 International Herald Tribune &QC;

A9395 BC--IHT 1258 14:00 R I

c.2000 International Herald Tribune &QC;

A9389 BC--IHT 949 13:58 R I

c.2000 International Herald Tribune &QC;

A9374 BC--IHT 39 13:52 R I

c.2000 International Herald Tribune &QC;

A9255 BC-BUDGET-IHT 203 12:25 R I

c.2000 International Herald Tribune &QC;

A9249 BC-MEXICO-GARCIA-$ADV30-1STLD-COX 1769 12:18 U I

A9246 BC-BRITAIN-WALMART-$ADV30-COX 1335 12:15 U I

A9230 BC-DELL-DAVOS29-COX 633 11:43 U I

Here is a list of &UR; FINANCIAL &LR; stories that moved Friday, January 28, through 2:30 a.m. today, on The N.Y. Times News Service.

The stories go backward to 6:30 a.m. the previous day. Included is story number, keyword, wordage, time sent (Eastern), priority code and category code.

FINANCIAL

A0167 BC-BET 2NDTAKE-KAN 730 00:00 R F

AREA GAMBLERS LOST $610 MILLION IN 1999, A RECORD

A0166 BC-BET 2TAKES-KAN 698 23:58 R F

AREA GAMBLERS LOST $610 MILLION IN 1999, A RECORD

A0152 BC-HEASTER COLUMN-KAN 557 23:51 A F

THROW OUT CONVENTIONAL WISDOM

A0148 BC-AIRPLANE-BEDS-ART-1STLD-WRITETHRU-2TAKES-NYT 783 23:49 U F

AIRLINES START CATERING TO THOSE WHO'D RATHER SLEEP

A0149 BC-AIRPLANE-BEDS-ART-1STLD-WRITETHRU-2NDTAKE-NYT 525 23:50 U F

UNDATED: years ago.''

A0126 BC-SUNBIZ-FINAL-BUDGET-NYT 774 23:32 U F

A0113 BC-BERTELSMANN-MIDDELHOFF-ART-3RDTAKE-$ADV30-NYT 746 23:21 S F

UNDATED: new directions.

A0112 BC-BERTELSMANN-MIDDELHOFF-ART-2NDTAKE-$ADV30-NYT 1057 23:20 S F

UNDATED: two years.

A0111 BC-BERTELSMANN-MIDDELHOFF-ART-3TAKES-$ADV30-NYT 1104 23:19 S F

LEADING BERTELSMANN'S RACE TO THE FUTURE

A0099 BC-TIMES-DIGITAL-IPO-NYT 725 23:10 U F

TIMES CO. PLANS STOCK ISSUE TO TRACK ITS INTERNET ASSETS

A9997 BC-JAPAN-BROKERS-NYT 645 22:54 U F

COMEBACK TIME IN JAPAN FOR 3 BIG BROKERAGE FIRMS

A9969 BC-BIZGLANCE-NYT 522 22:39 U F

BUSINESS AT A GLANCE

A9974 BC-PHOTO-UPDATE-NYT 2972 22:39 U F

A9945 BC-BIZ-5-QUESTIONS-$ADV30-NYT 820 22:18 S F

PUTTING A SHINE ON A DOLLAR THAT JINGLES IN YOUR POCKET

A9942 BC-INVEST-INSIGHT-Q&A-$ADV30-NYT 846 22:16 S F

ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL, EVEN AT COCA-COLA

A9941 BC-U.S.-ECONOMY-ART-3RDTAKE-$ADV30-NYT 814 22:15 S F

UNDATED: Federal Reserve.

A9940 BC-U.S.-ECONOMY-ART-2NDTAKE-$ADV30-NYT 1154 22:14 S F

UNDATED: the `60s.

A9939 BC-U.S.-ECONOMY-ART-3TAKES-$ADV30-NYT 1171 22:13 S F

(ATTN: Mass., Mich., Calif.)

A9936 BC-ZIFF-ZIFF _ SF CHRON 670 22:07 R F

Ziff-Davis Transforms Into ZDNet

A9935 BC-YAHOO-YAHOO _ SF CHRON 486 22:06 R F

Yahoo to Webcast TV Ads From Super Bowl

A9934 BC-FINBUDGET-FINBUDGET _ SF CHRON 178 22:05 R F

These are the stories The San Francisco Chronicle Business section plans to

A9926 BC-BIZ-UTILITY-VEHICLE-ART-2TAKES-$ADV30-NYT 760 22:00 S F

SACRIFICES OFFSET ENERGY GLUTTONY

A9927 BC-BIZ-UTILITY-VEHICLE-ART-2NDTAKE-$ADV30-NYT 456 22:01 S F

WASHINGTON: at sunset.

A9925 BC-NYTIMESCO-TRACKING-BOS 441 21:59 U F

N.Y. TIMES CO. TO OFFER `TRACKING STOCK' FOR NET PROPERTIES

A9916 BC-MARKET-WATCH-ART-$ADV30-NYT 590 21:48 U F

SOMETHING BORROWED MAY LEAVE MARKET BLUE

A9913 BC-MARKET-2NDTAKE-NYT 263 21:46 U F

NEW YORK: two-year note.

A9912 BC-MARKET-825(2TAKES)-NYT 869 21:45 U F

ON WALL STREET, THE WORST JANUARY IN YEARS

A9907 BC-BIZ-WORLD-GOLAN-HEIGHTS-ART-$ADV30-NYT 1163 21:43 S F

THE WATER IS CLEAR. THE FUTURE ISN'T.

A9898 BC-GRAPHIC-FILES-NYT 262 21:37 U F

A9896 BC-INVEST-PREFERRED-STOCKS-ART-$ADV30-NYT 906 21:36 S F

(ATTN: Mass.)

A9894 BC-BIZ-PROFILE-WEAVER-$ADV30-NYT 917 21:33 S F

(ATTN: Conn., Fla.)

A9893 BC-ECON-REPORT-ART-NYT 781 21:32 U F

ECONOMY'S FAST PACE MAKES ACTION BY FED APPEAR LIKELY

A9892 BC-INVEST-EMERGING-MARKETS-ART-$ADV30-NYT 827 21:31 S F

SUCCESS STORY IN GERMANY IS NOT ALL IT APPEARS TO BE

A9888 BC-BIZ-BRIEFS-$ADV30-NYT 774 21:27 S F

SHORT ITEMS ON PEOPLE AND PERSONALITIES

A9877 BC-BIZ-SOFTWARE-2NDTAKE-$ADV30-NYT 573 21:14 S F

UNDATED: monthly payment.

A9876 BC-BIZ-SOFTWARE-2TAKES-$ADV30-NYT 729 21:14 S F

(ATTN: Pa., Calif. Wash., N.Y.)

A9861 BC-INVEST-DIARY-$ADV30-NYT 751 20:59 S F

INVESTING DIGEST, WITH FUNDS WATCH AND MARKETS

A9859 BC-AIRPLANE-BEDS-ART-2TAKES-NYT 771 20:58 U F

(ATTN: Great Britain)

A9860 BC-AIRPLANE-BEDS-ART-2NDTAKE-NYT 523 20:58 U F

UNDATED: years ago.''

A9857 BC-AILING-HMO-BOS 681 20:56 U F

HMO DECISIONS DUE WITHIN TWO WEEKS, OFFICIALS SAY

A9845 BC-ABOUT-CARS-CADILLAC-ART-$ADV30-NYT 1180 20:46 S F

CADILLAC DEVILLE: AMERICA'S SUMO SHAPES UP

A9844 BC-BIZ-FOR-ME-$ADV30-NYT 775 20:44 S F

WHEN WORK CONQUERS ALL

A9841 BC-BIZ-NARCISSISTIC-BOSS-$ADV30-NYT 848 20:42 S F

(ATTN: Mich.)

A9834 BC-INVEST-WITH-MUFSON-KURTZEN-ART-$ADV30-NYT 986 20:33 S F

(ATTN: Mass.)

A9833 BC-ECON-COLUMN-$ADV30-NYT 912 20:30 S F

FROM THE STREETS OF SEATTLE TO THE TABLE AT DAVOS

A9831 BC-ECON-FORUM-NYT 1067 20:27 U F

(ATTN: Mexico, Great Britain)

A9830 BC-JAPAN-BORROW-2NDTAKE-NYT 461 20:27 U F

TOKYO: triple-A rating.

A9829 BC-JAPAN-BORROW-565(2TAKES)-NYT 1062 20:26 U F

JAPAN'S GOVERNMENT TO BORROW FROM BANKS RATHER THAN ISSUE BONDS

A9828 BC-ELIMINATE-BIZ-DAIRY-NYT 30 20:23 S F

A9826 BC-TIME-SHARES-2NDTAKE-NYT 896 20:22 U F

SMUGGLERS' NOTCH, Vt.: Stein Partners.)

A9825 BC-TIME-SHARES-1000(2TAKES)-NYT 1050 20:21 U F

(Attn: Fla., Vt. Pa., Colo., Ind., Ga., La., Calif., Mass. N.Y.)

A9799 BC-THE-INSIDE-STORY-NYT 803 19:57 U F

Editors:

A9789 BC-BUDGET-LADN 131 19:50 U F

The Los Angeles Daily News plans to move the following general stories for u

A9788 BC-COKEMAIN29-COX 676 19:49 U F

A9786 BC-COX-BJT-ADVISORY-COKE29 43 19:48 U F

A9780 BC-ECONOMY-SIGNALS-BOS 858 19:42 U F

INFLATIONARY SIGNALS GIVE MARKET A SCARE

A9761 BC-FINFRONTS-NYT 399 19:27 U F

(mk)

A9754 BC-COX-BJT-ADVISORY-ALLIEDHOLDING 43 19:19 U F

A9750 BC-JUSTFORFEET29-COX 283 19:15 U F

A9749 BC-GAPACIFIC-SUIT29-COX 408 19:14 U F

A9740 BC-STATES-GRAMM-NAT 504 19:06 U F

A9728 BC-BIZ-FESHBACHS-$ADV30-NYT 763 18:58 U F

(Attn: Calif., Fla., Tenn., N.Y.)

A9707 BC-ELIMINATE-FUEL-PRICES-NYT 31 18:38 U F

A9700 BC-CAR-SMART-NIGHTVISION-ART-$ADV30-NYT 759 18:34 U F

SUPERMAN, EAT YOUR HEART OUT: X-RAY VISION FOR THE CAR

A9695 BC-GRAPHICS-BUDGET-NYT 430 18:28 U F

A9693 BC-COX-TRIGONY29-COX 483 18:27 U F

A9673 BC-STATES-AWARDS-NY 225 18:13 R F

A9656 BC-STATES-AWARDS-CO 115 18:10 R F

A9635 BC-KEYRATES-NYT 163 17:51 U F

KEY RATES

A9634 BC-COMPUTER-COLUMN-HNS 1107 17:50 U F

(For use by New York Times News Service clients)

A9630 BC-WORKING-COLUMN-HNS 776 17:45 U F

(For use by New York Times News Service clients)

A9609 BC-BUSINESS-BJT29-COX 800 17:37 R F

A9608 BC-FINANCE-HOOKER-$ADV30-BOS 1094 17:36 U F

(For release Sunday, January 30, 2000)

A9604 BC-WARSH-COLUMN-$ADV30-BOS 1315 17:35 U F

(For release Sunday, January 30, 2000)

A9599 BC-COMPUTER-HELPLINE-HNS 623 17:31 U F

(For use by New York Times News Service clients)

A9552 BC-HEARST-APPOINT-HNS 665 16:18 U F

HEARST NAMES NEW PUBLISHER, EDITOR IN SEATTLE

A9447 BC-GRAPHICS-EARLY-BUDGET-NYT 464 14:45 U F

A9360 BC-ONBUSINESS-COLUMN-BOS 1071 13:44 U F

WHILE OTHERS STUMBLE, SAPIENT THRIVES

A9351 BC-CHEAP-VENTURE-BOS 998 13:37 U F

ON-LINE FIRM TO MATCH SMALLER INVESTORS WITH START-UPS

A9247 BC-BRITAIN-WALMART-$ADV30-COX 1335 12:16 U F

A9239 BC-PROTEIN-DIET-HNS 1391 12:05 U F

(For use by New York Times News Service clients)

A9229 BC-DELL-DAVOS29-COX 633 11:43 U F

A9223 BC-TECH-SUMMIT-1STLD-$ADV30-COX 853 11:25 U F

A9207 BC-TECH-SUMMIT-$ADV30-COX 841 11:14 R F

Here is a list of commentary items stories that moved Friday, January 28, through 2:30 a.m. today, on The N.Y. Times News Service.

The stories go backward to 6:30 a.m. the previous day. Included is story number, keyword, wordage, time sent (Eastern), priority code and category code.

COMMENTARY

A0163 BC-EDITORIAL-AUSTRIA-BOS 368 23:55 U K

(For release Monday, January 31, 2000)

A0160 BC-EDITORIAL-ARTS-BOS 346 23:54 U K

(For release Monday, January 31, 2000)

A0153 BC-EDITORIAL-CANDIDATES-BOS 361 23:51 U K

(For release Monday, January 31, 2000)

A0143 BC-EDITORIAL-AMTRAK-BOS 372 23:45 U K

(For release Sunday, January 30, 2000)

A0142 BC-EDITORIAL-DAVOS-BOS 734 23:44 U K

DAVOS MAN'S VISION

A9796 BC-THE-INSIDE-STORY-NYT 803 19:55 U K

Editors:

A9778 BC-NEW-AMERICA-COLBERT-NYTSF 951 19:41 U K

WHAT'S AT STAKE IN CALIFORNIA'S ANTI-GAY PROP. 22

A9776 BC-NEW-AMERICA-GONZALEZ-NYTSF 968 19:39 U K

FORGOTTEN FAMILY VALUES

A9777 BC-NEW-AMERICA-MONIFA-NYTSF 818 19:40 U K

40 ACRES AND A MULE PLUS INTEREST

A9771 BC-NEW-AMERICA-ADVISORY-NU-NYTSF 667 19:35 U K

NEW AMERICA NEWS SERVICE ADVISORY

A9631 BC-GRIMES-HUMOR-COLUMN-$ADV31-NYTR 588 17:47 A K

FOR THOSE WHO TRULY LOVE THEIR PETS

A9621 BC-NYHAN-COLUMN-$ADV30-BOS 942 17:40 U K

(For release Sunday, January 30, 2000)

A9573 BC-PIMENTEL-COLUMN-AZR 769 17:03 R K

REACHING OUT TO LATINOS COULD HELP CHANGE GOP

A9567 BC-PIMENTEL-COLUMN-AZR 798 16:58 R K

'BRACERO' WORK PROGRAM IS SHORTHAND FOR 'CHEAP'

A9505 BC-ROEPER-CAMPAIGN-COLUMN-NYTSF 875 15:54 U K

WE ALREADY KNOW THE BIG CHEESES &QC;

A9495 BC-CAMPAIGN-COUNTDOWN-ADVISORY-NYTSF 343 15:45 R K

A9471 BC-JOURNAL-ELIAN-$ADV30-COX 1104 15:16 U K

A9445 BC-CLINTON-CUBAN-BOY-HNS 684 14:44 R K

PRESIDENT CLINTON SHOULD ESCORT ELIAN BACK TO CUBA

A9440 BC-MORSE-COLUMN-HNS 890 14:41 R K

YOU KIDS GO ON HOME NOW

A9438 BC-LYNCH-COLUMN-HNS 674 14:39 R K

A SCHOOL'S `CUSTOMER' IS THE TAXPAYER, NOT THE STUDENT

A9370 BC-JACKSON-COLUMN-BOS 866 13:51 U K

A LOUD BOO FOR ST. LOUIS AND ITS RAMS

A9366 BC-MCGRORY-COLUMN-BOS 592 13:49 U K

ON TWO FRONTS, NEW HAMPSHIRE IS A WINNER

A9364 BC-NYHAN-COLUMN-BOS 873 13:48 U K

GORE AND MCCAIN CARRY THE DAY

A9327 BC-COLUMNIST-FEBRUARY-SKED-NYT 202 13:04 U K

Editors:

A9244 BC-NEW-AMERICA-ADVISORY-NU-NYTSF 72 12:11 U K

A9190 BC-COMMENTARY-BJT29-COX 734 11:00 R K

A9188 BC-MCCARTY-COLUMN29-COX 618 11:00 R K

A9187 BC-LATHAM-COLUMN29-COX 649 10:59 R K

A9159 BC-JOEMURRAY-COLUMN29-COX 547 10:32 U K

Here is a list of &UR; SPORTS &LR; stories that moved Friday, January 28, through 2:30 a.m. today, on The N.Y. Times News Service.

The stories go backward to 6:30 a.m. the previous day. Included is story number, keyword, wordage, time sent (Eastern), priority code and category code.

SPORTS

A0190 BC-BKC-PEPP-LADN-(SLANG) 573 01:04 R S

SEVEN STRAIGHT FOR PEPPERDINE

A0183 BC-TEN-AUSTRALIAN-OPEN-WOMEN-NYT 845 00:46 U S

DAVENPORT OVERPOWERS HINGIS TO WIN OPEN, 6-1, 7-5

A0178 BC-BOX-TYSON-FRANCIS-NYT 882 00:26 U S

TYSON REPORTEDLY TRIES TO LEAVE BRITAIN ON EVE OF BOUT

A0137 BC-FBN-KRIKOR-COLUMN-LADN-(SLANG) 580 23:40 R S

RAMS PUNTER HORAN GETS A SUPER SECOND CHANCE

A0128 BC-BKN-LAKENOT-LADN-(SLANG) 391 23:33 R S

BENCH NOT YET A CONCERN FOR LAKERS

A0009 BC-FBC-USCFOOT-LADN-(SLANG) 259 23:06 R S

USC FOOTBALL GETS THREE COMMITMENTS

A9958 BC-BKC-SCNOTE-LADN-(SLANG) 453 22:33 R S

GOOD HAIR DAY EARNS STARTING SPOT

A9944 BC-FBN-RHODEN-COLUMN-NYT 790 22:17 U S

SPORTS COLUMN: PROFESSIONALS STILL IN NEED OF MENTORS

A9932 BC-FBN-TITANS-STECKEL-BOS 927 22:04 U S

STECKEL'S TITANS HAVE A WORD FOR OFFENSE: PHYSICAL

A9910 BC-BKW-CURRY-LADN-(SLANG) 211 21:45 R S

SMOKE CLEARS IN CURRY CASE

A9899 BC-FBN-SBOWL-VIOLENCE29-COX 1428 21:37 U S

A9891 BC-FBN-SBOWL-NFCNOTES29-COX 890 21:29 U S

A9867 BC-LADN-SPORTS-UPDATE-BUDGET- 210 21:02 U S

The Los Angeles Daily News plans to move the following sports stories for use by

A9852 BC-FBN-PATRIOTS-PARKER-BOS 722 20:53 U S

BELICHICK FIRES PATRIOTS STRENGTH COACH PARKER

A9851 BC-BKC-BOEHEIM-BOS 1301 20:52 U S

BOEHEIM SEEMS A CHANGED MAN

A9849 BC-BKC-UCLANOT-LADN-(SLANG) 441 20:48 R S

BRUINS PLAYING IN HOSTILE TERRITORY

A9817 BC-MCDONOUGH-COLUMN-BOS 1401 20:10 U S

BRUINS' PLAY MAKING OWNER JACOBS UNHAPPY

A9809 BC-BUDGET-SPI 348 20:06 U S

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer plans to move the following stories for clien

A9804 BC-FBN-TAGLIABUE-BOS 488 20:01 U S

NFL MUST STUDY `DIGITAL REVOLUTION,' TAGLIABUE SAYS

A9794 BC-THE-INSIDE-STORY-NYT 803 19:54 U S

Editors:

A9783 BC-FBN-RAMS-MARTZ-BOS 902 19:44 U S

MARTZ MASTER OF RAMS' OFFENSE

A9781 BC-FBN-TYSON-FRANCIS-BOS 925 19:43 U S

FOR FRANCIS, A DEFINING MOMENT

A9764 BC-FBN-SBOWL-TAGLIABUE-COX 631 19:29 R S

A9753 BC-BKC-CREMINS-COX 1021 19:18 R S

A9745 BC-BBN-BRAVES-BONILLA-COX 430 19:12 R S

A9727 BC-SOCIALITE-FASHION-$ADV30-ART-2NDTAKE-NYT 1209 18:57 U S

NEW YORK: Web site.

A9716 BC-SPOT/FEATURE-BUDGET-BOS 676 18:44 U S

For Release SATURDAY AMs, January 29, 2000

A9708 BC-TEN-AUSTRALIAN-OPEN-(TRIM)-NYT 1257 18:39 U S

KAFELNIKOV BELIEVES HE CAN HANDLE AGASSI

A9702 BC-FBN-SBOWL-AFC28NOTES-COX 1038 18:36 R S

A9703 BC-FBN-SBOWL-BISHER28-COX 691 18:37 R S

A9622 BC-SPORTS-BJT29-COX 905 17:41 R S

A9596 BC-BRITAIN-TYSON-0129-COX 907 17:23 U S

A9507 BC-FEATURE-BUDGET-ART-BOS 790 15:54 U S

ART ADV.: A photo with FBN-BELICHICK is being transmitted to NYT Photo Service s

A9498 BC-SPORTS-NYT-BUDGET 267 15:50 U S

Attn Sports Editors:

A9437 BC-FBN-TITANS-SUPERBOWL-HNS 937 14:37 R S

ST. LOUIS RUNNING BACK IS BUILT RAM TOUGH

A9415 BC-FBN-SHAUGHNESSY-COLUMN-BOS 796 14:11 U S

IT'S ALL SO CRAZY, IT MIGHT JUST WORK

A9416 BC-FBN-BELICHICK-2 TAKES-ART-BOS 1604 14:12 U S

(ART ADV.: A photo is being sent to NYTNS clients. Non-subscribers can make indi

A9413 BC-FBN-TITANS-FISHER-BOS 1823 14:10 U S

FISHER HAS GUIDED TITANS FROM DISARRAY

A9361 BC-BOX-FIGHT-BOS 984 13:45 U S

FRANCIS STAYS SHIELDED FROM TYSON MANIA

A9358 BC-FBN-RAMS-VERMEIL-2ND TAKE-BOS 1111 13:41 U S

ATLANTA: ... at your best.''

A9357 BC-TV-SPORTS-COLUMN-BOS 968 13:40 U S

ABC DROPS THE BALL BEFORE THE GAME STARTS

A9353 BC-FBN-TITANS-KEARSE-BOS 959 13:38 U S

KEARSE RUSHING TO GLORY

A9350 BC-FBN-RAMS-VERMEIL-2 TAKES-BOS 1321 13:36 U S

VERMIEL HAS RAMS FEELING MORE AT EASE

A9349 BC-FBN-BELICHICK-2ND TAKE-ART-BOS 1765 13:35 U S

UNDATED: ... intellectual powers.''

Here is a list of &UR; ENTERTAINMENT &LR; stories that moved Friday, January 28, through 2:30 a.m. today, on The N.Y. Times News Service.

The stories go backward to 6:30 a.m. the previous day. Included is story number, keyword, wordage, time sent (Eastern), priority code and category code.

ENTERTAINMENT

A9988 BC-MOVIES-IN-BRIEF-2NDTAKE-NYT 1152 22:49 U E

UNDATED: still inspiring (Holden).

A9987 BC-MOVIES-IN-BRIEF-2TAKES-NYT 1069 22:48 U E

NEW AND NOTEWORTHY MOVIES

A9915 BC-BRITAIN-WHITBREAD-2NDTAKE-NYT 336 21:47 U E

LONDON: Potter camp.

A9914 BC-BRITAIN-WHITBREAD-2TAKES-NYT 923 21:46 U E

WIZARD VS. DRAGON: A CLOSE CONTEST, BUT THE FIRE-BREATHER WINS

A9797 BC-THE-INSIDE-STORY-NYT 803 19:56 U E

Editors:

A9782 BC-WOLF-THEATER-NYT 1155 19:43 U E

CONTROVERSY OVER GAYS IN MILITARY COMES ALIVE IN ONE-MAN PLAY

A9719 BC-TV-TONIGHT-ADV02-NYTSF 928 18:52 U E

$ADV02

A9680 BC-SOPRANO-LOCKHART29-COX 1289 18:13 R E

A9645 BC-DIGITAL-LA-COLUMN-LADN 941 18:01 R E

THE FORCE WON'T BE WITH DVD LOVERS

A9624 BC-COSMIC-MAPS-ART-NYT 1186 17:43 U E

PLANETARIUM EXHIBIT SHOWS WHAT `ASTRONOMICAL' MEANS

A9613 BC-FEATURE-BUDGET-ART-BOS 790 17:40 U E

ART ADV.: A photo with FBN-BELICHICK is being transmitted to NYT Photo Service s

A9611 BC-MIND-SPORTS-NYT 769 17:38 U E

(ATTN: N.Y., N.J., Fla., Great Britain)

A9563 BC-STARBEAT-ADVISORY-NYTSF 928 16:51 R E

BEACH BOY: LEONARDO DiCAPRIO ON FAME, `THE BEACH' AND, OH YEAH, `TITANIC'

A9559 BC-MOVIES-IN-BRIEF-2TAKES-NYT 1069 16:47 U E

NEW AND NOTEWORTHY MOVIES

A9560 BC-MOVIES-IN-BRIEF-2NDTAKE-NYT 1152 16:48 U E

UNDATED: still inspiring (Holden).

A9556 BC-EUROPE-HERITAGE-2TAKES-NYT 918 16:41 U E

SEEKING A UNITED EUROPEAN HERITAGE

A9557 BC-EUROPE-HERITAGE-2NDTAKE-NYT 461 16:42 U E

BRUSSELS: an anthem.

A9483 BC-ENTERTAINMENT-NYT-BUDGET 331 15:33 U E

A9478 BC-THEATER-WIT-REVIEW-LADN 929 15:27 R E

A DONNE DEAL IN `WIT'

A9472 BC-MUSIC-WEB-TABLATURE-LADN 1041 15:17 R E

WEB LETS GUITARISTS' FINGERS DO THE WALKING

A9469 BC-MUSIC-WEB-TABLATURE-SITES-LADN 234 15:10 R E

WHERE TO LOOK FOR TAB ON THE WEB

A9412 BC-MUSIC-MACY-BOS 1014 14:09 U E

MACY GRAY'S 2 GRAMMY NODS SUGGEST SHE'S HERE TO STAY

A9408 BC-MOVIE-EYE-BOS 630 14:07 U E

`EYE OF THE BEHOLDER' IS STYLISH BUT TOO WEIRD TO WORK

A9400 BC-MUSIC-ROCK-BOS 801 14:03 U E

HART WORKS HIS DIGITAL MAGIC ON PLANET DRUM'S NEW ALBUM

A9396 BC-MUSIC-TURNER-BOS 408 14:01 U E

TINA TURNER KEEPS HER EDGE WITH GRITTY SONGS OF SURVIVAL

A9392 BC-MUSIC-WILLIAMS-BOS 1236 13:59 U E

WILLIAMS REFLECTS ON HIS APPROACH TO `ANGELA'S ASHES'

A9387 BC-MOVIE-DEATH-BOS 750 13:57 U E

'MR. DEATH' CHILLS, YET INTRIGUES

A9375 BC-MOVIE-GREAT-BOS 891 13:52 U E

`ISN'T SHE GREAT' IS OVER THE TOP BUT ENTERTAINING

A9304 BC-UPCOMING-MOVIES-HNS 489 12:49 R E

ANOTHER `SCREAM' AMONG THE YEAR'S NEW MOVIE CHOICES

A9293 BC-PROFILE-ROBERT-DOWNEY-SR-HNS 1267 12:45 R E

ROBERT DOWNEY SR.: THE GRANDADDY OF INDEPENDENT FILMS

A9240 BC-MUSIC-MUDHONEY-HNS 382 12:07 U E

(For use by New York Times News Service clients)

Here is a list of &UR; LIFESTYLE &LR; stories that moved Friday, January 28, through 2:30 a.m. today, on The N.Y. Times News Service.

The stories go backward to 6:30 a.m. the previous day. Included is story number, keyword, wordage, time sent (Eastern), priority code and category code.

LIFE-STYLE

A0133 BC-SUNDANCE-PARTIES-$ADV30-2NDTAKE-NYT 991 23:38 U L

PARK CITY: in Welsh.)

A0131 BC-SUNDANCE-PARTIES-$ADV30-540(2TAKES)-NYT 587 23:38 U L

AT SUNDANCE, THE PARTY IS THE MAIN EVENT

A9983 BC-PHOTO-UPDATE-NYT 2972 22:45 U L

A9884 BC-SHUTTLE29-COX 1301 21:24 U L

A9798 BC-THE-INSIDE-STORY-NYT 803 19:56 U L

Editors:

A9726 BC-SOCIALITE-FASHION-$ADV30-ART-2TAKES-NYT 1316 18:56 U L

THE NEW REIGN OF THE PARK AVENUE PRINCESS

A9664 BC-VIRGINIA-STATESONG30-COX 516 18:13 R L

A9662 BC-MORMONS29-COX 1126 18:10 R L

A9655 BC-MARTHAS-VINEYARD-2NDTAKE-$ADV30-NYT 553 18:09 S L

UNDATED: three months.''

A9654 BC-MARTHAS-VINEYARD-$ADV30-2TAKES-NYT 816 18:09 S L

OFF THE ROCK: MARTHA'S VINEYARD RESIDENTS ENJOY OTHER ISLANDS IN WINTER

A9643 BC-GIFT-BAGS-2TAKES-$ADV30-NYT 773 18:00 U L

(Attn: N.Y., Md.)

A9644 BC-GIFT-BAGS-2NDTAKE-$ADV30-NYT 574 18:01 U L

UNDATED: pebbled-leather pocketbook.

A9636 BC-GARDEN-COLUMN-$ADV30-NYT 924 17:52 U L

NO WET FEET, THANK YOU

A9595 BC-NITEOUT-EMERSON-QUARTET-$ADV30-NYT 623 17:22 U L

A NIGHT OUT WITH THE EMERSON STRING QUARTET

A9589 BC-AUTO-REVIEW-AZR 528 17:15 R L

PONTIAC'S SUNFIRE CONVERTIBLE LOOKS AS GOOD AS IT RUNS

A9588 BC-STYLE-BUDGET-NYT 578 17:14 U L

Attn: Style and Leisure Editors:

A9359 BC-HANDYMAN-HOTTON-$ADV30-BOS 882 13:42 U L

(For release Sunday, January 30, 2000)

A9344 BC-ROAD-SALT-HNS 755 13:20 R L

SALT ALTERNATIVES GAIN GROUND AGAINST WINTER ASSAULT

A9242 BC-PROTEIN-DIET-HNS 1391 12:09 U L

(For use by New York Times News Service clients)

A9195 BC-WARNER-ON-WOOD29-COX 394 11:04 R L

A9194 BC-FLOWERS29-COX 940 11:03 R L

A9192 BC-FEATURES-BJT29-COX 892 11:02 R L

A9186 BC-CELLULITE29-COX 1018 10:58 R L

A9177 BC-CALDWELL-part5-NYTSF 1119 10:51 R L

THE CALDWELL JOURNALS: BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL

A9175 BC-CALDWELL-part3-NYTSF 1234 10:49 R L

THE CALDWELL JOURNALS: MALCOLM X

A9176 BC-CALDWELL-part4-NYTSF 1060 10:50 R L

THE CALDWELL JOURNALS: WHITE REPORTERS OUT

A9174 BC-CALDWELL-part2-NYTSF 1304 10:48 R L

THE CALDWELL JOURNALS: HARLEM, THE COLONY CONVERGES

A9171 BC-CALDWELL-JOURNALS-NYTSF 979 10:46 R L

A9172 BC-CALDWELL-part1-NYTSF 1273 10:47 R L

THE CALDWELL JOURNALS: HERE COMES THE BOLL WEEVIL

Here is a list of &UR; FOOD and DINING &LR; stories that moved Friday, January 28, through 2:30 a.m. today, on The N.Y. Times News Service.

The stories go backward to 6:30 a.m. the previous day. Included is story number, keyword, wordage, time sent (Eastern), priority code and category code.

FOOD AND DINING

qqq

nytr

Here is a list of N.Y. Times columnists that moved yesterday through 2:30 a.m. today, on The N.Y. Times News Service.

The stories go backward to 6:30 a.m. the previous day. Included is story number, keyword, wordage, time sent (Eastern), priority code and category code.

&UR; COMMENTARY &LR;

NA985628-TNS-WIR BC-RICH-COLUMN-2NDTAKE-NYT 488 1/28,20:56 U K

UNDATED: the nominees.

NA985528-TNS-WIR BC-RICH-COLUMN-2TAKES-NYT 976 1/28,20:55 U K

COMMENTARY: WAKE ME WHEN IT'S ALMOST OVER

NA981828-TNS-WIR BC-LEWIS-COLUMN-NYT 729 1/28,20:13 U K

COMMENTARY: THE COURT SEES REALITY

ATLANTA _ NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue held his annual Super Bowl state-of-the-league address Friday. Here are the things I learned:

1. Seattle will never host a Super Bowl.

No one is exactly blaming Atlanta. This city has more hotel/motel rooms than any other place in America, including Aurora Avenue North. It also has the Georgia Dome.

So Atlanta fits almost all the important criteria for hosting a Super Bowl, even if we were all miserably misled about the opportunity for a little sunshine and warm breezes, to go along with all the Lite beer being swilled down here.

Which leads us to weather.

The commissioner, sporting a zippy sense of humor, talked at length about weather, since frosty Atlanta has made the issue as big, probably bigger, than whether the Titans can shut down the Rams' warp-speed offense.

(By the way, the pick here is the Titans, 27-24. Steve McNair is tough. Jevon Kearse is a freak. Eddie George can rumble. Jeff Fisher has turned these vagabonds into a tight team.)

``I'm a big fan of the Weather Channel,'' Tagliabue said. ``It enjoys high ratings thanks to people like me who have to travel. And there is always a lot of talk about La Nina and El Nino and rotating cold water in the gulf that spawns storm systems and, really, what it comes down to is that you really can't predict the weather.''

He then concluded, with great insight, that wintery conditions across the Eastern seaboard have all but debunked wishful-thinking theories that ``global warming will make for sunny Sundays in January.''

Ergo, Seattle, with a new outdoor football stadium about to be built, will continue to have trouble convincing the NFL that a Super Bowl experience should include driving sheets of rain or an out-and-out monsoon.

I've been to a few Super Bowls; Seattle should be very proud for taking itself out of the running.

2. The NFL has replaced the NBA as the darling of corporate success and continues to shame baseball into stepping up its efforts toward parity.

Call it the NFL's ``same chance, serious hope'' campaign for Super Bowl potential. That's what Tagliabue did.

``We have a system that works for all teams, no matter what size the city or how big the television market. To win a Super Bowl, it's not about who has the most money or who's playing in what city,'' Tagliabue said.

``Everyone is in a position to compete, to put a team together and have a coach lead you to the Super Bowl. The quality of our system is demonstrated this year with these two talented teams, whose combined record is 31-6.''

Indeed, the Rams and Titans are proof that the old dynasty days of the NFL are all but dead and gone. And the system is not going to change.

Tagliabue called Denver coach Mike Shanahan's proposal for a Larry Bird-type salary cap exemption for NFL teams, ``for the birds.''

Though NBA teams can go over their salary cap by signing their own free agents to big-money deals, the NFL has no intention of softening its cap to let teams keep free agents.

3. The NFL understands Internet madness.

Tagliabue promised the NFL will keep on top of revenue opportunities, especially with the promise of broadband capability and the convergence of TV, cable, phone and Internet services, which will change the way the NFL distributes games to its fans.

``Bill Gates talks about the Internet as the new neighborhood front stoop. We'll have to take advantage of that,'' Tagliabue said.

Of course, in quoting the computer guru, Tagliabue failed to mention that no one ever charged you money to sit on your own front stoop.

4. Wall Street isn't alone in dissing overvalued Internet stocks.

When asked about the potential for offering stock shares of the NFL, Tagliabue took a crack at the likes of start-up companies whose stock values are, basically, a house of cards.

``We have some revenues associated with our league, so we don't have an attractive business. You have higher multiples if you don't have any revenues,'' Tagliabue said.

If you're an Amazon.com stockholder, that was a big, fat ``Ouch.''

5. Bad boys won't be tolerated.

The NFL was hardly immune to bad behavior this season, what with the throat-slashing gestures, the Rae Carruth murder charges and the Rams-Bucs postgame altercations.

But there was time for praise Friday. The NFL now honors its player of the year with the Walter Payton Award, and yesterday, Vikings receiver Cris Carter was the recipient.

Tagliabue praised Carter for his work on the field and off, where No. 80 serves willingly as a role model in the community and among his teammates.

The odd thing about it? Soon after Payton's death on Nov. 1 at age 45 from liver failure, Carter watched his young teammate, Randy Moss, write Payton's No. 34 on his shoes.

``And the NFL would fine him $5,000, but he did what he felt was right,'' Carter said.

The NFL, dictatorial on patches, logos, shirt tails and sock length, said it only fined Moss once, for writing Payton's number on a rally towel during a Monday Night Football game.

There's a time and place for remembering fallen stars. And in the league of absolute authority, the commissioner's office will let you know when you're out of bounds.

P-I columnist Laura Vecsey can be reached at 206-448-8011

or lauravecsey &LR; seattle-pi.com

ATLANTA _ Jeff Fisher had played five seasons with the Chicago Bears when an ankle injury ensured he would not make it six.

Only 27, his life had reached a premature crossroad.

Then Buddy Ryan called. The new coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, who had been Fisher's defensive coordinator with the Bears, was offering him a job.

``I turned him down over the period of a week after the Super Bowl was over,'' Fisher, now coach of the Tennessee Titans, said of that fateful phone call in 1986 after the Bears had won the championship. ``I re-thought it and took the job.''

It took, however, a hefty dose of the kind of prodding only the cantankerous Ryan could provide.

``I was not certain at that point that I was finished playing, and I said that in so many words to Buddy,'' Fisher said. ``He said, `You and Julie getting married yet?' I said, `Yeah, this spring. Why?' He said, `Why don't you tell your fiancee to throw you a retirement party? You're done. You can't play anymore.'''

---

Dick Vermeil had won a Super Bowl with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1981, but also coined a phrase in doing so: Coaching burnout.

Weary and wrung out after seven seasons as an NFL head coach, he left the sideline after the 1982 season and moved into the TV booth as an analyst _ a gig that lasted 14 years. Vermeil thought he had discovered post-coaching Nirvana. He was living in a log cabin on a 110-acre ranch and, as he puts it, ``Stealing for a living by broadcasting games.''

Still, something was missing.

``There wasn't a time within those 14 years that I didn't think about coming back,'' he said.

Vermeil had ample opportunity. As each season passed, the number of coaches fired increased. In most cases, his name would pop up on the short list of possible replacements.

But he was able to resist until 1997, when St. Louis general manager John Shaw called about the Rams' vacancy.

``Initially, I said no,'' Vermeil said. ``Then I recognized that there was still a fire burning to get it done.''

---

Two coaches who, at the start of the season, were given next to no chance of standing on opposite sidelines at Super Bowl XXXIV.

But that's exactly where Fisher and Vermeil will be Sunday _ if not for the exact same reasons.

The difference between 63-year-old Vermeil and 41-year-old Fisher is perhaps most evident in the way they treat players.

``I believe players have changed,'' Fisher said this week. ``Ten years ago, you could tell a team to line up on the goal line after practice and run 10 100-yard dashes and they'd do it. Now you tell them to do it and they ask, `Why?' That's the difference in the athlete.''

It's a lesson Vermeil had to learn.

When he arrived in St. Louis, he brought with him an old-school philosophy that had worked so well during his first tour of duty in the NFL. Vermeil worked his players hard _ too hard, by the standards of the modern-day player. The Rams came close to a mutiny last season before Vermeil backed off.

``Two things stand out in my mind,'' Rams cornerback Todd Lyght said of the change in his coach. ``We don't have the 3{-hour practices we had before. We don't continually bang on each other like we did. We used to wear pads all the way up to Friday.

``That wore us down. Before games, guys would be in the locker room sleeping, totally exhausted from a week's preparation. We don't have that problem anymore.''

Another difference is how Fisher and Vermeil perceive their players.

Fisher was an NFL player and never coached at any level other than the NFL. He still looks young enough to play, and if you doubt that for a instant, just remember this: Fisher and Titans guard Bruce Matthews played together at USC.

``He's just an unbelievable player's coach,'' Titans tight end Frank Wycheck said of Fisher. ``He's played the game, so obviously he knows what we go through on a day-to-day basis. Right off the bat, you have to respect the guy, just for the mere fact that he knows what he's talking about. He's just a great leader and a great player's coach.''

Vermeil takes a grandfatherly approach, which is understandable since he and his wife, Carol, have children older than any of his players.

``This football team is my wife's and my family, really,'' Vermeil said yesterday. ``We sort of feel like they are our young kids, and we really make an effort of coaching them in every thing they do.

``I think even in the National Football League you have to coach the total person,'' added Vermeil, who developed this philosophy while coaching his way from high school, to junior college, to major college to the NFL.

Yet another difference is who Fisher and Vermeil are coaching.

The Titans are basically a home-grown group, which might sound strange, considering they have had four different home fields in each of the past four seasons.

But Fisher and general manager Floyd Reese have done a good job of not only drafting players, but keeping them and developing them.

Their vagabond existence has only served to bond a team that enters the game Sunday just as it has each game this season _ with a very large we-get-no-respect chip on their shoulder pads.

Fisher has been the primary adhesive.

``I coached in the league for 17 years, and I probably coached with 10 or 12 guys who would have had nervous breakdowns going through what we went through,'' Reese said. ``Had Jeff not been young and laid-back like he is, he probably would have reached for the gun at some point, too.

``It was brutal. There were so many issues and things you had to deal that didn't have to do with winning, yet you had to deal with them. Had Jeff not dealt with them so well, the whole thing probably would have imploded.''

Vermeil, meanwhile, has rebuilt the Rams. Only five players remain from the team that moved from Los Angeles to St. Louis in 1995, and just nine are still around from the roster Vermeil inherited.

``This is definitely the closest team that I've been around,'' said Rams defensive tackle Ray Agnew, one of those new players Vermeil has used to piece together this Super Bowl team. ``That was Vermeil's plan, to get guys that love one another and want to be around one another. He got the people he wanted, just like the people he had in Philadelphia when they went to the Super Bowl.''

Despite all their differences, this unlikely pair has reached the same destination with the same goal.

``There is only one thing that is important in the National Football League now _ winning,'' Vermeil said. ``If you don't win, it doesn't matter what happened or how great a coach you are, the perception is you're an idiot.''

P-I reporter Clare Farnsworth can be reached at 206-448-8016 or clarefarnsworth &LR; seattle-pi.com

LOS ANGELES -- Marcelo Siero's investment of a few minutes' time -- and no money -- became a huge payday when he sold the Internet address loans.com for $3 million.

The Silicon Valley computer consultant so far is the big winner in Universal City-based GreatDomains.com's online auction of three names expected to fetch at least six-figure prices.

Bids for the other two names, taxes.com and cinema.com came in at $400,000 and $530,000, respectively. Those deals were still being negotiated late Friday.

GreatDomains representatives declined to release the name of the winning bidders.

Siero, who registered loans.com for free in 1993, could not be reached for comment.

His payout falls short of the highest price paid to date for a single domain name. The record is held by Santa Monica-based eCompanies, which paid $7.5 million for business.com last November.

Jeff Tinsley, chief executive officer of GreatDomains.com, said the winning bidder stands to bring in great revenue with such a strong online identity. Tinsley said the bidder is a large public company, but he declined to go into greater detail.

Siero of San Jose registered the domain name, the Internet equivalent of an address, before the Internet Network Information Center began charging people for the privilege.

Today, the process is managed by Network Solutions, which charges users $35 per year to register domain names. Registrants pay for the first two years initially.

That small investment can pay huge dividends, as Friday's sale illustrates.

``We're making millionaires of people who spend $70 at the right time,'' Tinsley said.

While some domain names sell for a combination of cash and equity or a promise of future profits, the sale of loans.com was an all-cash deal, Tinsley said.

``This is $3 million right now,'' Tinsley said. ``That's a big difference.''

As the auction wound down, about 20 people gathered in the company's office, five of them working the phones to try to squeeze as much out of the sale as possible.

The end result was somewhat deflating since the selling price of loans.com was forecast to be in the range of the fee for business.com.

GreatDomains gets a cut of between 7 percent and 20 percent of Siero's money for marketing and administering the auction.

Paying more than $1 million for what amounts to an address is increasingly common.

``The price paid is either absurd or it's not -- depending on your point of view,'' Clay Rider, vice president and chief analyst for Zona Research in Redwood City, said last week. ``What they spend on advertising them far outstrips the amount of money paid for the name.''

X X X

LOS ANGELES -- Marcelo Siero's investment of a few minutes' time -- and no money -- became a huge payday when he sold the Internet address loans.com for $3 million.

The Silicon Valley computer consultant so far is the big winner in Universal City-based GreatDomains.com's online auction of three names expected to fetch at least six-figure prices.

Bids for the other two names, taxes.com and cinema.com came in at $400,000 and $530,000, respectively. Those deals were still being negotiated late Friday.

GreatDomains representatives declined to release the name of the winning bidders.

Siero, who registered loans.com for free in 1993, could not be reached for comment.

His payout falls short of the highest price paid to date for a single domain name. The record is held by Santa Monica-based eCompanies, which paid $7.5 million for business.com last November.

Jeff Tinsley, chief executive officer of GreatDomains.com, said the winning bidder stands to bring in great revenue with such a strong online identity. Tinsley said the bidder is a large public company, but he declined to go into greater detail.

Siero of San Jose registered the domain name, the Internet equivalent of an address, before the Internet Network Information Center began charging people for the privilege.

Today, the process is managed by Network Solutions, which charges users $35 per year to register domain names. Registrants pay for the first two years initially.

That small investment can pay huge dividends, as Friday's sale illustrates.

``We're making millionaires of people who spend $70 at the right time,'' Tinsley said.

While some domain names sell for a combination of cash and equity or a promise of future profits, the sale of loans.com was an all-cash deal, Tinsley said.

``This is $3 million right now,'' Tinsley said. ``That's a big difference.''

As the auction wound down, about 20 people gathered in the company's office, five of them working the phones to try to squeeze as much out of the sale as possible.

The end result was somewhat deflating since the selling price of loans.com was forecast to be in the range of the fee for business.com.

GreatDomains gets a cut of between 7 percent and 20 percent of Siero's money for marketing and administering the auction.

Paying more than $1 million for what amounts to an address is increasingly common.

``The price paid is either absurd or it's not -- depending on your point of view,'' Clay Rider, vice president and chief analyst for Zona Research in Redwood City, said last week. ``What they spend on advertising them far outstrips the amount of money paid for the name.''

X X X

EDITORS: &QL; The Los Angeles-datelined NOISY story will not move in tonight's Los Angeles Daily News file. &QL;

X X X

WASHINGTON -- Need some time off? Consider running for the House of Representatives.

President Clinton's 90-minute State of the Union address marked the longest amount of time that representatives have spent in their chamber since before Thanksgiving, a winter slumber, er, break of about two months.

And thanks to some planned retreats and extended vacations throughout the year, it doesn't look like it gets much harder for Congress.

True, serving in Congress isn't a typical five-day-a-week, eight-hour-a-day job. But this election year, the days that politicians will spend outside the Beltway will outnumber the days they spend at their desks nearly 2-to-1.

The House eased back into business Monday with a five-minute opening session that featured a prayer, a flag salute and a motion to adjourn. That was followed by snow shutdowns Tuesday and Wednesday, then Thursday's late-night speech from President Clinton.

Friday was a day off.

Congress' truncated election-year schedule, announced this week by House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., also includes lengthy breaks for holidays that usually result in a single day off or a three-day weekend for most workers.

Congress will adjourn Feb. 21-28 to mark Presidents Day. They will also be out of full session April 17-28 for Easter and Passover. Representatives and senators will also get an extended weekend for Memorial Day (May 29-June 2) and a week (July 3-7) for Independence Day.

Congress will recess from July 31 to Sept. 5 more than five weeks so members can attend the weeklong Democratic and Republican national conventions.

And campaign at home.

Congressional leaders hope to complete their legislative business and shut down for the year Oct. 6, leaving a full month for campaigning prior to Election Day on Nov. 7.

All told, this year's congressional schedule calls for the House and Senate to meet in full on 125 days, down slightly from the 128 days they met in 1996, the previous presidential election year.

In 1999, a nonelection year, Congress was officially in session for 139 days. Days in session are officially known as Legislative Days. Except for rare exceptions, all scheduled Legislative Days are weekdays.

But even those numbers don't tell the full story of Congress' meeting schedule. The House and Senate, whose members are each paid $141,300 per year, rarely meet for full sessions Mondays or Fridays, allowing extended weekends for official and personal business and travel.

``Congress' schedule definitely looks skimpy,'' said Sarah Binder, a specialist in governmental studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

``You can make an argument that Congress might get more done if it put in more time. But there are many other obstacles, including partisanship, to passing legislation like health care reform. Meeting for more days would not change that fact,'' Binder said.

``The small number of Legislative Days is a symptom of gridlock in Congress, not a cause of gridlock,'' she said.

House members have their own take.

``I'd like to see Congress meet more often and I have voted in the past against several motions to adjourn,'' said Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Woodland Hills. ``More days don't ensure we'll get more done, but meeting fewer days ensures that we won't.''

Rep. Stephen Horn, R-Lakewood, said Congress has scheduled enough time to get its work done, adding that he and other colleagues recently met with House Speaker Dennis Hastert to set a week-by-week schedule for considering and voting on legislation.

Next week, hundreds of House members will break away from Washington's breakneck pace by leaving town for party retreats at a pair of resorts.

On Wednesday, House Republicans, including Reps. Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, and David Dreier, R-Covina, will travel to the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort and Spa in Western Pennsylvania to attend a GOP retreat. The session, featuring a pep talk by Penn State University football coach Joe Paterno, will run through Friday.

The Republican getaway is being organized by the Congressional Institute, a nonprofit, privately funded organization that has also organized bipartisan retreats for House members.

Jerry Climer, president of the Washington-based institute, said the retreat will allow members to exchange ideas and plot strategies, all the while insulated from the distractions of staffers, constituents, lobbyists and reporters.

Should time permit, GOP members can also ski Nemacolin's slopes or rejuvenate at its spa, where fees range from $125 for a basic rubdown to $450 for a head-to-toe treatment.

On Feb. 5, House Democrats will depart for the Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, Va., for a three-day retreat organized by the House Democratic Caucus.

High-tech applications to society and politics will be the major theme, with presentations by Steve Case, chairman of America Online, and Gerald Levin, chairman of Time Warner. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney will also address the retreat, which will culminate Feb. 7 with an appearance by President Clinton.

Democratic retreaters will also have access to the Homestead's ski slopes and world-class spa, where a half-day array of treatments runs $240.

Sherman said he had made tentative plans to join the retreat which, like the GOP getaway, has been factored into Congress' schedule.

``Doing this once a year is not a bad use of my time,'' Sherman said. ``A retreat is a good part of the legislative process.''

Both Republican and Democratic retreat organizers stressed that their events are not junkets and that no taxpayer funds will be expended. Members will pay all of their own costs for transportation, lodging, food and other goodies.

Room rates at the GOP's site range from $190 per night to $2,000 for a ``Presidential Suite.'' Nightly room charges for the Democrats' Homestead retreat range from $208 to $554.

But when it comes to paying their own way, House retreaters have an option not available to the general public. Under Federal Election Commission rules, members can use campaign funds to settle their resort bills.

Retreats are also among the first order of business this year for the Senate, although members' arrangements are spartan compared with those of the House. GOP senators held their one-day planning getaway Thursday at the Library of Congress, steps from their Capitol Hill offices. Senate Democrats retreated to the library Friday. But both Senate groups have booked themselves into Nemacolin for retreats later in the year.

X X X

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WASHINGTON _ After a missile failed to hit a mock warhead high over the Pacific Ocean two weeks ago, the Clinton administration rushed to slough off this setback to its plans to protect the country against missile attacks.

``We're committed to the development of a limited national missile defense system designed to counter emerging threats from rogue states,'' said David Leavy, spokesman for the National Security Council.

Privately, though, many administration officials were relieved. The near-miss might give President Clinton reason to delay his decision on whether to break ground on the system. ``The case is now easier to make that the decision is not ripe,'' said one Defense Department official.

It should come as no surprise that in an election year, politics _ both domestic and international _ are driving the administration's divergent public-private views on missile defenses. At stake are not only America's defenses against new 21st-century menaces, but also the nation's relationship with a host of other countries, all of whom are alarmed by Washington's push to build a system that would violate the landmark 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which bars national defenses. The prospect of such a system has made Russia jittery, China suspicious and America's staunchest European allies resentful.

The Clinton administration has always been ambivalent about such a system, arguing for years that the threat did not warrant spending billions of dollars on unproven technology, which had its origins in the vaunted Star Wars proposal of the Reagan years. But the White House did an abrupt about-face in mid-1998 after two things happened. First, a bipartisan commission headed by Donald Rumsfeld, a Republican and former defense secretary, warned that within five years North Korea and Iran could conceivably reach the United States with long-range missiles. Then, six weeks later, as if on cue, North Korea took U.S. intelligence analysts by surprise by testing a three-stage missile with perhaps enough range to hit North America.

By early last year, the White House was pledging its conditional support and $10.5 billion over six years to a limited system. Last summer Clinton signed into law the National Missile Defense Act, which requires the United States to field a defense against a limited missile strike when such a response is technologically feasible. By year's end, the administration added another $2.2 billion over five years to the program, and promised that Clinton would decide sometime this summer whether it was feasible to deploy a system that would be ready by 2005.

No one is talking about a return to the space-based, rocket-zapping shield that President Reagan proposed 17 years ago during the Cold War. Today's threat comes not from a barrage of Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles but from rogue states like Iran and North Korea, which could lob a warhead or two into San Francisco or Anchorage. To combat that, the administration is considering a scaled-down system of ground-based radars, space-based sensors and 100 interceptors that could destroy a handful of missiles.

Opponents and supporters of missile defenses are watching the calendar closely. The Pentagon has one more chance, in late April or early May, to prove that the technology works before a formal military review of the system begins in June. To protect the political flank of Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic front-runner in the presidential race, the administration is sticking to Clinton's schedule to decide this summer, based on that review.

But the missile-defense issue is causing an uproar overseas, including in Russia, America's main nuclear rival, whose nuclear stockpile is declining. Moscow has threatened to stop reducing its 7,000-warhead arsenal if Washington breaks out of the ABM Treaty.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright begins talks Monday in Moscow in part to convince the Russians to make modest change as in the treaty to allow national missile defenses against limited attacks. But Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott said U.S. negotiators face ``an uphill slog'' in persuading the Russians that even that limited goal will not undercut Russia's nuclear deterrent.

European allies are worried about their own security as well as the fate of the landmark pact. ``The ABM Treaty is a cornerstone of the international order in arms control,'' said K. Erik Tygesen, Denmark's ambassador to Washington. To field an integrated system, Washington would need Danish approval to use a ground radar station in Greenland.

And China says tinkering with the treaty could have disastrous consequences. ``Amending it in search of national missile defense will tip the global balance, trigger a new arms race and jeopardize world and regional stability,'' Sha Zukang, director of arms control and disarmament in China's foreign ministry, wrote recently in the official newspaper China Daily.

With so many questions, many Democrats and even Republicans who support missile defenses are urging Clinton to let the next administration decide. ``I think a new president and his team should make the call on this,'' said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who supports missile defenses.

The administration, of course, has been hedging its bets all along. Clinton will base his decision on four factors: the threat to the United States, the cost of the technology, whether the technology works and the impact on arms-control agreements. Each factor is essentially an escape hatch, though two of them already appear closed. Intelligence analysts say the threat is real; the cost has become less of an issue now with large federal budget surpluses.

Which means this spring's test of the technology and the impact on strategic relations are pivotal. Conservatives argue that this month's test was not a failure at all, and follows a successful one last October. ``We test because we expect to find problems and try to solve them,'' said Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., a staunch missile-defense supporter. ``This technology is not just within our reach but is actually in our grasp now.''

But if there's enough doubt the technology will not work, Moscow is likely to agree to only the most modest changes to the treaty. And barring some new unforeseen threat, no one expects Clinton to make withdrawal from the treaty part of his legacy.

``The Russians don't want a deal until they think we're really, no kidding, going to go ahead with this,'' said one senior Pentagon official. ``The failed test is one more indication that we're not ready.''

WASHINGTON _ After a missile failed to hit a mock warhead high over the Pacific Ocean two weeks ago, the Clinton administration rushed to slough off this setback to its plans to protect the country against missile attacks.

``We're committed to the development of a limited national missile defense system designed to counter emerging threats from rogue states,'' said David Leavy, spokesman for the National Security Council.

Privately, though, many administration officials were relieved. The near-miss might give President Clinton reason to delay his decision on whether to break ground on the system. ``The case is now easier to make that the decision is not ripe,'' said one Defense Department official.

It should come as no surprise that in an election year, politics _ both domestic and international _ are driving the administration's divergent public-private views on missile defenses. At stake are not only America's defenses against new 21st-century menaces, but also the nation's relationship with a host of other countries, all of whom are alarmed by Washington's push to build a system that would violate the landmark 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which bars national defenses. The prospect of such a system has made Russia jittery, China suspicious and America's staunchest European allies resentful.

The Clinton administration has always been ambivalent about such a system, arguing for years that the threat did not warrant spending billions of dollars on unproven technology, which had its origins in the vaunted Star Wars proposal of the Reagan years. But the White House did an abrupt about-face in mid-1998 after two things happened. First, a bipartisan commission headed by Donald Rumsfeld, a Republican and former defense secretary, warned that within five years North Korea and Iran could conceivably reach the United States with long-range missiles. Then, six weeks later, as if on cue, North Korea took U.S. intelligence analysts by surprise by testing a three-stage missile with perhaps enough range to hit North America.

By early last year, the White House was pledging its conditional support and $10.5 billion over six years to a limited system. Last summer Clinton signed into law the National Missile Defense Act, which requires the United States to field a defense against a limited missile strike when such a response is technologically feasible. By year's end, the administration added another $2.2 billion over five years to the program, and promised that Clinton would decide sometime this summer whether it was feasible to deploy a system that would be ready by 2005.

No one is talking about a return to the space-based, rocket-zapping shield that President Reagan proposed 17 years ago during the Cold War. Today's threat comes not from a barrage of Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles but from rogue states like Iran and North Korea, which could lob a warhead or two into San Francisco or Anchorage. To combat that, the administration is considering a scaled-down system of ground-based radars, space-based sensors and 100 interceptors that could destroy a handful of missiles.

Opponents and supporters of missile defenses are watching the calendar closely. The Pentagon has one more chance, in late April or early May, to prove that the technology works before a formal military review of the system begins in June. To protect the political flank of Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic front-runner in the presidential race, the administration is sticking to Clinton's schedule to decide this summer, based on that review.

But the missile-defense issue is causing an uproar overseas, including in Russia, America's main nuclear rival, whose nuclear stockpile is declining. Moscow has threatened to stop reducing its 7,000-warhead arsenal if Washington breaks out of the ABM Treaty.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright begins talks Monday in Moscow in part to convince the Russians to make modest change as in the treaty to allow national missile defenses against limited attacks. But Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott said U.S. negotiators face ``an uphill slog'' in persuading the Russians that even that limited goal will not undercut Russia's nuclear deterrent.

European allies are worried about their own security as well as the fate of the landmark pact. ``The ABM Treaty is a cornerstone of the international order in arms control,'' said K. Erik Tygesen, Denmark's ambassador to Washington. To field an integrated system, Washington would need Danish approval to use a ground radar station in Greenland.

And China says tinkering with the treaty could have disastrous consequences. ``Amending it in search of national missile defense will tip the global balance, trigger a new arms race and jeopardize world and regional stability,'' Sha Zukang, director of arms control and disarmament in China's foreign ministry, wrote recently in the official newspaper China Daily.

With so many questions, many Democrats and even Republicans who support missile defenses are urging Clinton to let the next administration decide. ``I think a new president and his team should make the call on this,'' said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who supports missile defenses.

The administration, of course, has been hedging its bets all along. Clinton will base his decision on four factors: the threat to the United States, the cost of the technology, whether the technology works and the impact on arms-control agreements. Each factor is essentially an escape hatch, though two of them already appear closed. Intelligence analysts say the threat is real; the cost has become less of an issue now with large federal budget surpluses.

Which means this spring's test of the technology and the impact on strategic relations are pivotal. Conservatives argue that this month's test was not a failure at all, and follows a successful one last October. ``We test because we expect to find problems and try to solve them,'' said Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., a staunch missile-defense supporter. ``This technology is not just within our reach but is actually in our grasp now.''

But if there's enough doubt the technology will not work, Moscow is likely to agree to only the most modest changes to the treaty. And barring some new unforeseen threat, no one expects Clinton to make withdrawal from the treaty part of his legacy.

``The Russians don't want a deal until they think we're really, no kidding, going to go ahead with this,'' said one senior Pentagon official. ``The failed test is one more indication that we're not ready.''

When he arrived at the shop of a specialist in old Islamic scripts in Tehran, the mullah, about 40, was neatly bearded in the way of the college-educated Shiite clerics. But he was dressed in a business suit, not his cleric's attire, and he was flustered.

Late for his appointment, he explained that he had waited in the street in his white turban, black cloak and collarless white shirt, and had seen a dozen empty taxis pass. So he returned home and changed to a suit, and the next taxi picked him up. But the driver, eyeing his fare's salt-and-pepper beard in the mirror, asked, ``You're a mullah, aren't you?''

``Well yes, I must confess that I am,'' the mullah said.

``If I'd realized that when I first saw you,'' the driver said, ``I wouldn't have stopped.''

Hearing the unhappy man tell his story a couple of months ago, it seemed like an apt metaphor for the troubled times confronting Iran's 180,000 Muslim clerics. Having wrested power from Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in 1979 and created an intolerant, often vengeful theocratic state that has ruined Iran's economy, sponsored terrorist groups abroad and left the country profoundly isolated, the clerics are now widely unpopular among Iran's 65 million people.

These days, it is not uncommon to hear Iranians whisper the shah's name with shades of nostalgia, even reverence. ``God bless the shah!'' they will tell a foreigner, glancing about nervously as they tour the preserved magnificence inside Neyavaran Palace in Tehran, just below the field from which the shah boarded a helicopter on his way into his final exile. This is not to say that Iranians have forgotten, much less forgiven, the brutality of the shah's secret police, his modernizer's insensitivity to Iran's 1,350-year embrace of Islam or the corruption he tolerated.

Rather, it is a measure of how anguished Iranians have become after nearly a generation under ``the government of God,'' and of their desperate yearning for change. On Feb. 18, they will have an opportunity to register their sentiments in a parliamentary election, the sixth since 1979 but the first in which the alienation engendered by the mullahs has resolved into a coalition capable of winning the legislature. Reformers already claim the Iranian presidency, which Mohammed Khatami won in the 1997 election with 69 percent of the 29 million votes cast. That success was repeated in a sweep of municipal elections last February.

Khatami, 53, was not always a challenger of the regime's orthodoxies. Son of a leading ayatollah, and a senior cleric himself, he was a close aide to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic revolution. But like Mikhail Gorbachev, the reform-oriented Soviet leader with whom he is sometimes compared, his experiences persuaded him that the system could survive only if it responded to the people's democratic yearnings. To hard-line clerics, remembering Gorbachev's fate, only oblivion beckons in the attempt to graft the political ideals of democratic liberalism onto the ancient beliefs of Islam. But many thousands of mullahs, alarmed by what might happen if the popular discontent is not assuaged, have joined Khatami's crusade.

Predictably, the president, since his election, has had a difficult two and a half years. His powers under the Islamic constitution are nominal compared with those of the ``supreme leader,'' Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who inherited the mantle but not the charisma or religious authority of Khomeini. And Khamenei has shown less flexibility, in some ways, than Khomeini.

Although he was an absolute ruler, and approved much of the cruel repression that accompanied the Islamic takeover, Khomeini repeatedly warned his fellow clerics not to lose touch with popular opinion. But under Khamenei, the hierarchy has been archly selective in ignoring the parts of the Khomeini legacy that might embarrass them, especially warnings about clerical dictatorship.

Since he inherited the supreme leader's position in 1989, Khamenei has rested his authority on a rigid interpretation of a concept written into the constitution, velayat-i-faqih, the guardianship of the religious jurist.

Traditionally, the faqih was a cleric learned enough to render binding interpretations on religious matters. But Khamenei and conservative clerics have taken the concept as endowing the clerical hierarchy, through the supreme leader, with the Islamic equivalent of the divine right of kings. Last week, responding to reformers who say that the people are sovereign and that the supreme leader is bound by the constitution and the laws, Khamenei said the true meaning of velayat-i-faqih is that ``the person in charge of the Islamic government does not make mistakes and if he does he will not be the supreme leader from that moment.''

nn

When he arrived at the shop of a specialist in old Islamic scripts in Tehran, the mullah, about 40, was neatly bearded in the way of the college-educated Shiite clerics. But he was dressed in a business suit, not his cleric's attire, and he was flustered.

Late for his appointment, he explained that he had waited in the street in his white turban, black cloak and collarless white shirt, and had seen a dozen empty taxis pass. So he returned home and changed to a suit, and the next taxi picked him up. But the driver, eyeing his fare's salt-and-pepper beard in the mirror, asked, ``You're a mullah, aren't you?''

``Well yes, I must confess that I am,'' the mullah said.

``If I'd realized that when I first saw you,'' the driver said, ``I wouldn't have stopped.''

Hearing the unhappy man tell his story a couple of months ago, it seemed like an apt metaphor for the troubled times confronting Iran's 180,000 Muslim clerics. Having wrested power from Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in 1979 and created an intolerant, often vengeful theocratic state that has ruined Iran's economy, sponsored terrorist groups abroad and left the country profoundly isolated, the clerics are now widely unpopular among Iran's 65 million people.

These days, it is not uncommon to hear Iranians whisper the shah's name with shades of nostalgia, even reverence. ``God bless the shah!'' they will tell a foreigner, glancing about nervously as they tour the preserved magnificence inside Neyavaran Palace in Tehran, just below the field from which the shah boarded a helicopter on his way into his final exile. This is not to say that Iranians have forgotten, much less forgiven, the brutality of the shah's secret police, his modernizer's insensitivity to Iran's 1,350-year embrace of Islam or the corruption he tolerated.

Rather, it is a measure of how anguished Iranians have become after nearly a generation under ``the government of God,'' and of their desperate yearning for change. On Feb. 18, they will have an opportunity to register their sentiments in a parliamentary election, the sixth since 1979 but the first in which the alienation engendered by the mullahs has resolved into a coalition capable of winning the legislature. Reformers already claim the Iranian presidency, which Mohammed Khatami won in the 1997 election with 69 percent of the 29 million votes cast. That success was repeated in a sweep of municipal elections last February.

Khatami, 53, was not always a challenger of the regime's orthodoxies. Son of a leading ayatollah, and a senior cleric himself, he was a close aide to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic revolution. But like Mikhail Gorbachev, the reform-oriented Soviet leader with whom he is sometimes compared, his experiences persuaded him that the system could survive only if it responded to the people's democratic yearnings. To hard-line clerics, remembering Gorbachev's fate, only oblivion beckons in the attempt to graft the political ideals of democratic liberalism onto the ancient beliefs of Islam. But many thousands of mullahs, alarmed by what might happen if the popular discontent is not assuaged, have joined Khatami's crusade.

Predictably, the president, since his election, has had a difficult two and a half years. His powers under the Islamic constitution are nominal compared with those of the ``supreme leader,'' Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who inherited the mantle but not the charisma or religious authority of Khomeini. And Khamenei has shown less flexibility, in some ways, than Khomeini.

Although he was an absolute ruler, and approved much of the cruel repression that accompanied the Islamic takeover, Khomeini repeatedly warned his fellow clerics not to lose touch with popular opinion. But under Khamenei, the hierarchy has been archly selective in ignoring the parts of the Khomeini legacy that might embarrass them, especially warnings about clerical dictatorship.

Since he inherited the supreme leader's position in 1989, Khamenei has rested his authority on a rigid interpretation of a concept written into the constitution, velayat-i-faqih, the guardianship of the religious jurist.

Traditionally, the faqih was a cleric learned enough to render binding interpretations on religious matters. But Khamenei and conservative clerics have taken the concept as endowing the clerical hierarchy, through the supreme leader, with the Islamic equivalent of the divine right of kings. Last week, responding to reformers who say that the people are sovereign and that the supreme leader is bound by the constitution and the laws, Khamenei said the true meaning of velayat-i-faqih is that ``the person in charge of the Islamic government does not make mistakes and if he does he will not be the supreme leader from that moment.''

nn

Many scholars specializing in Iran find in the opposing views an illuminating echo of the arguments that flowed in 17th- and 18th-century Europe, when Western concepts of democracy were forged on the anvil of the Reformation and the Enlightenment. In England, when Charles I insisted on his divine right to rule and Oliver Cromwell declared the sovereign rights of the people, as represented by Parliament, it took a civil war to settle the matter, and the king's severed head was part of the price paid for parliamentary democracy. The ideas born then were central, later, in America's revolution.

But where Iran scholars find the European and American experience most instructive is in the theological debate that underlay the political evolution _ the way in which men like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke found sanction for their ideas in a reinterpretation of the Bible. Today, it is tempting for Westerners to think that Iran could emerge from its bitter experience of the past 20 years as a secular republic _ a Turkey, perhaps. But most people who know Iran well say that however the immediate political struggle comes out, what lies ahead will be an Islamic republic _ albeit, perhaps, a more civil and gentle one than the mullahs have built so far.

Many Iranians would have it otherwise. But most accept that political change, to be stable in a country where faith is a pervasive fact of life, will have to come from a redefinition within Islam of the relationship between state and religion. It will not, they say, come from a separation of church and state that leaves the mullahs as voiceless in temporal matters as they were under the shah. Pressed, many Iranians will cite Turkey as proof. However secular its system, it still has had sharp challenges in recent years from resurgent Islamism.

This, in fact, is the message of Khatami. Although he is the author of a best-selling book that discusses the merits of Locke, Hobbes and Montesquieu, he has never disguised that his democratic, pluralist, tolerant principles would find expression within a body politic that had Islam at its core. Addressing the throngs who mob him everywhere, he invariably returns to the Koran and his belief that the prophet's teachings rested, at base, on the need for dialogue and consent among the governed.

In the parliamentary election, Khamenei and his allies, having used their powers to disqualify scores of reformist candidates, may yet hold the reformers at bay. But whatever the vote's outcome, Iran's political struggle will still hold the attention of all who care about the world's 1 billion Muslims. For if Iran, the fount of modern Islamic militancy, can find a way to reconcile the ancient beliefs of Islam and its people's yearnings for freedom, the lesson will not stop at Iran's borders. It can be expected to ripple outward across the 53 Muslim nations that have been notable absentees, so far, from the rise of democracy that followed the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

Many scholars specializing in Iran find in the opposing views an illuminating echo of the arguments that flowed in 17th- and 18th-century Europe, when Western concepts of democracy were forged on the anvil of the Reformation and the Enlightenment. In England, when Charles I insisted on his divine right to rule and Oliver Cromwell declared the sovereign rights of the people, as represented by Parliament, it took a civil war to settle the matter, and the king's severed head was part of the price paid for parliamentary democracy. The ideas born then were central, later, in America's revolution.

But where Iran scholars find the European and American experience most instructive is in the theological debate that underlay the political evolution _ the way in which men like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke found sanction for their ideas in a reinterpretation of the Bible. Today, it is tempting for Westerners to think that Iran could emerge from its bitter experience of the past 20 years as a secular republic _ a Turkey, perhaps. But most people who know Iran well say that however the immediate political struggle comes out, what lies ahead will be an Islamic republic _ albeit, perhaps, a more civil and gentle one than the mullahs have built so far.

Many Iranians would have it otherwise. But most accept that political change, to be stable in a country where faith is a pervasive fact of life, will have to come from a redefinition within Islam of the relationship between state and religion. It will not, they say, come from a separation of church and state that leaves the mullahs as voiceless in temporal matters as they were under the shah. Pressed, many Iranians will cite Turkey as proof. However secular its system, it still has had sharp challenges in recent years from resurgent Islamism.

This, in fact, is the message of Khatami. Although he is the author of a best-selling book that discusses the merits of Locke, Hobbes and Montesquieu, he has never disguised that his democratic, pluralist, tolerant principles would find expression within a body politic that had Islam at its core. Addressing the throngs who mob him everywhere, he invariably returns to the Koran and his belief that the prophet's teachings rested, at base, on the need for dialogue and consent among the governed.

In the parliamentary election, Khamenei and his allies, having used their powers to disqualify scores of reformist candidates, may yet hold the reformers at bay. But whatever the vote's outcome, Iran's political struggle will still hold the attention of all who care about the world's 1 billion Muslims. For if Iran, the fount of modern Islamic militancy, can find a way to reconcile the ancient beliefs of Islam and its people's yearnings for freedom, the lesson will not stop at Iran's borders. It can be expected to ripple outward across the 53 Muslim nations that have been notable absentees, so far, from the rise of democracy that followed the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

BERLIN _ Helmut Kohl has a new nickname: ``Don Kohleone.'' And no wonder. First the former German chancellor said he had always regarded ``close personal trust'' as the most important thing in political life. Then he placed his ``honor'' above the law. Finally he resorted to ``omerta,'' the Sicilian word for silence, refusing to reveal the names of people who secretly gave large sums of money to his Christian Democratic Union.

But it is not just Kohl's behavior that has summoned Italy into the midst of Germany's political crisis. The difficulties of German Christian Democracy inevitably invite comparison with those of Italy's Democrazia Cristiana, a party whose utter dominance of postwar Italian politics was matched only by the unutterable speed of its disintegration in the early 1990s.

The similarities are intriguing. Both parties were founded in the immediate postwar years with strong American support to represent the center-right and act as a bulwark against communism. Italy's Communists were within, the strongest such party in Western Europe; Germany's Communists were without, across the border in East Germany. Neither could be allowed to defeat Washington's efforts to forge a Western alliance.

Both parties presided over postwar economic miracles, underwritten by the Marshall Plan, which were intended to ensure political and social stability. ``No Experiments'' and ``Affluence for Everybody'' were the famous slogans with which Germany's Christian Democrats marched to victory after victory. Italy's Christian Democratic Party, octopuslike, famously dragged every non-Communist political grouping toward its amorphous heart in order to make itself the unavoidable epicenter of power.

Then, abruptly, the two parties triumphed in their central missions. The Cold War was won. Italian communism, long since westernized, ceased to be a threat and Kohl's party presided over the disappearance of Germany's communist state and its absorption into a unified nation.

``Reunification was the ultimate raison d'etre of the Christian Democratic Union,'' said Claus Leggewie, a political analyst. ``So it is legitimate to ask why the party should have any more reason for survival after unity than Italian Christian Democracy after the taming of Italian communism.''

Certainly, Kohl's party has been doing a fair job of trying to put itself out of business. Article 21 of the German constitution, to which Kohl swore allegiance, is clear on the subject of political parties: ``Their internal organization must conform to democratic principles. They must publicly account for the sources of their funds.'' But Kohl continues to refuse to identify large donors to whom he says he promised anonymity.

There can be no doubt that the discovery of a system of secret funding for Kohl's party involving tens of millions of dollars has shaken Germany, but not to the degree that the wave of scandals known as ``Tangentopoli'' rocked Italy and led to the downfall of Italy's Christian Democrats.

``Our historic merit was to keep Italy within Western democracy and face down the largest Communist party in Europe,'' said Mino Martinazzoli, a former Christian Democratic defense minister in Italy and the man who ultimately dissolved the party in 1994. ``But our merit was also our failing, because once our historic role was over, it became apparent how absolutely our stranglehold on power had corrupted us. There could be no political change, and so we became a party above the law.''

That has not been the case in Germany, where the Christian Democrats have governed for most of the postwar years, but by no means all of them. The Social Democrats also governed, notably from 1969 to 1982. Moreover, the corruption thus far uncovered in Germany is scarcely comparable to the system put in place by Democrazia Cristiana.

The Italian system involved huge bribes or kickbacks on every public contract in northern Italy, and the purchase of votes in the south through the delivery of money to well-placed ``friends,'' some of them with evident ties to the Mafia. In this way, corruption was raised to a method of government as standard as tax-collection.

``Italian Christian Democracy was not just corrupt in the sense that corruption was a by-product of power,'' said Patrick McCarthy, dean of the Johns Hopkins Center for European Studies in Bologna. ``Their corruption was power. They put in place a highly organized method of corruption that was systemic. I do not see that in Germany, at least not at this stage.''

Another basic difference is that the U.S. interest in sustaining the Italian party once the Cold War was won was limited, whereas U.S. concern over a possible disintegration of German Christian Democracy is intense. ``Germany absolutely needs Christian Democracy,'' said one senior official here.

The party has played an essential role in reining in more nationalist or extremist right-wing German tendencies, and that role is by no means exhausted. The rise of Joerg Haider and his Freedom Party in Austria, offering a simmering brew of anti-immigrant rhetoric, has illustrated that Europe's combination of aging populations and high unemployment may offer plenty of opportunity for rightward drift.

All of Germany's political parties _ including Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats _ are aware of this. The rise of Gianfranco Fini's post-Fascist party in Italy after the collapse of Christian Democracy there was one thing; it would be altogether another in a German guise. It is certain that a great deal of energy, within Germany and in Washington, will be focused on ensuring that the party weathers the storm.

In the end, its success will depend on its ability to change faster than Italian Christian Democracy. A new generation of leaders is certainly needed, as well as a recognition that stability is not the only political virtue in a post-Cold War world. New party laws are needed to bring greater transparency to financing and ensure that nobody can remain party chairman, as Kohl did, for a quarter-century. Germany's restive mood may in the end demand that the office of chancellor _ held by Kohl for 16 years _ also be limited, perhaps to two four-year terms.

The crisis of German Christian Democracy has become a crisis of Germany's ability to modernize itself. Few wish to envisage that modernization without Kohl's party, and so it will almost certainly survive.

BERLIN _ Helmut Kohl has a new nickname: ``Don Kohleone.'' And no wonder. First the former German chancellor said he had always regarded ``close personal trust'' as the most important thing in political life. Then he placed his ``honor'' above the law. Finally he resorted to ``omerta,'' the Sicilian word for silence, refusing to reveal the names of people who secretly gave large sums of money to his Christian Democratic Union.

But it is not just Kohl's behavior that has summoned Italy into the midst of Germany's political crisis. The difficulties of German Christian Democracy inevitably invite comparison with those of Italy's Democrazia Cristiana, a party whose utter dominance of postwar Italian politics was matched only by the unutterable speed of its disintegration in the early 1990s.

The similarities are intriguing. Both parties were founded in the immediate postwar years with strong American support to represent the center-right and act as a bulwark against communism. Italy's Communists were within, the strongest such party in Western Europe; Germany's Communists were without, across the border in East Germany. Neither could be allowed to defeat Washington's efforts to forge a Western alliance.

Both parties presided over postwar economic miracles, underwritten by the Marshall Plan, which were intended to ensure political and social stability. ``No Experiments'' and ``Affluence for Everybody'' were the famous slogans with which Germany's Christian Democrats marched to victory after victory. Italy's Christian Democratic Party, octopuslike, famously dragged every non-Communist political grouping toward its amorphous heart in order to make itself the unavoidable epicenter of power.

Then, abruptly, the two parties triumphed in their central missions. The Cold War was won. Italian communism, long since westernized, ceased to be a threat and Kohl's party presided over the disappearance of Germany's communist state and its absorption into a unified nation.

``Reunification was the ultimate raison d'etre of the Christian Democratic Union,'' said Claus Leggewie, a political analyst. ``So it is legitimate to ask why the party should have any more reason for survival after unity than Italian Christian Democracy after the taming of Italian communism.''

Certainly, Kohl's party has been doing a fair job of trying to put itself out of business. Article 21 of the German constitution, to which Kohl swore allegiance, is clear on the subject of political parties: ``Their internal organization must conform to democratic principles. They must publicly account for the sources of their funds.'' But Kohl continues to refuse to identify large donors to whom he says he promised anonymity.

There can be no doubt that the discovery of a system of secret funding for Kohl's party involving tens of millions of dollars has shaken Germany, but not to the degree that the wave of scandals known as ``Tangentopoli'' rocked Italy and led to the downfall of Italy's Christian Democrats.

``Our historic merit was to keep Italy within Western democracy and face down the largest Communist party in Europe,'' said Mino Martinazzoli, a former Christian Democratic defense minister in Italy and the man who ultimately dissolved the party in 1994. ``But our merit was also our failing, because once our historic role was over, it became apparent how absolutely our stranglehold on power had corrupted us. There could be no political change, and so we became a party above the law.''

That has not been the case in Germany, where the Christian Democrats have governed for most of the postwar years, but by no means all of them. The Social Democrats also governed, notably from 1969 to 1982. Moreover, the corruption thus far uncovered in Germany is scarcely comparable to the system put in place by Democrazia Cristiana.

The Italian system involved huge bribes or kickbacks on every public contract in northern Italy, and the purchase of votes in the south through the delivery of money to well-placed ``friends,'' some of them with evident ties to the Mafia. In this way, corruption was raised to a method of government as standard as tax-collection.

``Italian Christian Democracy was not just corrupt in the sense that corruption was a by-product of power,'' said Patrick McCarthy, dean of the Johns Hopkins Center for European Studies in Bologna. ``Their corruption was power. They put in place a highly organized method of corruption that was systemic. I do not see that in Germany, at least not at this stage.''

Another basic difference is that the U.S. interest in sustaining the Italian party once the Cold War was won was limited, whereas U.S. concern over a possible disintegration of German Christian Democracy is intense. ``Germany absolutely needs Christian Democracy,'' said one senior official here.

The party has played an essential role in reining in more nationalist or extremist right-wing German tendencies, and that role is by no means exhausted. The rise of Joerg Haider and his Freedom Party in Austria, offering a simmering brew of anti-immigrant rhetoric, has illustrated that Europe's combination of aging populations and high unemployment may offer plenty of opportunity for rightward drift.

All of Germany's political parties _ including Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats _ are aware of this. The rise of Gianfranco Fini's post-Fascist party in Italy after the collapse of Christian Democracy there was one thing; it would be altogether another in a German guise. It is certain that a great deal of energy, within Germany and in Washington, will be focused on ensuring that the party weathers the storm.

In the end, its success will depend on its ability to change faster than Italian Christian Democracy. A new generation of leaders is certainly needed, as well as a recognition that stability is not the only political virtue in a post-Cold War world. New party laws are needed to bring greater transparency to financing and ensure that nobody can remain party chairman, as Kohl did, for a quarter-century. Germany's restive mood may in the end demand that the office of chancellor _ held by Kohl for 16 years _ also be limited, perhaps to two four-year terms.

The crisis of German Christian Democracy has become a crisis of Germany's ability to modernize itself. Few wish to envisage that modernization without Kohl's party, and so it will almost certainly survive.

Each June for at least the last four centuries, farmers in 12 mountain villages in Peru and Bolivia follow a ritual that Westerners might think odd, if not crazy. Late each night for about a week, the farmers observe the stars in the Pleiades constellation, which is low on the horizon to the northeast. If they appear big and bright, the farmers know to plant their potato crop at the usual time four months later. But if the stars are dim, the usual planting will be delayed for several weeks.

Now Western researchers have applied the scientific method to this seeming madness. Poring over reams of satellite data on cloud cover and water vapor, Professor Benjamin Orlove, an anthropologist at the University of California at Davis, and colleagues have discovered that these star-gazing farmers are accurate long-range weather forecasters. High wisps of cirrus clouds dim the stars in El Nino years, which brings reduced rainfall to that part of the Andes. In such drought conditions, it makes sense to plant potatoes as late as possible.

Orlove's work, which was reported in January in the British journal Nature, is just the latest example of indigenous or traditional knowledge that has been found to have a sound scientific basis. In agriculture, nutrition, medicine and other fields, modern research is showing why people maintain their traditions.

Take the Masai of East Africa, who are famous for the kind of high-fat diet, rich in meat and milk, that would make a cardiologist swoon. Timothy Johns, a professor at McGill University in Montreal and director of the Center for Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition and Environment, has long studied the Masai to determine how they stay healthy.

The Masai add the roots and barks of certain plants, including a species of acacia high in antioxidants, Johns said. They also chew a natural gum, related to myrrh, that helps to break down fats.

``It's not a magic bullet protecting the Masai against heart disease,'' he said. ``But there is a benefit from what they are doing.''

In a 1998 study, two Cornell University researchers analyzed the spices used in 36 countries and found a correlation between average temperature and cooking with spices like cumin, turmeric, ginger and chili peppers, all of which have antimicrobial properties. The hotter the climate, the hotter the food _ in part, at least, to keep it from spoiling.

Sometimes, however, the benefits of traditional knowledge are not so obvious to those outside the culture. In Bali in the 1970s, the Indonesian government, persuaded by international advocates of the ``green revolution,'' forced rice farmers adopt new growing schemes. Among other things, the farmers were made to stop their centuries-old ritual of meeting in small groups at a series of water temples set at the forks of rivers, to negotiate seasonal schedules for flooding their paddies.

The new techniques resulted in disaster. Farmers were pressured to plant as often as possible. With little coordination of irrigation, water shortages and pest infestation were the norm.

At about this time, J. Stephen Lansing, an American anthropologist, began to study the water temples. What he found, which was supported later by computer modeling, was that the old system was quite sophisticated and efficient, encouraging cooperation among thousands of farmers. Water was shared and controlled through a process involving reciprocal altruism.

``Everybody gets more rice and variation in harvest disappears, so there's no reason to be envious of your neighbors,'' said Lansing, who now teaches at the University of Arizona. ``It's a bottom-up system of management that's worked very well.'' The green revolution, he added, ``was very much top down.'' The traditional system has been re-established.

Orlove has studied similar traditional resource management around Lake Titicaca, on the border between Bolivia and Peru. A distinctive feature of the lake is the reeds growing in its shallows. The people around the lake use them for rafts and livestock feed, among other things.

``They are a major component of the household economy,'' said Orlove. The residents replant the reeds, which also serve as a spawning ground for some of the 22 species of fish that are unique to the lake.

But indigenous knowledge can be faulty. ``Traditional people sometimes get things right, and sometimes get them wrong,'' said Alan Fiske, a psychological anthropologist at the University of California at Los Angeles. ``Some things people do are bad for them.'' Other anthropologists have challenged the notion that all indigenous groups have somehow developed a blissful oneness with their world.

The problem, Fiske noted, is that verifying traditional knowledge is not easy. The scientific method can be expensive, and data can be difficult to obtain. Orlove's research on the potato farmers would have been impossible even 10 years ago, because the type of satellite data he needed did not exist.

There may be a shortage of data, but there's no shortage of traditional knowledge that awaits possible confirmation by science. James Lynch, an American scientist who has spent the past two decades helping Costa Rican farmers, said he has learned from them the importance of timing. A tree cut down during a new moon, he said, will quickly be ravaged by the insects, while one felled several days before a full moon will stay free of termites for years.

Lynch now follows the practice. ``But I've never seen any scientific study to back it up,'' he said.

Each June for at least the last four centuries, farmers in 12 mountain villages in Peru and Bolivia follow a ritual that Westerners might think odd, if not crazy. Late each night for about a week, the farmers observe the stars in the Pleiades constellation, which is low on the horizon to the northeast. If they appear big and bright, the farmers know to plant their potato crop at the usual time four months later. But if the stars are dim, the usual planting will be delayed for several weeks.

Now Western researchers have applied the scientific method to this seeming madness. Poring over reams of satellite data on cloud cover and water vapor, Professor Benjamin Orlove, an anthropologist at the University of California at Davis, and colleagues have discovered that these star-gazing farmers are accurate long-range weather forecasters. High wisps of cirrus clouds dim the stars in El Nino years, which brings reduced rainfall to that part of the Andes. In such drought conditions, it makes sense to plant potatoes as late as possible.

Orlove's work, which was reported in January in the British journal Nature, is just the latest example of indigenous or traditional knowledge that has been found to have a sound scientific basis. In agriculture, nutrition, medicine and other fields, modern research is showing why people maintain their traditions.

Take the Masai of East Africa, who are famous for the kind of high-fat diet, rich in meat and milk, that would make a cardiologist swoon. Timothy Johns, a professor at McGill University in Montreal and director of the Center for Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition and Environment, has long studied the Masai to determine how they stay healthy.

The Masai add the roots and barks of certain plants, including a species of acacia high in antioxidants, Johns said. They also chew a natural gum, related to myrrh, that helps to break down fats.

``It's not a magic bullet protecting the Masai against heart disease,'' he said. ``But there is a benefit from what they are doing.''

In a 1998 study, two Cornell University researchers analyzed the spices used in 36 countries and found a correlation between average temperature and cooking with spices like cumin, turmeric, ginger and chili peppers, all of which have antimicrobial properties. The hotter the climate, the hotter the food _ in part, at least, to keep it from spoiling.

Sometimes, however, the benefits of traditional knowledge are not so obvious to those outside the culture. In Bali in the 1970s, the Indonesian government, persuaded by international advocates of the ``green revolution,'' forced rice farmers adopt new growing schemes. Among other things, the farmers were made to stop their centuries-old ritual of meeting in small groups at a series of water temples set at the forks of rivers, to negotiate seasonal schedules for flooding their paddies.

The new techniques resulted in disaster. Farmers were pressured to plant as often as possible. With little coordination of irrigation, water shortages and pest infestation were the norm.

At about this time, J. Stephen Lansing, an American anthropologist, began to study the water temples. What he found, which was supported later by computer modeling, was that the old system was quite sophisticated and efficient, encouraging cooperation among thousands of farmers. Water was shared and controlled through a process involving reciprocal altruism.

``Everybody gets more rice and variation in harvest disappears, so there's no reason to be envious of your neighbors,'' said Lansing, who now teaches at the University of Arizona. ``It's a bottom-up system of management that's worked very well.'' The green revolution, he added, ``was very much top down.'' The traditional system has been re-established.

Orlove has studied similar traditional resource management around Lake Titicaca, on the border between Bolivia and Peru. A distinctive feature of the lake is the reeds growing in its shallows. The people around the lake use them for rafts and livestock feed, among other things.

``They are a major component of the household economy,'' said Orlove. The residents replant the reeds, which also serve as a spawning ground for some of the 22 species of fish that are unique to the lake.

But indigenous knowledge can be faulty. ``Traditional people sometimes get things right, and sometimes get them wrong,'' said Alan Fiske, a psychological anthropologist at the University of California at Los Angeles. ``Some things people do are bad for them.'' Other anthropologists have challenged the notion that all indigenous groups have somehow developed a blissful oneness with their world.

The problem, Fiske noted, is that verifying traditional knowledge is not easy. The scientific method can be expensive, and data can be difficult to obtain. Orlove's research on the potato farmers would have been impossible even 10 years ago, because the type of satellite data he needed did not exist.

There may be a shortage of data, but there's no shortage of traditional knowledge that awaits possible confirmation by science. James Lynch, an American scientist who has spent the past two decades helping Costa Rican farmers, said he has learned from them the importance of timing. A tree cut down during a new moon, he said, will quickly be ravaged by the insects, while one felled several days before a full moon will stay free of termites for years.

Lynch now follows the practice. ``But I've never seen any scientific study to back it up,'' he said.

There's junk science, and then there's junk-food science.

Just in time for the Super Bowl, not to mention National Snack Food Month in February, the Snack Food Association and the National Potato Promotion Board have commissioned a study linking people's snack preferences with their personality types.

Surprise: People who inhale potato chips aren't necessarily porcine gluttons but ``ambitious, successful, high achievers.'' And Cheez Doodle lovers aren't slobs with orange fingers but ``formal, always proper, conscientious, principled.''

Hmmm. Let's have a look at this study. It was conducted by Dr. Alan Hirsch, a neurologist and psychiatrist who runs the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago. His curriculum vitae notes that ``he has served as an expert on smell and taste on CNN, `Good Morning America' and `The Oprah Winfrey Show.'''

Excerpts from Hirsch's research follow.

_ TOM KUNTZ

(BEGIN ITALICS HERE) The paper, ``Snack Food Hedonics and Personality,'' begins, ``Why do we choose to eat certain foods?''(END ITALICS HERE)

Our food choices, like our choices of clothing, movies, automobiles, vacation spots and mates and lovers, can provide insight into our personality and character structure. Through our food preferences and choices we reveal inner thoughts, feelings, wishes and desires. It's no exaggeration to say that, in many respects, the foods we choose provide a window to the unconscious.

(BEGIN ITALICS HERE) One way to open that window, Hirsch maintains, is through hedonics, the field of psychology that measures feelings: (END ITALICS HERE)

A food's hedonic value is determined by . . . factors including the inherent gustatory and olfactory properties, cognitive perceptions including the perceived nutritional value, associated conditioned response characteristics, olfactory evoked nostalgia and craving.

(BEGIN ITALICS HERE) You say you like some foods and not others? It's not that simple, the study says: (END ITALICS HERE)

Pavlovian conditioned response effects also impact the hedonic nature of the food. Caffeine wakes, alcohol removes inhibitions, sugar energizes. Alternatively, food aversions also are created if illness occurs coincident with ingestion. Unconditioned stimuli may also become associated with the affective view of the food. Romantic interludes after eating dessert may change the effective valence of the pumpkin pie. Alternatively, ingestion of chipped beef prior to a forced 10-mile march in full gear may endow a negative valence to the chipped beef.

(BEGIN ITALICS HERE) The paper hypothesizes that your food preferences can be a gustatory Rorschach test: (END ITALICS HERE)

Since eating or smelling of food may reduce psychologic tension, craving or the desire for food may then be representative of the underlying conflict. And longstanding preferences may indicate the conflicts associated with inherent personality structure. Thus, food preference could theoretically be used as a projective personality test.

(BEGIN ITALICS HERE) So how to gauge the correlation between snack scarfing and personality? Here's how: (END ITALICS HERE)

Eight hundred volunteers, 73 percent female, 27 percent male, with a median age of 45 (range 17-77) underwent a series of psychological tests including the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-II, Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II, Beck Depression Inventory and the Zung Depression Scale. They were then queried regarding the hedonic preferences of six different snack foods: potato chips tortilla chips, pretzels, snack crackers, cheese curls and meat snacks. . . . Spouses or mates of these subjects also underwent the same hedonic preference assessments. After these were obtained, analysis was performed correlating snack food hedonics and personality types. These characteristics were then expanded and interpreted for lay person understanding. . . .

(BEGIN ITALICS HERE)And the results are: (END ITALICS HERE)

POTATO CHIPS: Those who love potato chips are ambitious, successful, high achievers. They enjoy rewards and trimmings of their success _ both in business and family life. They feel pride and happiness when their spouse and children are also successful. They seek nothing less than the best in those around them. Potato chip lovers are easily frustrated and indignant at life's inconveniences. . . .

Note: Whether in business, sports or a social situation, expect to lose if you enter into competition with a potato chip lover; they are worthy and prepared adversaries.

TORTILLA CHIPS : Tortilla chip lovers aren't satisfied with getting a grade of A, it must be an A plus. Their concern extends beyond their own actions, and also to the community at large _ they are distressed by the inequities and injustices of society. This concern for how others feel would make them an ideal house guest.

Always prim and proper at social gatherings, the tortilla chip lover is conservative.

nn

There's junk science, and then there's junk-food science.

Just in time for the Super Bowl, not to mention National Snack Food Month in February, the Snack Food Association and the National Potato Promotion Board have commissioned a study linking people's snack preferences with their personality types.

Surprise: People who inhale potato chips aren't necessarily porcine gluttons but ``ambitious, successful, high achievers.'' And Cheez Doodle lovers aren't slobs with orange fingers but ``formal, always proper, conscientious, principled.''

Hmmm. Let's have a look at this study. It was conducted by Dr. Alan Hirsch, a neurologist and psychiatrist who runs the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago. His curriculum vitae notes that ``he has served as an expert on smell and taste on CNN, `Good Morning America' and `The Oprah Winfrey Show.'''

Excerpts from Hirsch's research follow.

_ TOM KUNTZ

(BEGIN ITALICS HERE) The paper, ``Snack Food Hedonics and Personality,'' begins, ``Why do we choose to eat certain foods?''(END ITALICS HERE)

Our food choices, like our choices of clothing, movies, automobiles, vacation spots and mates and lovers, can provide insight into our personality and character structure. Through our food preferences and choices we reveal inner thoughts, feelings, wishes and desires. It's no exaggeration to say that, in many respects, the foods we choose provide a window to the unconscious.

(BEGIN ITALICS HERE) One way to open that window, Hirsch maintains, is through hedonics, the field of psychology that measures feelings: (END ITALICS HERE)

A food's hedonic value is determined by . . . factors including the inherent gustatory and olfactory properties, cognitive perceptions including the perceived nutritional value, associated conditioned response characteristics, olfactory evoked nostalgia and craving.

(BEGIN ITALICS HERE) You say you like some foods and not others? It's not that simple, the study says: (END ITALICS HERE)

Pavlovian conditioned response effects also impact the hedonic nature of the food. Caffeine wakes, alcohol removes inhibitions, sugar energizes. Alternatively, food aversions also are created if illness occurs coincident with ingestion. Unconditioned stimuli may also become associated with the affective view of the food. Romantic interludes after eating dessert may change the effective valence of the pumpkin pie. Alternatively, ingestion of chipped beef prior to a forced 10-mile march in full gear may endow a negative valence to the chipped beef.

(BEGIN ITALICS HERE) The paper hypothesizes that your food preferences can be a gustatory Rorschach test: (END ITALICS HERE)

Since eating or smelling of food may reduce psychologic tension, craving or the desire for food may then be representative of the underlying conflict. And longstanding preferences may indicate the conflicts associated with inherent personality structure. Thus, food preference could theoretically be used as a projective personality test.

(BEGIN ITALICS HERE) So how to gauge the correlation between snack scarfing and personality? Here's how: (END ITALICS HERE)

Eight hundred volunteers, 73 percent female, 27 percent male, with a median age of 45 (range 17-77) underwent a series of psychological tests including the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-II, Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II, Beck Depression Inventory and the Zung Depression Scale. They were then queried regarding the hedonic preferences of six different snack foods: potato chips tortilla chips, pretzels, snack crackers, cheese curls and meat snacks. . . . Spouses or mates of these subjects also underwent the same hedonic preference assessments. After these were obtained, analysis was performed correlating snack food hedonics and personality types. These characteristics were then expanded and interpreted for lay person understanding. . . .

(BEGIN ITALICS HERE)And the results are: (END ITALICS HERE)

POTATO CHIPS: Those who love potato chips are ambitious, successful, high achievers. They enjoy rewards and trimmings of their success _ both in business and family life. They feel pride and happiness when their spouse and children are also successful. They seek nothing less than the best in those around them. Potato chip lovers are easily frustrated and indignant at life's inconveniences. . . .

Note: Whether in business, sports or a social situation, expect to lose if you enter into competition with a potato chip lover; they are worthy and prepared adversaries.

TORTILLA CHIPS : Tortilla chip lovers aren't satisfied with getting a grade of A, it must be an A plus. Their concern extends beyond their own actions, and also to the community at large _ they are distressed by the inequities and injustices of society. This concern for how others feel would make them an ideal house guest.

Always prim and proper at social gatherings, the tortilla chip lover is conservative.

nn

PRETZELS : Lively and energetic, those who prefer pretzels crave novelty and easily become bored by the usual routine. They are excited by the challenge _ whether it be at work, sports or home. They thrive in the world of abstract concepts and tend to lose interest in the mundane day-to-day world. There is a tendency to initiate new projects without having completed the last, and to overcommit to work or family chores.

Happy in the role as a ``flirt,'' pretzel lovers are comfortable dressed in an attractive manner. . . . The pretzel lover will be on top of the latest craze _ having accumulated a herd of ``Beanie Babies,'' they are ready to conquer the next fad.

Pretzel lovers make decisions based on intuition and emotion. At times, they are overly trusting, especially in romantic relationships. One pretzel lover is a welcome addition to any grouping _ they are ``the life of the party, lively, enthusiastic and fun to be with!''

SNACK CRACKERS : Contemplative, thoughtful . . . rather than intuitively oriented, decisions are reasoned and not based on emotions. Shy and introspective, (snack cracker eaters) avoid confrontation so as not to hurt the feelings of others. They have many diverse interests and are involved in a multitude of projects simultaneously, all competing for their time and attention. They value their private time and are most creative when allowed to be alone, free from their daily responsibilities and interruptions.

Note: Those who prefer crackers may easily find themselves romantically involved in an Internet relationship.

CHEESE CURLS: Formal, always proper, conscientious, principled, the cheese curl lover maintains the moral high ground with . . . family, work and romantic partners. They have a fine sense of right and wrong and justly treat those with whom they interact _ the CEO is treated with the same fairness and concern as the bus boy. Cheese curl lovers are best described by one adjective _ integrity.

Rather than showing reckless disregard for the future, they plan ahead, anticipate any possible future catastrophes. Whether it be Band-Aids or batteries, the cheese curl lover's house is stocked and ready. Orderly and perfectionists, they are most comfortable with a neat, uncluttered desk. At work, play, or at home no detail is left undone.

Note: If it is so spotless you can eat off the kitchen floor, you are in the domicile of one who craves cheese curls.

MEAT SNACKS: Gregarious, social . . . They are generous to a fault, and will make extraordinary self-sacrifices to please others. Those who prefer meat snacks are loyal and true friends who can always be trusted. However, their overtrusting nature predisposes them to emotional turmoil, especially when breaking up with a lover.

Note: Those who prefer meat snacks are prone to, and thus should be careful to avoid, rebound relationships!

(BEGIN ITALICS HERE) And the study concludes: (END ITALICS HERE)

Food hedonics, whether it be snack food, fruit or ice cream, has potential utility as a projective test for psychiatric illness as well as personality typing in subjects without pathology. Future research establishing cross-geographics and cross-cultural validity of this projective testing is warranted.

PRETZELS : Lively and energetic, those who prefer pretzels crave novelty and easily become bored by the usual routine. They are excited by the challenge _ whether it be at work, sports or home. They thrive in the world of abstract concepts and tend to lose interest in the mundane day-to-day world. There is a tendency to initiate new projects without having completed the last, and to overcommit to work or family chores.

Happy in the role as a ``flirt,'' pretzel lovers are comfortable dressed in an attractive manner. . . . The pretzel lover will be on top of the latest craze _ having accumulated a herd of ``Beanie Babies,'' they are ready to conquer the next fad.

Pretzel lovers make decisions based on intuition and emotion. At times, they are overly trusting, especially in romantic relationships. One pretzel lover is a welcome addition to any grouping _ they are ``the life of the party, lively, enthusiastic and fun to be with!''

SNACK CRACKERS : Contemplative, thoughtful . . . rather than intuitively oriented, decisions are reasoned and not based on emotions. Shy and introspective, (snack cracker eaters) avoid confrontation so as not to hurt the feelings of others. They have many diverse interests and are involved in a multitude of projects simultaneously, all competing for their time and attention. They value their private time and are most creative when allowed to be alone, free from their daily responsibilities and interruptions.

Note: Those who prefer crackers may easily find themselves romantically involved in an Internet relationship.

CHEESE CURLS: Formal, always proper, conscientious, principled, the cheese curl lover maintains the moral high ground with . . . family, work and romantic partners. They have a fine sense of right and wrong and justly treat those with whom they interact _ the CEO is treated with the same fairness and concern as the bus boy. Cheese curl lovers are best described by one adjective _ integrity.

Rather than showing reckless disregard for the future, they plan ahead, anticipate any possible future catastrophes. Whether it be Band-Aids or batteries, the cheese curl lover's house is stocked and ready. Orderly and perfectionists, they are most comfortable with a neat, uncluttered desk. At work, play, or at home no detail is left undone.

Note: If it is so spotless you can eat off the kitchen floor, you are in the domicile of one who craves cheese curls.

MEAT SNACKS: Gregarious, social . . . They are generous to a fault, and will make extraordinary self-sacrifices to please others. Those who prefer meat snacks are loyal and true friends who can always be trusted. However, their overtrusting nature predisposes them to emotional turmoil, especially when breaking up with a lover.

Note: Those who prefer meat snacks are prone to, and thus should be careful to avoid, rebound relationships!

(BEGIN ITALICS HERE) And the study concludes: (END ITALICS HERE)

Food hedonics, whether it be snack food, fruit or ice cream, has potential utility as a projective test for psychiatric illness as well as personality typing in subjects without pathology. Future research establishing cross-geographics and cross-cultural validity of this projective testing is warranted.

In some parts of Alaska, about the only way to get to a voting booth in January is by dogsled. So to encourage participation in its presidential straw poll last Monday, the Alaska Republican Party tried something different: Internet voting.

By logging on to the Web site of VoteHere.net, a new company that sells Internet voting software, Republicans in three remote districts (and in the offices of Alaska's members of Congress in Washington) could point the mouse at any of six presidential contenders, then click on a button labeled ``Cast this ballot.''

Since the straw poll was not binding, this was not, as the company labeled it, the ``first binding Internet election.'' Still, it does appear to have been the first Internet ballot to be sanctioned by a major party, and it was a happy debut: while only 35 people voted from their computers, they provided Texas Gov. George W. Bush with just enough clicks (23) to lift him to a narrow victory over Steve Forbes (4) in the straw poll as a whole. (The overall tally was Bush 1,571, Forbes 1,566.)

While Alaska may have been the first, it is not likely to be the last. A small but growing number of state officials in both parties, impressed by the sales pitches of start-up companies like VoteHere.net and Election.com, see electronic voting as a way to attract new voters.

``The whole objective is to open voting to people who don't participate, like the 18-to-34 age group,'' said Mark Fleisher, chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party, which plans to offer Internet voting in its March presidential primary, which will be binding. He added that he hoped the novelty would provide a jolt of publicity to upstage the Republicans, whose own primary is two weeks before the Democrats'.

But not everyone sees Internet voting as a portal to a more democratic future. The Voting Integrity Project, a nonprofit civic group in Virginia, has sued in federal court to block the Arizona Democrats' plan on behalf of two minority voters, saying it discriminates against minority voters, who are less likely than whites to have access to the Internet.

Then there are security problems. The two electronic voting companies use various kinds of software to protect voters' privacy and make sure nobody casts more than one ballot. But the California Internet Voting Task Force, a panel of technology experts, political scientists and civic leaders convened by Secretary of State Bill Jones, presented an alarming picture in January in a report rejecting the notion of allowing voters to cast ballots from home via the Internet anytime soon.

The task force said that despite security measures, it would be all too easy to distribute a ``Trojan horse'' virus, perhaps by e-mail, to take up residence in voters' home computers. Such a virus, the panel said, could direct Internet voting software to take over the keyboard and mouse and place automated votes without the user's even being aware that the vote had been altered.

Jim Adler, president of VoteHere.net, said such concerns were overblown, but he acknowledged that extra security measures might be necessary and that they would involve some work on the voters' part. ``You may have to sacrifice convenience for security,'' he said.

Researchers for the Defense Department, which is creating a system to allow Americans overseas to cast ballots through the Internet, came to the same conclusion as the California panel. Glenn Flood, a Pentagon spokesman, said the pilot project, scheduled to be tested by 250 military personnel in November, would allow voting only from virus-free machines at military bases.

Other experts dispute a central premise of the Internet-voting movement: that technology, in and of itself, will attract large numbers of new voters.

``There's no pent-up demand for `Gee, if I could do this from home, I would participate in politics,''' said Michael Cornfield, a political scientist who is director of the Democracy Online Project at George Washington University. ``We've been there. We've done this. It does not work.''

Christopher Arterton, dean of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington, said that experiments in ``tele-democracy'' in the 1980s, in which people could register opinions by telephone on issues presented in town hall meetings on cable television, were disappointing.

``Media was not a cure-all for the problems of democracy,'' he said. ``The real resistance from citizens is attitudes toward politics.''

And many state election officials are far from sold on Internet voting. ``We have a couple of software companies that are driving this process,'' said Thomas Wilkey, executive director of the New York state Board of Elections. ``I don't think anybody is saying they're totally against this, but let's take a look before jumping into this. It's like jumping into the lake without testing the water.''

Practical issues aside, the political obstacles are bound to remain substantial. Consider the culture clash that took place in Louisiana last spring, when VoteHere.net persuaded moderate Republicans to propose Internet voting to bring attention to the party's 2000 presidential caucuses.

The issue became a flashpoint in the longstanding rivalry between conservatives and moderates. And as the software people looked on in amazement, the old politics rapidly trumped the new: conservatives, invoking a series of unorthodox parliamentary maneuvers, managed to bury the proposal, at least for this election year.

In some parts of Alaska, about the only way to get to a voting booth in January is by dogsled. So to encourage participation in its presidential straw poll last Monday, the Alaska Republican Party tried something different: Internet voting.

By logging on to the Web site of VoteHere.net, a new company that sells Internet voting software, Republicans in three remote districts (and in the offices of Alaska's members of Congress in Washington) could point the mouse at any of six presidential contenders, then click on a button labeled ``Cast this ballot.''

Since the straw poll was not binding, this was not, as the company labeled it, the ``first binding Internet election.'' Still, it does appear to have been the first Internet ballot to be sanctioned by a major party, and it was a happy debut: while only 35 people voted from their computers, they provided Texas Gov. George W. Bush with just enough clicks (23) to lift him to a narrow victory over Steve Forbes (4) in the straw poll as a whole. (The overall tally was Bush 1,571, Forbes 1,566.)

While Alaska may have been the first, it is not likely to be the last. A small but growing number of state officials in both parties, impressed by the sales pitches of start-up companies like VoteHere.net and Election.com, see electronic voting as a way to attract new voters.

``The whole objective is to open voting to people who don't participate, like the 18-to-34 age group,'' said Mark Fleisher, chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party, which plans to offer Internet voting in its March presidential primary, which will be binding. He added that he hoped the novelty would provide a jolt of publicity to upstage the Republicans, whose own primary is two weeks before the Democrats'.

But not everyone sees Internet voting as a portal to a more democratic future. The Voting Integrity Project, a nonprofit civic group in Virginia, has sued in federal court to block the Arizona Democrats' plan on behalf of two minority voters, saying it discriminates against minority voters, who are less likely than whites to have access to the Internet.

Then there are security problems. The two electronic voting companies use various kinds of software to protect voters' privacy and make sure nobody casts more than one ballot. But the California Internet Voting Task Force, a panel of technology experts, political scientists and civic leaders convened by Secretary of State Bill Jones, presented an alarming picture in January in a report rejecting the notion of allowing voters to cast ballots from home via the Internet anytime soon.

The task force said that despite security measures, it would be all too easy to distribute a ``Trojan horse'' virus, perhaps by e-mail, to take up residence in voters' home computers. Such a virus, the panel said, could direct Internet voting software to take over the keyboard and mouse and place automated votes without the user's even being aware that the vote had been altered.

Jim Adler, president of VoteHere.net, said such concerns were overblown, but he acknowledged that extra security measures might be necessary and that they would involve some work on the voters' part. ``You may have to sacrifice convenience for security,'' he said.

Researchers for the Defense Department, which is creating a system to allow Americans overseas to cast ballots through the Internet, came to the same conclusion as the California panel. Glenn Flood, a Pentagon spokesman, said the pilot project, scheduled to be tested by 250 military personnel in November, would allow voting only from virus-free machines at military bases.

Other experts dispute a central premise of the Internet-voting movement: that technology, in and of itself, will attract large numbers of new voters.

``There's no pent-up demand for `Gee, if I could do this from home, I would participate in politics,''' said Michael Cornfield, a political scientist who is director of the Democracy Online Project at George Washington University. ``We've been there. We've done this. It does not work.''

Christopher Arterton, dean of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington, said that experiments in ``tele-democracy'' in the 1980s, in which people could register opinions by telephone on issues presented in town hall meetings on cable television, were disappointing.

``Media was not a cure-all for the problems of democracy,'' he said. ``The real resistance from citizens is attitudes toward politics.''

And many state election officials are far from sold on Internet voting. ``We have a couple of software companies that are driving this process,'' said Thomas Wilkey, executive director of the New York state Board of Elections. ``I don't think anybody is saying they're totally against this, but let's take a look before jumping into this. It's like jumping into the lake without testing the water.''

Practical issues aside, the political obstacles are bound to remain substantial. Consider the culture clash that took place in Louisiana last spring, when VoteHere.net persuaded moderate Republicans to propose Internet voting to bring attention to the party's 2000 presidential caucuses.

The issue became a flashpoint in the longstanding rivalry between conservatives and moderates. And as the software people looked on in amazement, the old politics rapidly trumped the new: conservatives, invoking a series of unorthodox parliamentary maneuvers, managed to bury the proposal, at least for this election year.

WASHINGTON _ For decades, it has been an article of faith among Republicans that no issue is more politically powerful or truer to their ideology than tax cuts.

Now that orthodoxy faces one of its strongest challenges since Ronald Reagan brought the supply-side revolution to the GOP. The challenger is Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who has audaciously taken Gov. George W. Bush of Texas to task at the beginning of the primary season for the big tax cut plan that is the centerpiece of his presidential campaign.

With the federal budget surplus swelling, taxes will no doubt remain an issue to some degree throughout the election. But the outcome of the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday could go a long way toward determining whether the traditional Republican message about cutting taxes has lost its potency in an era when voters seem inclined to use the current prosperity to address expensive long-term problems.

Casting himself as a true believer in tax cuts, Bush has not flinched. His differences with McCain, he said last week as he received the endorsement of Jack Kemp, one of the original supply-siders, pose ``a defining choice for our party.'' Kemp said McCain was ``turning the party away from Ronald Reagan and back to Herbert Hoover.''

For his part, McCain has continued to attack Bush's plan in terms redolent of both old-style fiscal conservatism and Democratic class warfare. He calls the proposed cuts too big, too tilted to the wealthy, too little focused on debt reduction and blind to the challenges of shoring up Social Security and Medicare.

Asked during a debate last week whether his approach was too much like President Clinton's to suit Republican voters, McCain did not blush, replying that perhaps Clinton's plan ``looks too much like mine.''

Of course, McCain's appeal in the famously anti-tax precincts of New Hampshire may derive more from his war hero background and his blunt-talking approach than from his stand on fiscal policy. But should he defeat Bush in the first head-to-head matchup between the two leading Republicans, it will clearly raise questions about the Texan's reliance on a tax-cutting message to carry him through the primaries, much less the general election.

McCain's approach, which includes smaller tax cuts than Bush's, is framed by the combination of current prosperity and long-term national problems. Few voters seem to be clamoring for tax cuts of a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars a year now because most are feeling flush; on Tuesday, as New Hampshire votes, the nation's current economic expansion will officially become the longest on record.

At the same time, voters seem to have a visceral feeling that they should be planning now to ensure that the country's finances are put in order before the inevitable downturn. Support for reducing the national debt is far stronger than either party had expected, and poll respondents regularly say their top priorities are putting Social Security and Medicare on sound footing for the retirement of the baby boom generation.

These developments have given McCain an opportunity to redefine what it means to be a conservative in an age of plenty.

``I think it's conservative in good times to put money into Social Security,'' McCain said. ``It's conservative to pay down the debt. And it's conservative, clearly, to try to save Medicare and at the same time give these tax breaks to American families.''

McCain's strategy has set off a heated debate among Republican strategists and conservative thinkers. Most of them are more dedicated to tax cuts than ever, especially at a time when the federal surplus appears to be growing to astonishing heights. Last week the Congressional Budget Office projected that the surplus outside the Social Security system could reach $1.9 trillion over the next decade, nearly twice as much as projected six months ago.

True supply-siders say that tax cuts will not only keep the economy healthy, but that returning excess revenue to the taxpayers is the best way to stop the relentless growth of government. They point out that when the issue is framed as a choice between letting politicians spend the surplus and letting individuals choose how to use their own money, tax cuts get strong support in polls.

``The key is to link it to wasteful Washington spending,'' said Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster. ``That's when it becomes not only good policy but good politics.''

nn

But other Republicans, even some who consider themselves supply-siders and support aggressive tax-cutting efforts, acknowledge that McCain may have tapped into a new politics of prosperity.

``In a time of prosperity such as now, the one thing people are more concerned about than anything else is not rocking the boat,'' said Bruce Bartlett, a former Treasury Department official in the Reagan and Bush administrations, ``and they are deeply skeptical of any ideas that seem large because large is seen as risky.''

``Rightly or wrongly, people have bought into the idea that big tax cuts are risky,'' Bartlett said. ``At the same time, people know instinctively that the good times won't last forever. They view paying down the debt as putting money in the national piggy bank and as the way you deal with the problems of the future.''

The wild card in the debate could be the surplus. McCain has already dismissed the estimates as guesses that should not be the basis for policy-making. And Democrats say the projections of a $1.9 trillion surplus are a fantasy because they are built on the unrealistic assumption that Congress will cut spending for the next decade.

Still, the numbers give Bush some measure of protection against charges that his $483 billion, five-year tax cut plan would be fiscally irresponsible. Even if he loses the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, he will almost certainly stick to his message as the campaign leaves the state (where independents can vote in the primaries) for more traditional conservative battlegrounds.

Nonetheless, the debate on the campaign trail is beginning to percolate among Republicans in Congress. House Speaker Dennis Hastert has made eliminating the national debt one of the party's main goals, even as he has de-emphasized efforts to pass a sweeping tax cut, at least for now.

Republicans have not failed to recognize reality. With Kemp at his side, Bob Dole ran for president in 1996 on a tax-cutting platform and was beaten soundly by Clinton. Clinton has subsequently blocked Republican tax-cutting efforts in Congress and tried to make Democrats the party of fiscal discipline.

But Republican analysts are clearly concerned about the potential for a debilitating split within the party if McCain's strategy succeeds.

``When a Republican uses the rhetoric of Democratic criticism against the GOP,'' Luntz said, ``that's when you know you have an electoral problem.''

WASHINGTON _ For decades, it has been an article of faith among Republicans that no issue is more politically powerful or truer to their ideology than tax cuts.

Now that orthodoxy faces one of its strongest challenges since Ronald Reagan brought the supply-side revolution to the GOP. The challenger is Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who has audaciously taken Gov. George W. Bush of Texas to task at the beginning of the primary season for the big tax cut plan that is the centerpiece of his presidential campaign.

With the federal budget surplus swelling, taxes will no doubt remain an issue to some degree throughout the election. But the outcome of the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday could go a long way toward determining whether the traditional Republican message about cutting taxes has lost its potency in an era when voters seem inclined to use the current prosperity to address expensive long-term problems.

Casting himself as a true believer in tax cuts, Bush has not flinched. His differences with McCain, he said last week as he received the endorsement of Jack Kemp, one of the original supply-siders, pose ``a defining choice for our party.'' Kemp said McCain was ``turning the party away from Ronald Reagan and back to Herbert Hoover.''

For his part, McCain has continued to attack Bush's plan in terms redolent of both old-style fiscal conservatism and Democratic class warfare. He calls the proposed cuts too big, too tilted to the wealthy, too little focused on debt reduction and blind to the challenges of shoring up Social Security and Medicare.

Asked during a debate last week whether his approach was too much like President Clinton's to suit Republican voters, McCain did not blush, replying that perhaps Clinton's plan ``looks too much like mine.''

Of course, McCain's appeal in the famously anti-tax precincts of New Hampshire may derive more from his war hero background and his blunt-talking approach than from his stand on fiscal policy. But should he defeat Bush in the first head-to-head matchup between the two leading Republicans, it will clearly raise questions about the Texan's reliance on a tax-cutting message to carry him through the primaries, much less the general election.

McCain's approach, which includes smaller tax cuts than Bush's, is framed by the combination of current prosperity and long-term national problems. Few voters seem to be clamoring for tax cuts of a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars a year now because most are feeling flush; on Tuesday, as New Hampshire votes, the nation's current economic expansion will officially become the longest on record.

At the same time, voters seem to have a visceral feeling that they should be planning now to ensure that the country's finances are put in order before the inevitable downturn. Support for reducing the national debt is far stronger than either party had expected, and poll respondents regularly say their top priorities are putting Social Security and Medicare on sound footing for the retirement of the baby boom generation.

These developments have given McCain an opportunity to redefine what it means to be a conservative in an age of plenty.

``I think it's conservative in good times to put money into Social Security,'' McCain said. ``It's conservative to pay down the debt. And it's conservative, clearly, to try to save Medicare and at the same time give these tax breaks to American families.''

McCain's strategy has set off a heated debate among Republican strategists and conservative thinkers. Most of them are more dedicated to tax cuts than ever, especially at a time when the federal surplus appears to be growing to astonishing heights. Last week the Congressional Budget Office projected that the surplus outside the Social Security system could reach $1.9 trillion over the next decade, nearly twice as much as projected six months ago.

True supply-siders say that tax cuts will not only keep the economy healthy, but that returning excess revenue to the taxpayers is the best way to stop the relentless growth of government. They point out that when the issue is framed as a choice between letting politicians spend the surplus and letting individuals choose how to use their own money, tax cuts get strong support in polls.

``The key is to link it to wasteful Washington spending,'' said Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster. ``That's when it becomes not only good policy but good politics.''

nn

(BEGIN ITALICS HERE) Last week, rebel insurgents from Myanmar stormed a hospital in neighboring Ratchaburi, Thailand, holding more than 800 staff members and patients prisoner for 22 hours. Thai security forces then stormed the hospital, killing 10 rebels.

The guerrillas were part of a fundamentalist Christian paramilitary group led by 12-year-old Burmese twins, Johnny and Luther Htoo, neither of whom took part in the raid.

Within hours, a photo of the impossibly young-looking leaders began appearing in American newspapers. Long-haired and pretty, Johnny Htoo peers over his brother's shoulder with a slightly furrowed brow; Luther, eyes narrowed, holds a cigar to his lips.

The next night, the Htoo boys began surfacing on American television, notably as a comedy news item on ``The Daily Show,'' starring Jon Stewart.

One can only imagine what's to come. (END ITALICS HERE)

(Fade in: ABC Executive Offices, Los Angeles.)

EXECUTIVE No. 1: Johnny and Luther!

EXECUTIVE No. 2: Luther and Johnny!

EXECUTIVE No. 1: No, you idiot. It's got to be ``Johnny and Luther.'' The funnier one always comes second.

WRITER (standing): Hey, guys, hold on. I have a very serious question.

(Silence.)

WRITER: Do you think this is really the right thing to do?

EXECUTIVE No. 2: Is what the right thing to do?

WRITER: A sitcom. A sitcom based on deadly rebel boys? Is that appropriate?

EXECUTIVE No. 1 (taking a deep breath): Let me ask you something, sweetheart. Did M.J. just quit ``Spin City''?

WRITER: Yes.

EXECUTIVE No. 2: Can the network survive on ``Millionaire'' alone?

WRITER: Uh, no.

EXECUTIVE No. 1: Then shut up and sit down. (To Executive No. 2) ``Johnny and Luther!''

WRITER: No, wait. I'm serious. We've got two boys who aren't old enough for junior high commanding an armed force and people are getting killed.

EXECUTIVE No. 1: Right. And you don't think that makes for good TV? (To Executive No. 2) You think we have to cast Asian, or could we get away with Puerto Rican?

EXECUTIVE No. 2: No, no, the Sino-American groups would have our heads if we didn't cast Chinese.

EXECUTIVE No. 1: But the boys are Burmese.

EXECUTIVE No. 2: Same thing.

WRITER: Stop! Stop! This is crazy! You're like a ``Saturday Night Live'' skit. I mean, would you have done a sitcom about Columbine?

EXECUTIVE No. 1 (insulted): Absolutely not!

EXECUTIVE No. 2 (solemnly): An American tragedy.

WRITER: And aren't the Htoo boys a Southeast Asian tragedy?

EXECUTIVE No. 1: C'mon, that part of the world has been a mess for decades. Ever since Vietnam.

EXECUTIVE No. 2: What's Vietnam?

EXECUTIVE No. 1: Some sort of war out there. Oliver once told me about it. Anyway, man, these kids are totally funny.

EXECUTIVE No. 2: Right. The pretty one, Johnny, we could make him really nervous and neurotic, always checking in with his bro. Sort of like Niles does with Frasier.

EXECUTIVE No. 1: Yeah, yeah. And the other one, Luther, forget about it. He's a wild man. I can see the first episode. The parents are going out and Mom tells the sitter that the kids have to be in bed by 9 at the latest. Luther runs up saying, ``But Mom, some of the guerrillas are coming over to plan a raid on Gymboree next Wednesday.'' So Mom says: ``Well, OK, 11. But no smoking, mister.''

EXECUTIVE No. 2: Right! We can ride the cigar bit for at least six episodes.

WRITER (getting up): You know what? You guys are beyond reach and I'm going home. Here we are in a new millennium, hoping that the next generation will help us fix the mistakes of our past. We've got the Internet and fiber optics and God knows what else breaking down the barriers dividing people and places, and what do you guys want to do? You want to exploit our children instead of celebrating them!

(Long silence.)

EXECUTIVE No. 1: Brilliant. Simply brilliant. That can be Luther's monologue at the end of the pilot. (To Executive No. 2) Did you get all that?

EXECUTIVE No. 2 (taking out pen): No, no, I was transfixed. (To Writer) Can you say that again? Take it from, ``Here we are, in a new millennium . . .''

But other Republicans, even some who consider themselves supply-siders and support aggressive tax-cutting efforts, acknowledge that McCain may have tapped into a new politics of prosperity.

``In a time of prosperity such as now, the one thing people are more concerned about than anything else is not rocking the boat,'' said Bruce Bartlett, a former Treasury Department official in the Reagan and Bush administrations, ``and they are deeply skeptical of any ideas that seem large because large is seen as risky.''

``Rightly or wrongly, people have bought into the idea that big tax cuts are risky,'' Bartlett said. ``At the same time, people know instinctively that the good times won't last forever. They view paying down the debt as putting money in the national piggy bank and as the way you deal with the problems of the future.''

The wild card in the debate could be the surplus. McCain has already dismissed the estimates as guesses that should not be the basis for policy-making. And Democrats say the projections of a $1.9 trillion surplus are a fantasy because they are built on the unrealistic assumption that Congress will cut spending for the next decade.

Still, the numbers give Bush some measure of protection against charges that his $483 billion, five-year tax cut plan would be fiscally irresponsible. Even if he loses the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, he will almost certainly stick to his message as the campaign leaves the state (where independents can vote in the primaries) for more traditional conservative battlegrounds.

Nonetheless, the debate on the campaign trail is beginning to percolate among Republicans in Congress. House Speaker Dennis Hastert has made eliminating the national debt one of the party's main goals, even as he has de-emphasized efforts to pass a sweeping tax cut, at least for now.

Republicans have not failed to recognize reality. With Kemp at his side, Bob Dole ran for president in 1996 on a tax-cutting platform and was beaten soundly by Clinton. Clinton has subsequently blocked Republican tax-cutting efforts in Congress and tried to make Democrats the party of fiscal discipline.

But Republican analysts are clearly concerned about the potential for a debilitating split within the party if McCain's strategy succeeds.

``When a Republican uses the rhetoric of Democratic criticism against the GOP,'' Luntz said, ``that's when you know you have an electoral problem.''

(BEGIN ITALICS HERE) Last week, rebel insurgents from Myanmar stormed a hospital in neighboring Ratchaburi, Thailand, holding more than 800 staff members and patients prisoner for 22 hours. Thai security forces then stormed the hospital, killing 10 rebels.

The guerrillas were part of a fundamentalist Christian paramilitary group led by 12-year-old Burmese twins, Johnny and Luther Htoo, neither of whom took part in the raid.

Within hours, a photo of the impossibly young-looking leaders began appearing in American newspapers. Long-haired and pretty, Johnny Htoo peers over his brother's shoulder with a slightly furrowed brow; Luther, eyes narrowed, holds a cigar to his lips.

The next night, the Htoo boys began surfacing on American television, notably as a comedy news item on ``The Daily Show,'' starring Jon Stewart.

One can only imagine what's to come. (END ITALICS HERE)

(Fade in: ABC Executive Offices, Los Angeles.)

EXECUTIVE No. 1: Johnny and Luther!

EXECUTIVE No. 2: Luther and Johnny!

EXECUTIVE No. 1: No, you idiot. It's got to be ``Johnny and Luther.'' The funnier one always comes second.

WRITER (standing): Hey, guys, hold on. I have a very serious question.

(Silence.)

WRITER: Do you think this is really the right thing to do?

EXECUTIVE No. 2: Is what the right thing to do?

WRITER: A sitcom. A sitcom based on deadly rebel boys? Is that appropriate?

EXECUTIVE No. 1 (taking a deep breath): Let me ask you something, sweetheart. Did M.J. just quit ``Spin City''?

WRITER: Yes.

EXECUTIVE No. 2: Can the network survive on ``Millionaire'' alone?

WRITER: Uh, no.

EXECUTIVE No. 1: Then shut up and sit down. (To Executive No. 2) ``Johnny and Luther!''

WRITER: No, wait. I'm serious. We've got two boys who aren't old enough for junior high commanding an armed force and people are getting killed.

EXECUTIVE No. 1: Right. And you don't think that makes for good TV? (To Executive No. 2) You think we have to cast Asian, or could we get away with Puerto Rican?

EXECUTIVE No. 2: No, no, the Sino-American groups would have our heads if we didn't cast Chinese.

EXECUTIVE No. 1: But the boys are Burmese.

EXECUTIVE No. 2: Same thing.

WRITER: Stop! Stop! This is crazy! You're like a ``Saturday Night Live'' skit. I mean, would you have done a sitcom about Columbine?

EXECUTIVE No. 1 (insulted): Absolutely not!

EXECUTIVE No. 2 (solemnly): An American tragedy.

WRITER: And aren't the Htoo boys a Southeast Asian tragedy?

EXECUTIVE No. 1: C'mon, that part of the world has been a mess for decades. Ever since Vietnam.

EXECUTIVE No. 2: What's Vietnam?

EXECUTIVE No. 1: Some sort of war out there. Oliver once told me about it. Anyway, man, these kids are totally funny.

EXECUTIVE No. 2: Right. The pretty one, Johnny, we could make him really nervous and neurotic, always checking in with his bro. Sort of like Niles does with Frasier.

EXECUTIVE No. 1: Yeah, yeah. And the other one, Luther, forget about it. He's a wild man. I can see the first episode. The parents are going out and Mom tells the sitter that the kids have to be in bed by 9 at the latest. Luther runs up saying, ``But Mom, some of the guerrillas are coming over to plan a raid on Gymboree next Wednesday.'' So Mom says: ``Well, OK, 11. But no smoking, mister.''

EXECUTIVE No. 2: Right! We can ride the cigar bit for at least six episodes.

WRITER (getting up): You know what? You guys are beyond reach and I'm going home. Here we are in a new millennium, hoping that the next generation will help us fix the mistakes of our past. We've got the Internet and fiber optics and God knows what else breaking down the barriers dividing people and places, and what do you guys want to do? You want to exploit our children instead of celebrating them!

(Long silence.)

EXECUTIVE No. 1: Brilliant. Simply brilliant. That can be Luther's monologue at the end of the pilot. (To Executive No. 2) Did you get all that?

EXECUTIVE No. 2 (taking out pen): No, no, I was transfixed. (To Writer) Can you say that again? Take it from, ``Here we are, in a new millennium . . .''

When New York state opened the Tappan Zee Bridge in 1955 to span the Hudson River at its widest point, officials proudly said they were opening up new frontiers to the suburbs and beyond. The bridge would pay dividends far beyond its $81 million cost, ``in new satellite communities, in increased land values and in countless other less tangible ways,'' said Walter Mahoney, a Republican who was majority leader of the state Senate.

This month, when a task force appointed by Gov. George Pataki called for a $4 billion project to replace the bridge, the language was strikingly different.

There was no brave talk of new subdivisions or shopping centers. Instead, the task force cast the bridge replacement almost as a mass transit project _ a way to contain the suburban sprawl that the bridge had been built to generate in the first place.

It said the new span should include tracks for a commuter rail line. And to relieve the rush-hour traffic that often results in six-mile logjams, the panel called for a new toll-collection system that would offer discounts to off-peak travelers.

Costly and controversial as it is sure to be, the project may never get off the ground. But whether it does or not, it has already signaled a fundamental shift in the way major public works projects are conceived, promoted and packaged, not just in New York but all over the country.

What has changed, of course, is that sprawl has become a dirty word. When the dividends trumpeted in the 1950s turned out to have their own costs (including the heavy traffic that has made the Tappan Zee Bridge and other roadways obsolete), public officials and transportation planners had to change their vocabularies.

Rather than proclaim the merits of suburban development and car travel, as the legendary master builder Robert Moses did in New York state from the 1920s to the '60s, they are framing new road projects in cautious, modest terms, often coupled with ideas for mass transit and relief of traffic congestion. Vice President Al Gore has made such initiatives a centerpiece of his campaign for president.

Not so many years ago, it was common wisdom that the only way to relieve highway congestion was to add new lanes. Now the common wisdom, supported by several recent studies, is that expanding a road usually leads to substantial increases in the number of vehicles on it. ``Adding highway capacity to solve traffic congestion is like buying larger pants to deal with your weight problem,'' said Michael Replogle, transportation director of the advocacy group Environmental Defense, in Washington.

So in New Jersey, the state transportation commissioner, James Weinstein, could go before a business group last week and utter words that would have been heresy in that car-besotted state just a few years ago: ``We're past the period where adding lanes is the solution to traffic congestion, make no mistake about that.''

Weinstein added that most of the money in a new $500 million transportation bond act would go toward mass transit and road repairs. ``The commissioner feels quite strongly that we cannot build our way out of congestion,'' said his spokesman, John Dourgarian. ``The days of new highway construction are over.''

Off-peak discounts have been tried in California and a few other states, with mixed success. In Maryland, Gov. Parris Glendening has killed five highway bypass projects, fearful that they would encourage sprawl, and pledged to double the number of transit riders by 2020. To get people out of their cars and promote downtown revitalization, the state has also built 50 miles of sidewalks in the last two years, said John Freece, an assistant to the governor. Even the state highway administrator has adopted a slogan that would cheer anti-sprawl activists: ``Thinking Beyond the Pavement.''

The Tappan Zee Bridge may be something of a special case. It is severely overcrowded, handling 130,000 vehicles a day, 30 percent over capacity. (The planners envision an increase from seven lanes to eight.) And because it is so long _ built at the Hudson's widest point to escape the 25-mile jurisdiction of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey _ it is unusually expensive to maintain, repair and, if necessary, replace.

Still, the debate over the Tappan Zee echoes one in Washington over the dilapidated Woodrow Wilson Bridge, on the Potomac River. While there is wide agreement on the need to rebuild or replace the bridge, a growing chorus of citizens, transportation groups and government officials argue that a replacement structure should accommodate as much mass transit and congestion pricing as possible.

Such talk pleases Robert A. Caro, author of ``The Power Broker'' (Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Robert Moses that was one of the first works to focus on the toll of build-at-all-costs highway construction on neighborhoods, the environment and the overall quality of life.

In recent years, Caro said, a growing number of public officials have written to tell him the era of Moses is over.

``To a really encouraging extent,'' he said, ``I see that there's a new understanding that it's no good just to go on blindly building huge projects in the way that Robert Moses did. I don't think we've come full circle, but I think we've come a long way.''

When New York state opened the Tappan Zee Bridge in 1955 to span the Hudson River at its widest point, officials proudly said they were opening up new frontiers to the suburbs and beyond. The bridge would pay dividends far beyond its $81 million cost, ``in new satellite communities, in increased land values and in countless other less tangible ways,'' said Walter Mahoney, a Republican who was majority leader of the state Senate.

This month, when a task force appointed by Gov. George Pataki called for a $4 billion project to replace the bridge, the language was strikingly different.

There was no brave talk of new subdivisions or shopping centers. Instead, the task force cast the bridge replacement almost as a mass transit project _ a way to contain the suburban sprawl that the bridge had been built to generate in the first place.

It said the new span should include tracks for a commuter rail line. And to relieve the rush-hour traffic that often results in six-mile logjams, the panel called for a new toll-collection system that would offer discounts to off-peak travelers.

Costly and controversial as it is sure to be, the project may never get off the ground. But whether it does or not, it has already signaled a fundamental shift in the way major public works projects are conceived, promoted and packaged, not just in New York but all over the country.

What has changed, of course, is that sprawl has become a dirty word. When the dividends trumpeted in the 1950s turned out to have their own costs (including the heavy traffic that has made the Tappan Zee Bridge and other roadways obsolete), public officials and transportation planners had to change their vocabularies.

Rather than proclaim the merits of suburban development and car travel, as the legendary master builder Robert Moses did in New York state from the 1920s to the '60s, they are framing new road projects in cautious, modest terms, often coupled with ideas for mass transit and relief of traffic congestion. Vice President Al Gore has made such initiatives a centerpiece of his campaign for president.

Not so many years ago, it was common wisdom that the only way to relieve highway congestion was to add new lanes. Now the common wisdom, supported by several recent studies, is that expanding a road usually leads to substantial increases in the number of vehicles on it. ``Adding highway capacity to solve traffic congestion is like buying larger pants to deal with your weight problem,'' said Michael Replogle, transportation director of the advocacy group Environmental Defense, in Washington.

So in New Jersey, the state transportation commissioner, James Weinstein, could go before a business group last week and utter words that would have been heresy in that car-besotted state just a few years ago: ``We're past the period where adding lanes is the solution to traffic congestion, make no mistake about that.''

Weinstein added that most of the money in a new $500 million transportation bond act would go toward mass transit and road repairs. ``The commissioner feels quite strongly that we cannot build our way out of congestion,'' said his spokesman, John Dourgarian. ``The days of new highway construction are over.''

Off-peak discounts have been tried in California and a few other states, with mixed success. In Maryland, Gov. Parris Glendening has killed five highway bypass projects, fearful that they would encourage sprawl, and pledged to double the number of transit riders by 2020. To get people out of their cars and promote downtown revitalization, the state has also built 50 miles of sidewalks in the last two years, said John Freece, an assistant to the governor. Even the state highway administrator has adopted a slogan that would cheer anti-sprawl activists: ``Thinking Beyond the Pavement.''

The Tappan Zee Bridge may be something of a special case. It is severely overcrowded, handling 130,000 vehicles a day, 30 percent over capacity. (The planners envision an increase from seven lanes to eight.) And because it is so long _ built at the Hudson's widest point to escape the 25-mile jurisdiction of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey _ it is unusually expensive to maintain, repair and, if necessary, replace.

Still, the debate over the Tappan Zee echoes one in Washington over the dilapidated Woodrow Wilson Bridge, on the Potomac River. While there is wide agreement on the need to rebuild or replace the bridge, a growing chorus of citizens, transportation groups and government officials argue that a replacement structure should accommodate as much mass transit and congestion pricing as possible.

Such talk pleases Robert A. Caro, author of ``The Power Broker'' (Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Robert Moses that was one of the first works to focus on the toll of build-at-all-costs highway construction on neighborhoods, the environment and the overall quality of life.

In recent years, Caro said, a growing number of public officials have written to tell him the era of Moses is over.

``To a really encouraging extent,'' he said, ``I see that there's a new understanding that it's no good just to go on blindly building huge projects in the way that Robert Moses did. I don't think we've come full circle, but I think we've come a long way.''

Diving Into the Political Mosh Pit &QL;

It was a week of mosh pit politics.

Alan Keyes, eloquent scold against the evils of popular culture, ignited a culture war of sorts when he literally threw himself into a mosh pit to the music of Rage Against the Machine, a stunt orchestrated by the maverick filmmaker Michael Moore. Gary Bauer, Keyes' rival on the conservative right, upbraided him during the Republican debate in New Hampshire for demeaning the solemn quest for high office. (Bauer, meanwhile, did nothing for his own hipness quotient by mangling the name of the popular band.)

The larger mosh pit was the campaign itself: a week of jousting as the race got wilder in snowbound New Hampshire. There, a simple fact confronted those who would be president: Bill Clinton was the only aspirant since 1952 to be elected without winning the nation's first true primary.

Racing from the Iowa caucuses, where social conservatism plays well, to libertarian, tax-averse New Hampshire, the candidates shifted tactics sharply.

Former Sen. Bill Bradley, adopting a risky new strategy that could tarnish his above-the-fray luster, went on the attack after Vice President Al Gore drubbed him in Iowa; each is now accusing the other of resorting to that campaign no-no, negativity. Bradley accused the vice president of lying and unleashed two surrogate pit bulls, Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska and Niki Tsongas, the widow of Sen. Paul Tsongas, to attack Gore for distorting Bradley's record.

Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the Iowa victor, found himself squeezed harder from both the right (Steve Forbes and Keyes both gained momentum in Iowa) and the left (Sen. John McCain, who skipped Iowa to save money for New Hampshire, is seeking to attract large numbers of independent voters in New Hampshire with his reform-minded centrist platform).

And the tone of the campaign got nastier for everyone, with the abortion issue emerging again as the great divide.

Forbes, Keyes and Bauer confronted Bush on the issue, pushing him to take a more conservative stand. Meanwhile, Bradley hit Gore for being inconsistent in his commitment to abortion rights.

The relatively small numbers of voters in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary are not really representative of the country as a whole. But the contests are crucial in winnowing the field (Sen. Orrin Hatch dropped out after winning no delegates in Iowa, and endorsed Bush) and in helping candidates gather steam for the decisive primaries in big states like California and New York.

_ By JILL ABRAMSON

Freshman Year as Stress Test

Maybe it's the fast-paced, multimedia society that surrounds them. Maybe it's the mounting costs of higher education. Or maybe it's the fact that just getting into college has become more competitive than ever.

This year's first-year college students are more stressed out than any in a generation, according to a national survey by researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles; in the survey, 30.2 percent said they feel ``frequently overwhelmed by all I have to do.''

Nearly twice as many women (38.8 percent) as men (20 percent) were found to be swimming in stress. Then again, the women reported spending more time studying and doing volunteer work, while the men logged more hours watching television and playing videogames.

But just wait _ the survey was conducted during the students' first days on campuses across the country. Imagine the stress in a couple of weeks, when final exams start.

_ By JODI WILGOREN

A Hint in the High Court On Campaign Funding

To the many critics of the current system of raising money for political campaigns, the Supreme Court has been part of the problem, not the solution. Critics point to the 1976 Buckley vs. Valeo decision, which upheld federal limits on contributions while ruling that as an aspect of free speech, campaign expenditures could not be curbed.

A decision last week indicated that the justices might be growing increasingly attentive to the criticism and inclined, in some future case, to address it. The 6-3 ruling itself, upholding Missouri's $1,000 contribution cap for statewide races, simply reaffirmed the contribution side of the Buckley vs. Valeo equation, and in that sense made little new law.

But four justices, in separate opinions, indicated an openness to considering aspects of Buckley that were not before the court this time: whether the Constitution really forbids any interference with the uncontrolled flood of money into politics, whether through independent expenditures or contributions of unlimited and often unaccountable soft money.

_ By LINDA GREENHOUSE

A Little Boy Gets To See His Grandmothers

Two grim grandmothers from Cuba bounded from New York to Washington to Miami and back again in a desperate attempt to bring their 6-year-old grandson, Elian Gonzalez, home to his father. The Justice Department, too, wants them to take the boy, who was rescued last Thanksgiving after his mother drowned at sea while fleeing Cuba with him.

But Elian's paternal relatives in Little Havana, with the financial and promotional support of Miami's anti-Castro Cuban exile community, want permanent custody for themselves, and so far the courts have allowed them to keep the boy with them.

As Elian's custodians whisk him in luxury cars to the circus and Disney World and feed him the trinkets of America's consumer society _ a battery-powered go-cart, a cell phone, gold chains and Nintendo games _ they may already have captured his heart.

After visiting with him privately Wednesday, one grandmother said, ``He's changed completely.''

_ By PETER T. KILBORN

U.S. Warns Pakistan

It is certainly not a list most nations care to join. But the United States is warning Pakistan that it may soon join Iran and Iraq on the State Department's official list of nations that support terrorism, which could mean new economic sanctions on that already impoverished nation.

At issue is the Pakistani army's support for a terrorist Kashmiri group blamed for the hijacking of an Indian Airlines jet. Asked earlier this month by a group of visiting administration officials to ban the group, Pakistan's new military leader refused.

_ By PHILIP SHENON

New Focus in Terror Probe

The focus of inquiry into the group of Montreal-based men accused of plotting a terrorist attack in America has shifted from Algeria to Afghanistan.

Though several of the Algerians accused in the plot were once members of an Algerian militant group that had never before targeted Americans, investigators have come to believe that the head of the alleged terrorist cell was a Mauritanian with ties not to Algeria, but to Osama bin Laden, the exiled Saudi charged in the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa.

At Washington's request, Senegal arrested the Mauritanian, Mohambedou Ould Slahi, the alleged head of the Montreal Algerian cell. The Justice Department sought his extradition to America.

_ By JUDITH MILLER &QL;

nn

Diving Into the Political Mosh Pit &QL;

It was a week of mosh pit politics.

Alan Keyes, eloquent scold against the evils of popular culture, ignited a culture war of sorts when he literally threw himself into a mosh pit to the music of Rage Against the Machine, a stunt orchestrated by the maverick filmmaker Michael Moore. Gary Bauer, Keyes' rival on the conservative right, upbraided him during the Republican debate in New Hampshire for demeaning the solemn quest for high office. (Bauer, meanwhile, did nothing for his own hipness quotient by mangling the name of the popular band.)

The larger mosh pit was the campaign itself: a week of jousting as the race got wilder in snowbound New Hampshire. There, a simple fact confronted those who would be president: Bill Clinton was the only aspirant since 1952 to be elected without winning the nation's first true primary.

Racing from the Iowa caucuses, where social conservatism plays well, to libertarian, tax-averse New Hampshire, the candidates shifted tactics sharply.

Former Sen. Bill Bradley, adopting a risky new strategy that could tarnish his above-the-fray luster, went on the attack after Vice President Al Gore drubbed him in Iowa; each is now accusing the other of resorting to that campaign no-no, negativity. Bradley accused the vice president of lying and unleashed two surrogate pit bulls, Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska and Niki Tsongas, the widow of Sen. Paul Tsongas, to attack Gore for distorting Bradley's record.

Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the Iowa victor, found himself squeezed harder from both the right (Steve Forbes and Keyes both gained momentum in Iowa) and the left (Sen. John McCain, who skipped Iowa to save money for New Hampshire, is seeking to attract large numbers of independent voters in New Hampshire with his reform-minded centrist platform).

And the tone of the campaign got nastier for everyone, with the abortion issue emerging again as the great divide.

Forbes, Keyes and Bauer confronted Bush on the issue, pushing him to take a more conservative stand. Meanwhile, Bradley hit Gore for being inconsistent in his commitment to abortion rights.

The relatively small numbers of voters in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary are not really representative of the country as a whole. But the contests are crucial in winnowing the field (Sen. Orrin Hatch dropped out after winning no delegates in Iowa, and endorsed Bush) and in helping candidates gather steam for the decisive primaries in big states like California and New York.

_ By JILL ABRAMSON

Freshman Year as Stress Test

Maybe it's the fast-paced, multimedia society that surrounds them. Maybe it's the mounting costs of higher education. Or maybe it's the fact that just getting into college has become more competitive than ever.

This year's first-year college students are more stressed out than any in a generation, according to a national survey by researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles; in the survey, 30.2 percent said they feel ``frequently overwhelmed by all I have to do.''

Nearly twice as many women (38.8 percent) as men (20 percent) were found to be swimming in stress. Then again, the women reported spending more time studying and doing volunteer work, while the men logged more hours watching television and playing videogames.

But just wait _ the survey was conducted during the students' first days on campuses across the country. Imagine the stress in a couple of weeks, when final exams start.

_ By JODI WILGOREN

A Hint in the High Court On Campaign Funding

To the many critics of the current system of raising money for political campaigns, the Supreme Court has been part of the problem, not the solution. Critics point to the 1976 Buckley vs. Valeo decision, which upheld federal limits on contributions while ruling that as an aspect of free speech, campaign expenditures could not be curbed.

A decision last week indicated that the justices might be growing increasingly attentive to the criticism and inclined, in some future case, to address it. The 6-3 ruling itself, upholding Missouri's $1,000 contribution cap for statewide races, simply reaffirmed the contribution side of the Buckley vs. Valeo equation, and in that sense made little new law.

But four justices, in separate opinions, indicated an openness to considering aspects of Buckley that were not before the court this time: whether the Constitution really forbids any interference with the uncontrolled flood of money into politics, whether through independent expenditures or contributions of unlimited and often unaccountable soft money.

_ By LINDA GREENHOUSE

A Little Boy Gets To See His Grandmothers

Two grim grandmothers from Cuba bounded from New York to Washington to Miami and back again in a desperate attempt to bring their 6-year-old grandson, Elian Gonzalez, home to his father. The Justice Department, too, wants them to take the boy, who was rescued last Thanksgiving after his mother drowned at sea while fleeing Cuba with him.

But Elian's paternal relatives in Little Havana, with the financial and promotional support of Miami's anti-Castro Cuban exile community, want permanent custody for themselves, and so far the courts have allowed them to keep the boy with them.

As Elian's custodians whisk him in luxury cars to the circus and Disney World and feed him the trinkets of America's consumer society _ a battery-powered go-cart, a cell phone, gold chains and Nintendo games _ they may already have captured his heart.

After visiting with him privately Wednesday, one grandmother said, ``He's changed completely.''

_ By PETER T. KILBORN

U.S. Warns Pakistan

It is certainly not a list most nations care to join. But the United States is warning Pakistan that it may soon join Iran and Iraq on the State Department's official list of nations that support terrorism, which could mean new economic sanctions on that already impoverished nation.

At issue is the Pakistani army's support for a terrorist Kashmiri group blamed for the hijacking of an Indian Airlines jet. Asked earlier this month by a group of visiting administration officials to ban the group, Pakistan's new military leader refused.

_ By PHILIP SHENON

New Focus in Terror Probe

The focus of inquiry into the group of Montreal-based men accused of plotting a terrorist attack in America has shifted from Algeria to Afghanistan.

Though several of the Algerians accused in the plot were once members of an Algerian militant group that had never before targeted Americans, investigators have come to believe that the head of the alleged terrorist cell was a Mauritanian with ties not to Algeria, but to Osama bin Laden, the exiled Saudi charged in the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa.

At Washington's request, Senegal arrested the Mauritanian, Mohambedou Ould Slahi, the alleged head of the Montreal Algerian cell. The Justice Department sought his extradition to America.

_ By JUDITH MILLER &QL;

nn

Barak's Party Is Fined

Israel's state comptroller issued a sharply worded report accusing the ruling party of violating campaign finance laws during the election last year in which Ehud Barak was elected prime minister, and the party was placed under criminal investigation. The comptroller, Eliezer Goldberg, fined Barak's One Israel Party $3.2 million but did not implicate the prime minister personally in the alleged violations.

Barak, who said he had advised his associates to operate legally, said he welcomed the investigation as a way to clear up ambiguities in the election law.

A New Inspector for Iraq

After nearly a year of wrangling over how to send arms inspectors back to Iraq and who would lead them, the U.N. Security Council named a compromise chief inspector, Hans Blix, the former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The choice of Blix, a Swede, was pushed by France, which was looking for a candidate Iraq might be able to work with. The United States, eager to avoid another prolonged crisis over Iraq, quickly agreed; Washington's preferred candidate, Rolf Ekeus, had been blocked in the council by France and Russia.

_ By BARBARA CROSSETTE

Aid, Please. But No Strings.

President Andres Pastrana of Colombia went to Washington to campaign for a proposed $1.3 billion in aid, and he opened with a plea for bipartisanship. He got that right away.

Republicans, who had pressed for more support for Colombia, began complaining about the plan outlined by the Clinton administration. Liberal Democrats liked the plan even less, and said they would try to link any new aid to the human rights performance of the Colombian army.

Pastrana said he wanted no such conditions. Progress on human rights would come, he insisted, but not because of pressure from abroad.

_ By TIM GOLDEN

A New Look at Illnesses In Nuclear Bomb Plants

For years some researchers have claimed that the 600,000 people who have helped build nuclear bombs are prone to all kinds of illnesses as a result. But from the time of the Manhattan Project, the government said it wasn't so. Now the White House and the Energy Department are preparing a review of years of data and studies that accepts the idea that there are extra cases of cancer among that population.

The review, due to be completed in about two months, will not settle the debate over how many more cancer cases the exposures caused, and will not say how much radiation is safe. But it is a marked turnaround in federal policy.

_ By MATTHEW L. WALD

An Unrefreshing Pause

Reeling from a year of falling profits and other problems at home and abroad, the Coca-Cola Co. said it would cut 6,000 employees, or one-fifth of its worldwide workforce, in the largest layoff ever for the soft-drink giant.

The company said it would take an $800 million charge against earnings to cover severance and other costs related to the cuts, and added that it expected its bottlers in several key markets to buy less concentrate this year, further eroding profits.

_ By CONSTANCE L. HAYS

Barak's Party Is Fined

Israel's state comptroller issued a sharply worded report accusing the ruling party of violating campaign finance laws during the election last year in which Ehud Barak was elected prime minister, and the party was placed under criminal investigation. The comptroller, Eliezer Goldberg, fined Barak's One Israel Party $3.2 million but did not implicate the prime minister personally in the alleged violations.

Barak, who said he had advised his associates to operate legally, said he welcomed the investigation as a way to clear up ambiguities in the election law.

A New Inspector for Iraq

After nearly a year of wrangling over how to send arms inspectors back to Iraq and who would lead them, the U.N. Security Council named a compromise chief inspector, Hans Blix, the former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The choice of Blix, a Swede, was pushed by France, which was looking for a candidate Iraq might be able to work with. The United States, eager to avoid another prolonged crisis over Iraq, quickly agreed; Washington's preferred candidate, Rolf Ekeus, had been blocked in the council by France and Russia.

_ By BARBARA CROSSETTE

Aid, Please. But No Strings.

President Andres Pastrana of Colombia went to Washington to campaign for a proposed $1.3 billion in aid, and he opened with a plea for bipartisanship. He got that right away.

Republicans, who had pressed for more support for Colombia, began complaining about the plan outlined by the Clinton administration. Liberal Democrats liked the plan even less, and said they would try to link any new aid to the human rights performance of the Colombian army.

Pastrana said he wanted no such conditions. Progress on human rights would come, he insisted, but not because of pressure from abroad.

_ By TIM GOLDEN

A New Look at Illnesses In Nuclear Bomb Plants

For years some researchers have claimed that the 600,000 people who have helped build nuclear bombs are prone to all kinds of illnesses as a result. But from the time of the Manhattan Project, the government said it wasn't so. Now the White House and the Energy Department are preparing a review of years of data and studies that accepts the idea that there are extra cases of cancer among that population.

The review, due to be completed in about two months, will not settle the debate over how many more cancer cases the exposures caused, and will not say how much radiation is safe. But it is a marked turnaround in federal policy.

_ By MATTHEW L. WALD

An Unrefreshing Pause

Reeling from a year of falling profits and other problems at home and abroad, the Coca-Cola Co. said it would cut 6,000 employees, or one-fifth of its worldwide workforce, in the largest layoff ever for the soft-drink giant.

The company said it would take an $800 million charge against earnings to cover severance and other costs related to the cuts, and added that it expected its bottlers in several key markets to buy less concentrate this year, further eroding profits.

_ By CONSTANCE L. HAYS

NASHUA, N.H. _ After securing first place in the Iowa caucuses last Monday night, an ebullient Texas Gov. George W. Bush proclaimed ``the beginning of the end of the Clinton era.'' But three evenings later there was a resurgent Bill Clinton before the nation, using his last, and longest, State of the Union address to frame the 2000 campaign with an expansive, activist agenda designed to appeal to the great American middle.

The Clinton era will end, as all political moments must, but as this past week demonstrated, that time has not yet come. In truth, Clinton's influence pervades this presidential race. He has forced the main candidates into a delicate balancing act: running against the president's scandalous persona while hewing closely to the political center he defined through seven turbulent years in office.

Just listen to what the candidates here are saying.

Bush reaches out to those ``weary of polls and posturing,'' but his very self-definition as a ``compassionate conservative'' signals that he will fight to keep a safe distance from the fire-breathing House conservatives, once led by Newt Gingrich, whom Clinton has soundly defeated.

Bush's chief rival, Sen. John McCain, fervently promises audiences that ``I will never lie to you,'' but puts forward a plan for tax cuts and Social Security that Clinton himself might have written. Asked at the GOP debate last week whether his plan looks like Clinton's, he could only huff, ``Well, I think President Clinton's looks too much like mine.''

In the Democratic race, former Sen. Bill Bradley talks of being as ``straight as I can possibly be'' and then calls for ambitious domestic programs only to see Clinton steal his thunder Thursday night by calling for major new initiatives on everything from health care to education to poverty.

Vice President Al Gore, meanwhile, began his campaign with pointed comments about the need for character in high office, explicitly seeking to distance himself from Clinton. But he has abruptly reversed field and begun boasting about the Clinton-Gore economic record. Last Thursday, he was once more in his familiar place nodding as Clinton called on Congress to ``build the more perfect union of our founders' dreams,''and trying not to smile as his boss repeatedly heaped praise upon him.

The political gyrations of the candidates only mirror the ambivalence of the nation. New Hampshire voters, still numbed by last year's impeachment crisis, sometimes come very close to begging the new crop of presidential candidates not to behave like Clinton.

``Don't ever embarrass us,'' Bob Elliott, a 67-year-old retired teacher, told McCain at a town hall meeting in Salem last week. ``When you go to Washington, you've got to assume the vows of the priesthood of being a president. Now we don't expect you to be celibate, but we do expect you to be faithful.''

Yet at the same time, the nation embraces Clinton's view of government. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll taken earlier this month found that 50 percent of voters wanted to continue Clinton's policies. Only 10 percent wanted a more liberal approach to government. And 33 percent wanted more conservative policies. This is a remarkable rating for a president entering his eighth year, eclipsing even Ronald Reagan in his final year.

This is a far cry from the ``Clinton fatigue'' political commentators were talking about just a few weeks ago. Al From, head of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council and one of the Democratic strategists who helped Clinton frame his centrist appeal, said the election is not about searching for the anti-Clinton at all. Rather, it is about ``who can give us Clinton's third term?''

For no matter how much he disgraced himself, Clinton does seem to have made good on his second-term pledge to find the ``vital American center.''

Republicans protest that it was they who forced Clinton to the center when they won control of Congress in 1994 and pushed him to agree to a balanced budget and to overhaul welfare. ``Fundamentally, it's been him hijacking our signature issues,'' said Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist affiliated with the McCain campaign.

But Clinton's accommodations were strategic, blunting the issues Republicans had long used against the Democrats and shifting the political debate to health care, education, Social Security and Medicare _ terrain long favorable to Democrats.

The president did it again last Thursday night, mapping the trail for his fellow Democrats as he set forth an agenda that included gun safety, an increase in the minimum wage and a ``21st century revolution'' in education.

And in his call for a $350 billion tax cut he once again played the political cat-burglar, filching the Republicans' idea of eliminating the so-called marriage penalty, which causes some married couples to pay more taxes than if they were single.

Political strategists differ sharply over which side of Clinton will dominate the coming election: his personality or his programs. Steve Duprey, the New Hampshire Republican chairman, insists that the nation wants Clinton off the stage. ``People up here are very tired of the Clinton administration,'' he said. ``I think that's one of Gore's biggest difficulties.''

nn

NASHUA, N.H. _ After securing first place in the Iowa caucuses last Monday night, an ebullient Texas Gov. George W. Bush proclaimed ``the beginning of the end of the Clinton era.'' But three evenings later there was a resurgent Bill Clinton before the nation, using his last, and longest, State of the Union address to frame the 2000 campaign with an expansive, activist agenda designed to appeal to the great American middle.

The Clinton era will end, as all political moments must, but as this past week demonstrated, that time has not yet come. In truth, Clinton's influence pervades this presidential race. He has forced the main candidates into a delicate balancing act: running against the president's scandalous persona while hewing closely to the political center he defined through seven turbulent years in office.

Just listen to what the candidates here are saying.

Bush reaches out to those ``weary of polls and posturing,'' but his very self-definition as a ``compassionate conservative'' signals that he will fight to keep a safe distance from the fire-breathing House conservatives, once led by Newt Gingrich, whom Clinton has soundly defeated.

Bush's chief rival, Sen. John McCain, fervently promises audiences that ``I will never lie to you,'' but puts forward a plan for tax cuts and Social Security that Clinton himself might have written. Asked at the GOP debate last week whether his plan looks like Clinton's, he could only huff, ``Well, I think President Clinton's looks too much like mine.''

In the Democratic race, former Sen. Bill Bradley talks of being as ``straight as I can possibly be'' and then calls for ambitious domestic programs only to see Clinton steal his thunder Thursday night by calling for major new initiatives on everything from health care to education to poverty.

Vice President Al Gore, meanwhile, began his campaign with pointed comments about the need for character in high office, explicitly seeking to distance himself from Clinton. But he has abruptly reversed field and begun boasting about the Clinton-Gore economic record. Last Thursday, he was once more in his familiar place nodding as Clinton called on Congress to ``build the more perfect union of our founders' dreams,''and trying not to smile as his boss repeatedly heaped praise upon him.

The political gyrations of the candidates only mirror the ambivalence of the nation. New Hampshire voters, still numbed by last year's impeachment crisis, sometimes come very close to begging the new crop of presidential candidates not to behave like Clinton.

``Don't ever embarrass us,'' Bob Elliott, a 67-year-old retired teacher, told McCain at a town hall meeting in Salem last week. ``When you go to Washington, you've got to assume the vows of the priesthood of being a president. Now we don't expect you to be celibate, but we do expect you to be faithful.''

Yet at the same time, the nation embraces Clinton's view of government. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll taken earlier this month found that 50 percent of voters wanted to continue Clinton's policies. Only 10 percent wanted a more liberal approach to government. And 33 percent wanted more conservative policies. This is a remarkable rating for a president entering his eighth year, eclipsing even Ronald Reagan in his final year.

This is a far cry from the ``Clinton fatigue'' political commentators were talking about just a few weeks ago. Al From, head of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council and one of the Democratic strategists who helped Clinton frame his centrist appeal, said the election is not about searching for the anti-Clinton at all. Rather, it is about ``who can give us Clinton's third term?''

For no matter how much he disgraced himself, Clinton does seem to have made good on his second-term pledge to find the ``vital American center.''

Republicans protest that it was they who forced Clinton to the center when they won control of Congress in 1994 and pushed him to agree to a balanced budget and to overhaul welfare. ``Fundamentally, it's been him hijacking our signature issues,'' said Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist affiliated with the McCain campaign.

But Clinton's accommodations were strategic, blunting the issues Republicans had long used against the Democrats and shifting the political debate to health care, education, Social Security and Medicare _ terrain long favorable to Democrats.

The president did it again last Thursday night, mapping the trail for his fellow Democrats as he set forth an agenda that included gun safety, an increase in the minimum wage and a ``21st century revolution'' in education.

And in his call for a $350 billion tax cut he once again played the political cat-burglar, filching the Republicans' idea of eliminating the so-called marriage penalty, which causes some married couples to pay more taxes than if they were single.

Political strategists differ sharply over which side of Clinton will dominate the coming election: his personality or his programs. Steve Duprey, the New Hampshire Republican chairman, insists that the nation wants Clinton off the stage. ``People up here are very tired of the Clinton administration,'' he said. ``I think that's one of Gore's biggest difficulties.''

nn

But Geoffrey Garin, a Democratic pollster, says that the public is comfortable with Clinton's policies and that Bush will prove vulnerable because of his call for a sweeping $483 billion tax cut over five years, which Democrats _ and even McCain _ charge favors the wealthy.

``Budgets increasingly have become the way of defining political philosophy,'' Garin said. ``And where Clinton has beat the Republicans fairly consistently is on the question of priorities. And a Bush budget reflects a very different philosophy than what Clinton and the Democrats represent.''

The president, for example, has used issues like paying down the national debt, balancing the budget and saving Social Security to steal the mantle of fiscal conservatism from the Republicans.

On Thursday night the Republicans often sat poker-faced as Democrats rose and cheered, while the president set out his program for the year 2000. Even before the speech, GOP leaders had denounced Clinton as a profligate spender.

``If we enacted all the new programs the president has talked about, we'd spend just about the entire surplus on bigger and more expensive government,'' said House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

But congressional Republicans have already fled their own $792 billion tax cut package, which Clinton successfully defeated by casting as a threat to Social Security and debt reduction. And both Republican presidential and congressional candidates are being called on to put forth their own plans for health care reform, patient rights and education because the president has made the case for them so effectively with voters.

Somebody recently remarked that while Clinton may be a lame duck, he's still flapping his wings. So don't be surprised if, come November, the GOP finds itself scrambling once again in reaction to a master politician's valedictory agenda.

But Geoffrey Garin, a Democratic pollster, says that the public is comfortable with Clinton's policies and that Bush will prove vulnerable because of his call for a sweeping $483 billion tax cut over five years, which Democrats _ and even McCain _ charge favors the wealthy.

``Budgets increasingly have become the way of defining political philosophy,'' Garin said. ``And where Clinton has beat the Republicans fairly consistently is on the question of priorities. And a Bush budget reflects a very different philosophy than what Clinton and the Democrats represent.''

The president, for example, has used issues like paying down the national debt, balancing the budget and saving Social Security to steal the mantle of fiscal conservatism from the Republicans.

On Thursday night the Republicans often sat poker-faced as Democrats rose and cheered, while the president set out his program for the year 2000. Even before the speech, GOP leaders had denounced Clinton as a profligate spender.

``If we enacted all the new programs the president has talked about, we'd spend just about the entire surplus on bigger and more expensive government,'' said House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

But congressional Republicans have already fled their own $792 billion tax cut package, which Clinton successfully defeated by casting as a threat to Social Security and debt reduction. And both Republican presidential and congressional candidates are being called on to put forth their own plans for health care reform, patient rights and education because the president has made the case for them so effectively with voters.

Somebody recently remarked that while Clinton may be a lame duck, he's still flapping his wings. So don't be surprised if, come November, the GOP finds itself scrambling once again in reaction to a master politician's valedictory agenda.

Editors: The following items from The N.Y. Times Week in Review for Sunday, Jan. 30, moved Saturday.

On the dress page:

CLINTON-CAMPAIGN-REVIEW (Nashua, N.H.) _ Bill Clinton is casting a large shadow over this presidential race, and may cast one over the next presidency. So as the New Hampshire primary nears, the main candidates are trying a delicate balancing act: running against Clinton's scandalous persona while not straying too far from the political center he has defined in seven turbulent years in office. By Alison Mitchell. (Moved in the `a' category)

IRAN-ISLAM-REVIEW (UNdated) _ Iranians are anguished after a generation under ``the government of God'' and yearn for change. Having wrested power from the shah in 1979 and created an intolerant, often vengeful theocratic state that has ruined Iran's economy, sponsored terrorist groups and left the country profoundly isolated, most Shiite clerics are now widely unpopular. By John F. Burns. (Moved in the `i' category)

_ Also moved in the `a' category:

SUBURBAN-SPRAWL-REVIEW (Undated) _ There has been subtle but fundamental shift in the way major public works projects are conceived, promoted and packaged: Sprawl has become a dirty word. When the dividends trumpeted in the 1950s turned out to have their own costs, officials and planners had to change their vocabularies. Rather than proclaim the merits of suburban development and car travel, they are framing new road projects in cautious, modest terms, often coupled with ideas for mass transit and relief of traffic congestion. Al Gore has made such initiatives a centerpiece of his campaign. By David Chen. WITH GRAPHIC.

INTERNET-VOTING-REVIEW (Undated) _ Unlike established companies that make traditional voting machines and maintain low public profiles, startup companies that produce Internet voting software are issuing press releases, placing their members on state advisory boards, lobbying legislatures and persuading party officials that trials in Internet voting would bring national attention to their pet issues. But not everyone sees e-voting as a portal to a more democratic future. By Rebecca Fairley Raney.

MISSILE-DEFENSE-REVIEW (Washington) _ Politics, both domestic and international, is driving the Clinton administration's divergent public-private views on missile defenses. At stake are not only U.S. defenses against new 21st-century menaces, and whether the technology is ready to field, but also relations with Russia, China and staunch European allies, all of whom are alarmed by Washington's push to build a system. By Eric Schmitt.

SNACKS-PERSONALITIES-TEXT-REVIEW (Undated) _ The Snack Food Association and the National Potato Promotion Board have commissioned a study linking people's snack preferences with their personality types. Surprise: People who inhale potato chips aren't necessarily porcine gluttons but ``ambitious, successful, high achievers.'' And cheese doodle lovers aren't slobs with orange fingers but ``formal, always proper, conscientious, principled.''

GOP-TAXCUTS-REVIEW (Undated) _ The Republicans try to decide whether to bank on tax cuts once again as the best policy and the best electoral strategy for winning the White House. For the first time since 1980, the conservative orthodoxy on tax cuts in being challenged from within the GOP. The challenger is John McCain, who has attacked George W. Bush's plan in language redolent both of old-style fiscal conservatism and Democratic class warfare. By Richard W. Stevenson.

TRADITIONS-SCIENCE-REVIEW (Undated) _ Much indigenous or traditional knowledge has been found to have a sound scientific basis. In agriculture, nutrition, medicine and other fields, modern research is showing why traditional peoples do the things they do. By Henry Fountain.

THISWEEK-REVIEW (Undated) _ Some highlights of the week.

_ Also moved in the `i' category:

GERMANY-ITALY-REVIEW (Berlin) _ The Christian Democrats in Germany and Italy are crumbling in tandem. And it is not just the Sicilian echoes of Helmut Kohl's behavior that has summoned Italy into the midst of Germany's political crisis. The difficulties of German Christian Democracy inevitably invite parallels with those of Italy's Democrazia Cristiana, a party whose utter dominance of post-war Italian politics was matched only by the unutterable speed of its disintegration in the early 1990s. The similarities are intriguing. By Roger Cohen.

MYANMAR-TWINS-REVIEW (Undated) _ ``Up Next, The Burma Shavers.'' What if Johnny and Luther Htoo, the 12-year-old twins who lead a fundamentalist Christian rebel group in Myanmar, were to appear on American television? By Bruce Kluger.

&UR; QUESTIONS OR RERUNS: (888) 346-9867 &LR;

Weekends, Lynn Hoogenboom

Phone: (888) 346-9867

&UR; PHOTOS AND GRAPHICS: &LR;

Sergio Florez

Phone: (888) 603-1036

e-mail address: florez(at)nytimes.com.

&UR; TECHNICAL PROBLEMS: &LR;

Peter Trigg

Phone: (212) 499-3332.

Pager: (800) 946-4645 (PIN 599-4539).

E-mail: triggp(at)nytimes.com. &QL;

THE NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

Editors: The following items from The N.Y. Times Week in Review for Sunday, Jan. 30, moved Saturday.

On the dress page:

CLINTON-CAMPAIGN-REVIEW (Nashua, N.H.) _ Bill Clinton is casting a large shadow over this presidential race, and may cast one over the next presidency. So as the New Hampshire primary nears, the main candidates are trying a delicate balancing act: running against Clinton's scandalous persona while not straying too far from the political center he has defined in seven turbulent years in office. By Alison Mitchell. (Moved in the `a' category)

IRAN-ISLAM-REVIEW (UNdated) _ Iranians are anguished after a generation under ``the government of God'' and yearn for change. Having wrested power from the shah in 1979 and created an intolerant, often vengeful theocratic state that has ruined Iran's economy, sponsored terrorist groups and left the country profoundly isolated, most Shiite clerics are now widely unpopular. By John F. Burns. (Moved in the `i' category)

_ Also moved in the `a' category:

SUBURBAN-SPRAWL-REVIEW (Undated) _ There has been subtle but fundamental shift in the way major public works projects are conceived, promoted and packaged: Sprawl has become a dirty word. When the dividends trumpeted in the 1950s turned out to have their own costs, officials and planners had to change their vocabularies. Rather than proclaim the merits of suburban development and car travel, they are framing new road projects in cautious, modest terms, often coupled with ideas for mass transit and relief of traffic congestion. Al Gore has made such initiatives a centerpiece of his campaign. By David Chen. WITH GRAPHIC.

INTERNET-VOTING-REVIEW (Undated) _ Unlike established companies that make traditional voting machines and maintain low public profiles, startup companies that produce Internet voting software are issuing press releases, placing their members on state advisory boards, lobbying legislatures and persuading party officials that trials in Internet voting would bring national attention to their pet issues. But not everyone sees e-voting as a portal to a more democratic future. By Rebecca Fairley Raney.

MISSILE-DEFENSE-REVIEW (Washington) _ Politics, both domestic and international, is driving the Clinton administration's divergent public-private views on missile defenses. At stake are not only U.S. defenses against new 21st-century menaces, and whether the technology is ready to field, but also relations with Russia, China and staunch European allies, all of whom are alarmed by Washington's push to build a system. By Eric Schmitt.

SNACKS-PERSONALITIES-TEXT-REVIEW (Undated) _ The Snack Food Association and the National Potato Promotion Board have commissioned a study linking people's snack preferences with their personality types. Surprise: People who inhale potato chips aren't necessarily porcine gluttons but ``ambitious, successful, high achievers.'' And cheese doodle lovers aren't slobs with orange fingers but ``formal, always proper, conscientious, principled.''

GOP-TAXCUTS-REVIEW (Undated) _ The Republicans try to decide whether to bank on tax cuts once again as the best policy and the best electoral strategy for winning the White House. For the first time since 1980, the conservative orthodoxy on tax cuts in being challenged from within the GOP. The challenger is John McCain, who has attacked George W. Bush's plan in language redolent both of old-style fiscal conservatism and Democratic class warfare. By Richard W. Stevenson.

TRADITIONS-SCIENCE-REVIEW (Undated) _ Much indigenous or traditional knowledge has been found to have a sound scientific basis. In agriculture, nutrition, medicine and other fields, modern research is showing why traditional peoples do the things they do. By Henry Fountain.

THISWEEK-REVIEW (Undated) _ Some highlights of the week.

_ Also moved in the `i' category:

GERMANY-ITALY-REVIEW (Berlin) _ The Christian Democrats in Germany and Italy are crumbling in tandem. And it is not just the Sicilian echoes of Helmut Kohl's behavior that has summoned Italy into the midst of Germany's political crisis. The difficulties of German Christian Democracy inevitably invite parallels with those of Italy's Democrazia Cristiana, a party whose utter dominance of post-war Italian politics was matched only by the unutterable speed of its disintegration in the early 1990s. The similarities are intriguing. By Roger Cohen.

MYANMAR-TWINS-REVIEW (Undated) _ ``Up Next, The Burma Shavers.'' What if Johnny and Luther Htoo, the 12-year-old twins who lead a fundamentalist Christian rebel group in Myanmar, were to appear on American television? By Bruce Kluger.

&UR; QUESTIONS OR RERUNS: (888) 346-9867 &LR;

Weekends, Lynn Hoogenboom

Phone: (888) 346-9867

&UR; PHOTOS AND GRAPHICS: &LR;

Sergio Florez

Phone: (888) 603-1036

e-mail address: florez(at)nytimes.com.

&UR; TECHNICAL PROBLEMS: &LR;

Peter Trigg

Phone: (212) 499-3332.

Pager: (800) 946-4645 (PIN 599-4539).

E-mail: triggp(at)nytimes.com. &QL;

THE NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

&UR; FOR SUNDAY AMs &LR;

Here are today's top news stories from The New York Times News Service for AMs of SUNDAY, Jan. 30:

&UR; INTERNATIONAL &LR; (Moving in ``i'' news file.)

CLINTON-GLOBALIZATION (Davos, Switzerland) _ Against a sudden wave of angst among corporate and political leaders about the growing gap between rich and poor, President Clinton made an impassioned appeal Saturday to make globalization work for the poor, too. By Jane Perlez and Joseph Kahn.

RUSSIA-DRAFTDODGERS (Moscow) _ Getting out of the Russian draft is, in many ways, similar to unraveling other Russian bureaucratic tangles: It takes intimate knowledge of arcane rules and regulations, and a readiness to juggle family, residence and more to avoid a direct conflict with the authorities. If all else fails, you can try to buy your way out of a situation _ provided that you have the means. By Celestine Bohlen.

MALI-SCHOOLS (Timbuktu, Mali) _ The Tindjambane community primary school consists of just two tents of thatch walls and roofs above carpets for the schoolchildren to sit on and blackboards for the teachers to write on. All told, it amounted to a $60 investment for the desert nomads who have settled in the area. But as the first school the people have ever had, it can only be regarded as a triumph. This school is playing a modest part in an ambitious campaign by this poor, landlocked nation in West Africa to put more children into the classroom. By Norimitsu Onishi.

ECUADOR-REACT (Quito, Ecuador) _ In presidential palaces and defense ministries all across Latin America last week, the same question was being nervously asked in the wake of the military coup here that toppled President Jamil Mahuad: Can it happen again somewhere else? By Larry Rohter.

BRITAIN-BLAIR (London) _ Since coming to power in May 1997, Tony Blair has enjoyed the highest public approval ratings of any prime minister in Britain's history. But over the past weeks he has suffered setbacks that have given rise to press articles describing an enveloping crisis and suggesting that he is starting to lose his sure and steady grip on the affections of the British electorate. By Warren Hoge.

TURKEY-ISRAEL (Istanbul, Turkey) _ When a 12-year-old earthquake victim named Elif Gunduz boards a plane for Israel on Sunday, she will become the latest symbol of how completely last August's severe and deadly quake has changed Turkey and reshaped its role in the world. More than humanitarian concern motivates this generosity. Israel has seized on the earthquake and its victims _ more than 17,000 people were killed, many thousands injured and hundreds of thousands made homeless _ as a way to improve its image in Turkey. By Stephen Kinzer.

BIOTECHNOLOGY-TRADE (Montreal) _ Delegates from more than 130 nations adopted the first global treaty regulating trade in genetically modified products, setting up an international framework for the increasingly contentious debate about foods made with biotechnology. By Andrew Pollack.

JAPAN-TALENT-AGENT (Tokyo) _ In the cutthroat world of Japanese show business, which is dominated by teen idols, few people exercise the power and creative genius of Johnny Kitagawa. By Calvin Sims.

&UR; NATIONAL &LR; (Moving in ``a'' news file.)

TV-REALITY-SHOWS (Undated) _ Just months after a game show imported from England transformed the competitive landscape of network television, a new wave of television formats developed in Europe, all based on real-life experience voyeuristically captured on camera, is poised to invade prime-time network schedules, bringing the potential to shake up the Hollywood entertainment industry. By Bill Carter.

FUEL-COSTS (Undated) _ The recent run-up in energy prices is rippling across the American economy and affecting practically every family and business, as it becomes more expensive to heat a home, refuel an automobile or buy an airline ticket. By Keith Bradsher.

STORM-SOUTH (Atlanta) _ A fresh layer of ice caused hundreds of traffic accidents around northern Georgia Saturday as the region was slammed by a storm that had swept across the South with more than a foot of snow. (Summary from wires.)

VEGAS-SHRINE (Las Vegas) _ Its face turned toward the glittery, new casino-hotels on the southern end of Las Vegas Boulevard, a life-sized statue of Jesus spreads its arms wide, as if to embrace the throngs of tourists milling about. And, as if responding to the invitation, many do make their way from the boulevard, the famous Strip, to the Roman Catholic Shrine of the Most Holy Redeemer, where people have been known to toss casino chips into the offering plates. By Gustav Niebuhr.

RACKETEERING-JUDGE (Douglas, Ariz.) _ The arrest of the local judge in this southwest border town on drug racketeering and money laundering charges last fall seemed to be one more disturbing sign that the multibillion-dollar narcotics trade was corrupting law enforcement, not only in Mexico, but north of the border, too. But prosecutors preparing for the trial of the judge, Ronald J. Borane, have said that details emerging from scrutiny of his lengthy career suggest that he learned to disregard the law long before Douglas became a crossroads in the international drug trade. By Sam Dillon.

COWBOY-POETRY (Elko, Nev.) _ Last week, Charlie Recora, a building contractor from Garberville, Calif., packed his old-style Stetson hat, black leather vest, wine red shirt and best cowboy boots and headed to Elko for the 16th annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering. Recora's enthusiasms are widely shared. Nearly 8,000 people from every state except Hawaii plus a smattering of foreign countries made their way to Elko for eight days of poetry sessions, workshops, music and dancing. By Sandra Blakeslee.

AIR&SPACE-RENOVATE (Washington) _ As an airy space for displaying spaceships and pioneering aircraft, the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum pulls relentlessly at anyone within eyesight. But the museum's extensive skylights are leaky, letting in water that stains the walls, irritates visitors and even endangers some of the museum's artifacts, officials say. So the museum is going through a three-and-a-half-year renovation costing $22 million, more than half what it cost to build the museum in the mid-1970s, much of it for a new skylight system.

PRISONS-LOCAL-CONTROL (New York) _ In a series of landmark decisions more than 20 years ago, judges across the country intervened to force cities and states from New York to Texas to maintain humane conditions in their prisons. They required prisons to reduce crowding, discipline violent guards and provide basic health care. But now, using a little-noticed federal law signed by President Clinton in 1996, many of those cities and states are moving to free themselves from court supervision. Ten localities have won initial rulings to regain control of their prisons, and at least 10 more are pressing judges to do the same. By John Sullivan.

&UR; POLITICS &LR; (Moving in ``p'' news file.)

BUSH-FUNDRAISING (Washington) _ George W. Bush began his campaign last March with an unassuming one-page letter. Almost as an aside, the recipients were asked to contribute a few dollars. Within four weeks, Bush had collected an astonishing $7.6 million. By Don Van Natta Jr.

BRADLEY-HEART (Concord, N.H.) _ In their first comprehensive interviews on the topic, Bill Bradley and his three cardiologists said the former senator was in excellent physical condition and his bouts of irregular heartbeat were not a serious hazard to his health, or to his ability to serve as president, despite their recent increased frequency. By Lawrence K. Altman.

POLITICAL-BRIEFS (Undated) _ Gore's ad challenge an old refrain; a crowded ballot; California GOP split on gay marriage; California Hispanics favor Gore, poll says. By B. Drummond Ayres Jr.

&UR; COLUMNS &LR; (Moving in ``k'' news file.)

DOWD-COLUMN (Newport, N.H.) _ Why am I here? By Maureen Dowd.

KRUGMAN-COLUMN (Davos, Switzerland) _ One for the money. By Paul Krugman.

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AM-FRONTPAGE-NYT _ A description of the front page layout of the first edition of The New York Times will move at 7:30 p.m.

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Here are the stories New York Times editors are planning for Page 1, Sunday, Jan. 30. The N.Y. Times News Service Supervisor on Saturday is Lynn Hoogenboom; phone: (888) 346-9867; e-mail: lyhoog(at)nytimes.com.

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Lead story:

PRISONS-LOCAL-CONTROL (New York) _ In a series of landmark decisions more than 20 years ago, judges across the country intervened to force cities and states from New York to Texas to maintain humane conditions in their prisons. They required prisons to reduce crowding, discipline violent guards and provide basic health care. But now, using a little-noticed federal law signed by President Clinton in 1996, many of those cities and states are moving to free themselves from court supervision. Ten localities have won initial rulings to regain control of their prisons, and at least 10 more are pressing judges to do the same. By John Sullivan.

With photo.

(Scheduled to move by 1 p.m. ET in ``a'' news file.)

Off-lead story:

FUEL-COSTS (Undated) _ The recent run-up in energy prices is rippling across the American economy and affecting practically every family and business, as it becomes more expensive to heat a home, refuel an automobile or buy an airline ticket. By Keith Bradsher.

(Scheduled to move by 1 p.m. ET in ``a'' news file.)

FOLD

BUSH-FUNDRAISING (Washington) _ George W. Bush began his campaign last March with an unassuming one-page letter. Almost as an aside, the recipients were asked to contribute a few dollars. Within four weeks, Bush had collected an astonishing $7.6 million. Half of the first flurry of checks came from Texans, but more important were the thousands of checks signed by longtime supporters of his father. By Don Van Natta Jr.

(Scheduled to move by 2 p.m. ET in ``p'' news file.)

TV-REALITY-SHOWS (Undated) _ Just months after a game show imported from England transformed the competitive landscape of network television, a new wave of television formats developed in Europe, all based on real-life experience voyeuristically captured on camera, is poised to invade prime-time network schedules, bringing the potential to shake up the Hollywood entertainment industry. By Bill Carter.

(Scheduled to move by 1 p.m. ET in ``a'' news file.)

BIOTECHNOLOGY-TRADE (Montreal) _ Delegates from more than 130 nations adopted the first global treaty regulating trade in genetically modified products, setting up an international framework for the increasingly contentious debate about foods made with biotechnology. By Andrew Pollack.

(Scheduled to move by 2 p.m. ET in ``i'' news file.)

BOTTOM

RUSSIA-DRAFTDODGERS (Moscow) _ Getting out of the Russian draft is, in many ways, similar to unraveling other Russian bureaucratic tangles: It takes intimate knowledge of arcane rules and regulations, and a readiness to juggle family, residence and more to avoid a direct conflict with the authorities. If all else fails, you can try to buy your way out of a situation _ provided that you have the means. By Celestine Bohlen.

With photo.

(Scheduled to move by 1 p.m. ET in ``i'' news file.)

Just months after a game show imported from Britain transformed the competitive landscape of network television, a new wave of television formats developed in Europe, all based on real-life experience voyeuristically captured on camera, is poised to invade prime-time network schedules in the United States, bringing the potential to shake up the Hollywood entertainment industry.

The shows range from on-camera examinations of people trying to survive on a desert island off Borneo to people trying to get along while locked together in various settings of forced intimacy _ in a house, on a bus or a tourist vacation, in a home set up to match conditions in at the end of the 19th century.

The shows, many of which will have ambitious Internet components, have been described as various combinations of MTV's cinema verite show ``The Real World,'' the syndicated talk show ``Jerry Springer'' and the influential game show from Britain, ``Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.'' One show makes its Orwellian aura overt: It is called ``Big Brother.''

Virtually all the shows have been significant hits in various European countries. ``Big Brother'' is a phenomenon in the Netherlands, even spawning a second series, a talk show where the events on the show are exhaustively discussed.

It is the chance for the networks _ which have losing viewers to cable television for at least a decade _ to create the kind of phenomenon in the United States that ABC did with ``Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,'' which is driving network executives to pursue the other inventive European television formats that break the mold of comedies, dramas and news programs.

(BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)

In fact, the bidding for the American version of ``Big Brother'' reached a fever pitch last week, with prices escalating to a point where one senior network executive labeled the process ``totally nuts.'' A deal for ``Big Brother'' is expected this week, with CBS the front-runner. In a first, plans call for the show to run for 100 consecutive nights in prime time.

That would give CBS the first two examples of this genre, because the network is already deep into its planning for a 13-episode summer series called ``Survivor'' _ a giant hit in Sweden _ in which 16 people will be stranded on an island off Borneo, charged with finding ways to survive. One cast member will be eliminated each week by vote of the other contestants until one is the final survivor, winning $1 million. ``Survivor'' has lined up eight sponsors, and they will be given product-placement opportunities. For example, Reebok is a sponsor; the contestants are likely to be wearing Reebok shoes.

(END OPTIONAL TRIM)

Leslie Moonves, president of CBS Television, said the move toward these wilder formats reflected the network's conclusion that tried-and-true television, like situation comedies on brightly lit Hollywood sound stages, now leaves many American viewers cold.

``What's happening is people are realizing you need to be different,'' Moonves said. ``You can't go with the same old meat and potatoes anymore. You've got to shake things up. And clearly people are realizing it's a big world out there and shows really can come from the other side of the Atlantic.''

The reality shows have an economic advantage over scripted series: they do not employ vast numbers of writers and they have no expensive stars at all. That points to a downside for Hollywood. Moonves said that every game show in prime time costs the industry 100 jobs. Producers have already complained that the proliferation of news magazines and game shows are radically shrinking prime-time opportunities.

``There's no question that if the reality shows take off, there will be a contraction in the business,'' he said. ``There could be a real shift in who's working and not working.''

More than anything, the move toward the European shows reflects the impact of ``Millionaire,'' which has transformed the network prime-time ratings race, pulling ABC from a likely third place this season to a near-certain first-place finish.

``Millionaire'' has already fathered a brood of game shows. Last year there were no game shows on network prime time. Now there are eight hours of games each week. Because ``Millionaire'' emerged from Britain as a fully developed hit, network executives have started looking at other European shows.

One agent who has been in the middle of many of the negotiations for these new programs, Ben Silverman, head of international packaging for the William Morris Agency, lived for more than four years in England.

``I scoured the TV listings all over Europe looking for shows that sounded interesting,'' Silverman said. ``The European producers don't come from the American system. They don't have this track record that leads them to reject certain ideas. They also don't have the infrastructure to support shows full of writers and stars. So they have to find innovative stuff.''

Silverman, along with a William Morris partner in Los Angeles, Greg Lipstone, represented the British company Celador in negotiations with ABC for ``Millionaire,'' which was supposed to be nothing more than a summer series. After it became a hit, Silverman started getting calls about other European properties he had already lined up.

Even PBS called, securing the rights to a show produced by a British company called Wall to Wall. This one, ``1900 House,'' involves bringing a family into a home with cameras and making them live just as they would have a century ago _ without, for example, television.

But ``Big Brother,'' owned by the Dutch company Endemol Entertainment, is currently the hottest property in this genre. Mark Itkin, the senior vice president of William Morris for reality programs, said: ``I had no idea the bidding would be so hot. But the show has so many elements, from being on 100 days in a row to an Internet component that is especially attractive to networks.''

Silverman first believed only a cable network would make the commitment to Endemol's format: 100 consecutive nights of ``Big Brother.'' But after ``Millionaire,'' three big broadcast networks jumped into the bidding, each promising to broadcast ``Big Brother'' essentially every single night this summer.

``Big Brother'' throws a group of 10 people, mostly in their 20s, into a new house constructed with cameras and recording equipment everywhere to document their every move. In the Netherlands that included everything from showers to sex, though an American version is clearly not going to go that far.

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In the Netherlands, the Internet helped drive the show because users could log onto the show's Web site, pick out certain characters and cameras, and literally watch 24 hours a day on streamed video.

Each week one cast member is voted out, with viewers participating by phone and Internet. The last cast member standing in the Netherlands won 250,000 guilders, about $111,000.

Many of the elements are similar to ``Survivor,'' so similar, that Mark Burnett, who is producing ``Survivor'' for CBS, said the show's British originators had filed suit against Endemol. The suit is still pending.

Burnett described ``Survivor'' as ``a little bit of `Truman show' and `Lord of the Flies,' with an edgy `Gilligan's Island' thrown in.''

Burnett is now whittling down the hundreds of applicants for ``Survivor,'' using, among other things, a battery of psychological tests. He hopes to avoid the unfortunate outcome of the show's first edition in Sweden, when one cast member committed suicide after being rejected by his comrades.

And that was in a format that was softer than the American version. In Sweden, cast members voted for who they wanted to remain on the island. Burnett acknowledged that the American version will be far more Darwinian. Individuals will be voted out by the group.

Though CBS may lead this trend, program executives at the other networks are likely to try to come up with their own, similar formats.

Mike Darnell, executive vice president of special programs for Fox, has been highly inventive in the reality arena, coming up with the concepts for everything from the game show ``Greed'' to ``When Good Pets Go Bad.'' He was also the man behind the now-scrapped idea to crash a Boeing 747 live in the desert.

Darnell's latest brainstorm is a special, set for Feb. 15, called ``Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire,'' in which 50 female contestants will be whittled down by beauty pageant-like contests and extensive interviewing to five finalists, all in wedding gowns, one of whom will be proposed to and married on the air, live, by a willing millionaire.

``All these shows are voyeuristic,'' Darnell said. ``After a while they become soap operas. That's why casting is so important. The people you pick will determine whether you're a hit or a bomb.''

Robert Thompson, founder of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, called the trend toward voyeurism shows an inevitable confluence of advances in technology and basic human interest.

``Popular culture is beginning to catch up with our real behavior,'' Thompson said. ``We all talk about family values, but that's not how most of us operate as human beings. In some ways, this is the programmers discovering what TV was always so great at in the first place. This is Peeping Tom to the max.''

The recent run-up in energy prices is rippling across the U.S. economy and affecting practically every family and business as it becomes more expensive to heat a home, refuel an automobile or buy an airline ticket.

Crude oil prices have nearly tripled since last winter, leveling off in the last several days at about $27 a barrel. Prices for oil products like gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and heating oil have soared, and natural gas has become much more expensive.

While oil prices are nowhere near the peaks they reached in 1980 and 1991 when inflation is taken into account, they are still beginning to have a real effect on pocketbooks.

Along the frozen East Coast, consumers are growing angry about the rising cost of heating oil. Steven O'Sullivan, 40, who owns a three-story, three-family home in Rockaway Beach, N.Y., is now paying $410 every 10 days for heating oil deliveries that used to cost him $270 and were only needed every two or three weeks during the milder weather last winter.

``I feel like I'm getting ripped off; I feel like I'm being taken advantage of,'' he said. ``Consumption has been down the past few winters, so there should be a glut of oil, not a shortage.''

Across the country, motorists are finding that it costs more to refill a gas tank. In Toledo, Ohio, Edith Davis, a 60-year-old widow and retired sales clerk living on disability checks, has begun carefully planning trips in her 1989 Oldsmobile Cutlass to save money on gasoline.

``If I'm going to the doctor, I try to make a grocery stop on the way back,'' she said. ``This is dead in the winter, when everything else is expensive, like your heating.''

Many businesses are beginning to feel the pinch, too. Airlines have added $20 fuel surcharges to the price of round-trip tickets for travel after the end of January. And trucking companies are so unhappy that they are discussing steep price increases or even parking some of their trucks for a while. The trucking trade association asked President Clinton last week to send Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to the Middle East immediately to plead for more oil.

The Clinton administration took three small steps last week to respond to the problem. It temporarily halted oil purchases for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It authorized the early release of $45 million in previously budgeted federal money to state governments to subsidize heating bills for poor families. And it proposed that Congress allocate an extra $154 million next year to help poor households insulate their homes better.

But Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has resisted pressure from Northeastern senators, led by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., to put oil from the strategic reserve onto the market to help bring prices down. Richardson contends that the reserve is intended only for severe supply disruptions.

Oil prices have been rising because the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries decided last March to cut production by nearly 8 percent, and commercial stockpiles have dwindled since then. So, oil remains available now but at higher prices.

Economists say that in contrast to oil price increases in 1973, 1979 and 1990, the recent climb in prices is unlikely to cause a recession. That is partly because the economy is booming, but also because oil makes up a much smaller share of the economy these days.

The total value of crude oil used by the United States fell to just 0.8 percent of the nation's economic output last year, from 5.5 percent in 1980. The percentage will bounce back if oil prices stay high, however.

Energy-dependent industries like petrochemical and steel production have grown more slowly over the last two decades than sectors of the economy that use less energy, like health care.

``Energy price increases don't have the same impact that they used to, so that's why we're not too worried about a recession,'' said Harvey Rosenblum, the senior vice president and research director at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, which specializes in energy issues.

The regional Fed bank estimates that long-term oil prices, as measured by futures contracts for the delivery of oil up to three years from now, have climbed 30 percent in the last year, and that this will reduce employment across the nation by 0.3 percent. That is a little more than half the effect such a rise in prices would have had in the early 1980s.

The United States now imports half its oil, up from 37 percent in 1980 but still less than many European or Asian countries. Philip Verleger, an oil expert at the Brattle Group, a Boston consulting firm, said that Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Southern European countries would be the biggest losers from the recent rise in prices, while Russia, Mexico, Venezuela and Middle Eastern oil producers would be the biggest beneficiaries. Despite some regional problems and benefits, the United States will be among the least affected over all, he added.

The sharpest increase in energy prices in the United States this winter has occurred for heating oil in the New York area and in New England. Executives in the heating oil industry say that many corporations, government agencies and apartment buildings now have ``interruptible service'' contracts with natural gas companies that give them a low price provided that they stop using natural gas and switch to heating oil during very cold weather, when demand is high. Very cold weather recently _ and the prospect of another winter storm _ has prompted a rush to buy heating oil by these natural gas users, bidding up prices.

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Heating oil inventories in the Northeast were unusually low before the cold snap. Recent winters had been mild, and many storage areas have been shutting down because of tightening environmental regulations. The result of short supplies and interruptible natural gas contracts has been that heating oil, which homeowners can usually buy for 20 or 30 cents less a gallon than gasoline, cost as much as $2 a gallon last week in New York, up sharply even from the week before. By contrast, it remains on sale for $1.30 a gallon just 400 miles west in Cleveland, where very few companies have interruptible contracts with natural gas companies.

In New York, Allison Heaney, the president of Skaggs-Walsh Inc., a heating oil company in College Point, Queens, said that the manager of a midtown Manhattan apartment building had called her last weekend asking for an immediate start of deliveries of heating oil every eight hours around the clock to fill the small oil tank of the building, which usually relies on natural gas.

``He said to me, `I'll pay any price to get the oil,' and I thought to myself, I wish some of my regular customers would say that,'' Ms. Heaney said, adding that she had been unable to meet the request because all of her oil and tanker trucks were already booked.

Oil industry consultants say that traders seeking profits are now sending at least a dozen tankers full of heating oil to the New York area from Europe, where the weather has been warmer and heating oil prices are much lower.

While the shipments should bring New York prices down in the next week or two, they will leave heating oil supplies low on both sides of the Atlantic, and refineries will have trouble producing any extra heating oil to rebuild inventories, said Roger Diwan, a heating oil expert at the Petroleum Finance Co., a Washington-based oil strategy company.

``If another cold snap happens here or in Europe, we're both vulnerable the next time'' to a longer-lasting price increase, he said.

In a series of landmark decisions more than 20 years ago, judges across the country intervened to force cities and states from New York to Texas to maintain humane conditions in their prisons. They required prisons to reduce crowding, discipline violent guards and provide basic health care.

But now, using a little-noticed federal law signed by President Clinton in 1996, many of those cities and states are moving to free themselves from court supervision. Ten localities have won initial rulings to regain control of their prisons, and at least 10 more are pressing judges to do the same.

Among them is New York City, where corrections officials have filed suit to end a 22-year-old agreement that set strict standards for nearly all aspects of prison life, from sanitation to safety.

Much of the legal activity has been spurred by the Prison Litigation Reform Act, tacked onto a spending bill, which made it much easier for local governments to end court orders involving prisons. The law was intended, in the words of one of its chief legislative proponents, to ``restrain liberal federal judges who see violations of constitutional rights in every prisoner complaint.''

Prison officials and lawyers for inmates agree that the statute has significantly shifted the balance in court cases involving prisons.

Before the law was passed, judges who took control of prisons remained in charge until states and cities could prove they had made every required improvement. In some cases, this meant a few years of court oversight; in others, including New York City, it turned into decades.

The law invites local officials to file suits demanding an end to the court orders. It requires judges to suspend court supervision within 90 days unless inmates can prove that the current conditions violate constitutional protections against ``cruel and unusual punishment.'' If the inmates succeed, the court supervision continues. But after two years, corrections officials can once again demand an end to the supervision.

Advocates for inmates say they fear that ending court supervision will eventually worsen conditions for the 1.2 million men and women behind bars in the United States.

``Without the guarantee of those orders,'' said Elizabeth Alexander, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project, ``there is no natural barrier to prevent conditions from returning to the horrendous level they were a generation ago.''

Proponents of the federal law say it is working exactly as intended. Several states, including Washington, Florida and Arkansas, have already ended court supervision of parts of their prison systems. The law's supporters say it allows more flexibility in running prisons, and eliminates outdated requirements that have made prisons more expensive and difficult to administer. In particular, they say, it reins in federal judges who have overstepped their authority.

``Judges were not in the business of protecting constitutional rights, they were in the business of running prisons,'' said Ross Sandler, a law professor at New York University.

Sandler said that Congress struck a balance so that ``courts will intrude into state and local management of prisons only when necessary and only as long as necessary.''

Federal judges have issued sharply differing rulings about whether the law is constitutional, and the Supreme Court agreed last year to review an Indiana case to settle part of the issue. In that case, a circuit court ruled that part of the law violated the constitutional principle that bars Congress from dictating judicial decisions to the courts.

Meanwhile, the battle is being joined in federal courts nationwide.

In Texas, the state has asked a federal judge to end a court order that has governed prison conditions since 1980. The judge declined, saying the federal law was unconstitutional. In addition, he ruled that Texas inmates face an unacceptable threat of violence, living in ``a fear that is incomprehensible to most of the state's free-world citizens.'' The case is under review by a circuit court of appeals.

In Michigan, state lawyers have called for the dismissal of a 1984 court-supervised agreement that ordered the dismantling of the Southern Michigan State Prison, at the time the largest walled prison in the world. State lawyers say conditions have improved and the court's continued involvement is unnecessary. But lawyers for the inmates disagreed, noting that while Michigan had broken up the prison, it had not completed work on the jails to replace it.

In Alabama, the attorney general has successfully sued to dismiss 22 jail cases since 1996, arguing that conditions had improved and that federal law required judges to end their supervision. Before the 1970s, judges were reluctant to become directly involved in running prisons, although courts did intervene in some cases, typically over religious freedom.

That changed when lawyers, often fresh from civil rights battles, began to argue that the conditions in many prisons were so horrendous they violated the Constitution's protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

One of the earliest cases came in New York City, after a riot in a notorious Manhattan jail called the Tombs. After six years of litigation, the city agreed in 1978 to settle the case. The city's jails have been under court supervision ever since.

``The jails were falling apart,'' said John Boston, director of the Legal Aid Society's Prisoners Rights Project. ``They were too hot, too cold; kitchens were operated in ways that promoted food-borne illness; facilities were infested with rodents and vermin.''

Under the agreement, the city gutted the Tombs and built a new jail on the site. It expanded the Rikers Island jails to 22,000 beds from 7,000.

Now the city says conditions have improved and there is no need to continue the court's involvement. City lawyers say corrections officials have to follow more than 1,000 pages of judicial guidelines on topics ranging from cooking to window washing.

Lorna Goodman, the city's lawyer, said New York had fixed ``all the major things.'' The jails have been repaired or replaced, they are no longer overcrowded, and violence is under control. But she said that when maintenance problems cropped up, they were blown out of proportion by vigilant Legal Aid lawyers.

``It has become a paper chase,'' Ms. Goodman said. ``The Legal Aid Society is looking for perfect jails and perfect compliance.''

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But Boston said judges had required city officials to operate under specific guidelines because they repeatedly failed to follow court orders. Each time the city fails to keep its word, he said, judges have made the guidelines more specific.

Fire safety has been a longstanding problem, and it remains unsolved, Boston said. In November 1998, the court ordered the city to correct serious fire violations at jails in Brooklyn and the Bronx, and on Rikers Island. The violations included broken fire alarms and sprinklers and inoperable fire doors.

In a court appearance in December, Boston listed a series of problems that Legal Aid representatives found during a tour of one jail. ``There is a continuing infestation of insects and rodents in kitchens and food-storage areas of some of the jails,'' he said. ``We went to the infirmary, and there was no heat.''

Other areas, he said, had average temperatures above 90 degrees. Some cells had no lights; others had no water because sinks did not work.

On May 24, 1996, a month after the federal law was signed, city lawyers appeared in court asking a judge to end the case. They cited the federal law as support for their position.

The judge agreed to do so, but Legal Aid lawyers appealed to federal circuit court, which sent the case back to the Manhattan judge for hearings. Those hearings have been scheduled for next month.

Inmates' lawyers in Oklahoma say the tangled history of the East Cell House is a case study of how judicial oversight can make a difference.

Two decades ago, prisoners sued over conditions at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. After years of litigation, a judge ordered the state to close the East Cell House in 1983.

Louis Bullock, a lawyer for the prisoners, visited the jail and said the conditions were medieval. Raw sewage ran down the walls. Live electrical wires hung exposed throughout the jail.

But that was not the end of the story. The prison population boomed in Oklahoma in the 1990s, and Bullock said hard-pressed corrections officials began housing inmates in the East Cell Housein 1995, even though the court order closing it remained in place.

Several inmates received electrical shocks and one was electrocuted. Bullock went back to court, and two years later, the department closed the East Cell House once again.

Oklahoma corrections officials said the two years of imprisoning inmates in East Cell House was a temporary measure while the state found additional prison space through private contractors.

``It was not a good answer, but it was better than the options we had at the time,'' said Jerry Massie, a corrections spokesman. Massie said the Oklahoma prison system had ``progressed an incredible distance'' since the court's supervision began in the 1970s. The state is now asking a federal judge to end all court supervision of its prisons, citing the 1996 law.

Bullock said that would be a mistake, both for inmates and for the prison system.

``Shutting off the prisons from the federal courts is something that the nation is going to greatly regret,'' he said.

Federal law has always allowed judges to end court supervision of prisons, and many states were relieved of court orders before 1996, including the Tennessee prisons, which house 17,000 inmates.

In 1995, a federal judge approved an agreement between Tennessee corrections officials and inmates to end overcrowding and violence in all its state prisons. Negotiations over the case were initiated after riots in the state prisons in the summer of 1985.

Under the court's supervision, the state improved conditions, reduced crowding and built two new prisons. ``There is no question, they were entirely different places,'' said Claire Drowota, executive director of the Legislature's corrections committee.

Tennessee asked the court to end its oversight, and in 1993, a judge agreed the state had done enough.

But since then, Ms. Drowota said, the number of inmates has continued to increase, even as the state has reduced its corrections staff.

According to a report from the Tennessee treasurer's office, the state cut 400 jobs from the Department of Corrections in 1997 and consolidated 11 prisons into five. The report said that annual violations of regulations governing mental health care, fire safety, occupational safety and hazardous materials increased significantly. There were also six escapes in 1998.

Donal Campbell, the state corrections commissioner, criticized the report as unsubstantiated. He said the staff cuts and the prison consolidations had allowed the state to save money. And he insisted that the system was still well run, and that violence had not increased after oversight ended. Campbell said he joined the department as a corrections officer in the 1970s, ``when we were having escapes and stabbings every day.''

But he said that the improvements made under pressure of the lawsuit had not eroded since the court ended its supervision. ``This system is in as good shape as it has ever been,'' he said.

Ms. Drowota disagreed. She said a number of the recent changes, increasing the number of prisoners in each cell or cutting staff, would not have been allowed by the court.

``There is no enforcement power whatsoever to see that these changes are not made,'' she said. ``The oversight committee can simply point things out, and state what they believe to be a trend back to the original conditions that caused the problems.''

ISTANBUL, Turkey _ When a 12-year-old earthquake victim named Elif Gunduz boards a plane for Israel on Sunday, she will become the latest symbol of how completely last August's severe and deadly quake has changed Turkey and reshaped its role in the world.

Elif spent 80 hours buried beneath the rubble of her home in the shattered town of Golcuk until an Israeli rescue team, part of a relief operation that included construction of a fully equipped field hospital, pulled her out. A Jewish charity has taken her under its wing, buying her a computer, paying for her schoolbooks and now sending her to Israel for medical treatment.

More than humanitarian concern motivates this generosity. Israel has seized on the earthquake and its victims _ more than 17,000 people were killed, many thousands injured and hundreds of thousands made homeless _ as a way to improve its image in Turkey.

``All that Turkish people know about Israel they get from pictures of Israeli soldiers beating Palestinians,'' said Ami Bergman, an official of the New York-based American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which is sponsoring Elif's trip to Israel. ``We want to show them another side, the side that gives life instead of taking life.''

Six months after the earthquake shattered western Turkey, the political tremors have not subsided. Rarely has a natural disaster had such far-reaching political and psychological effects on a country.

The earthquake's impact on relations between Turkey and Israel is a vivid example. Ties between the two governments had already become close, but few ordinary Turks celebrated the new friendship. Many still viewed Israel as a county dedicated to oppressing Muslims.

As a result of Israeli aid after the earthquake, and continued Israeli interest in helping victims like Elif, however, that view has begun to change. ``I had read some things about Israel in schoolbooks, but now I love the Israeli people very much,'' Elif said as she prepared for her trip. ``My friends and I talk about them all the time. Everybody thinks they're great.''

A similar shift in public attitudes has provided a broad base of popular support for closer relations between Turkey and Greece. Greek relief workers were among the first to arrive here after the quake, and a Turkish team rushed to Greece after a quake there a few weeks later.

At the time, commentators in both countries wondered whether the thaw in relations would prove temporary or lasting. But the week before last, Foreign Minister George Papandreou of Greece came to Turkey to sign a series of agreements. The Turkish foreign minister is scheduled to go to Athens next month to sign several more.

Perhaps the most important result of the new Greek-Turkish friendship has been Greece's decision to lift its veto of Turkish membership in the European Union. Although it will be years before Turkey is ready to join the union, the prospect has reshaped politics here.

``So many things in Turkey have totally changed, and you can trace a lot of it back to the earthquake,'' said a European ambassador. ``I can't really explain how it happened, and I'm not sure I understand it myself. It seemed to give Turks a sense that they need to open themselves to the world, and ``It certainly gave many Greeks and other Europeans a sense that Turkey belongs to them. If we share the same tectonic plate, I guess we share a lot.''

The quake was only the most vivid of a series of major events that shook Turkey during 1999. Early in the year, the leader of a 14-year Kurdish uprising was captured and then asked his followers to lay down their arms. In November, several dozen foreign heads of state, including President Clinton, convened in Istanbul for a summit meeting that had been planned in advance, but had the effect of bringing Turkey and the world closer together.

``We are surfing on the crest of a terrific wave,'' said Rahmi Koc, one of the country's wealthiest and most influential business leaders. ``A series of events have cleared our way to the future. We have passed a highly significant turning point.''

Diplomats and businessmen are not the only people for whom the earthquake set off new rounds of reflection. The quake also unleashed the energies of many individuals and private groups, as countless Turks began to question their traditional reliance on political leaders.

Among those profoundly affected by the quake is a 23-year-old filmmaker named Emre Sahin. He plans to return from the United States, where he has lived for several years, to make a full-length film set against the background of the quake.

The film, as described in a summary that is circulating among potential backers here, tells the story of an American youth who learns that his Turkish father, whom he has not seen since early childhood, has perished in the quake. After returning to Turkey, he not only discovers much about his father, but also realizes how much the quake has changed the nation of his birth.

``This earthquake has set off a lot of soul-searching, both in Turkey and about Turkey,'' said Haluk Sahin, the filmmaker's father, a prominent television journalist who is to produce the film. ``It blew away all the smoke of hostility between Greece and Turkey. Beyond that, it had all kinds of effects, not just political but psychological. A lot of it we're just beginning to realize.''

LONDON _ ``A bad week at the office or the start of the end?'' The Observer asked as Britain pondered whether it was finally witnessing the oft-predicted finish to Prime Minister Tony Blair's political honeymoon.

``Tony's lost his Midas touch,'' the liberal-minded Independent said as Blair reached his 1,000th day in office Wednesday. The Guardian, the paper most identified with Labor thinking, concluded: ``The magic starts to fade. Tony Blair is no longer walking on water.'' The Sun, the best-selling tabloid and the paper that Blair's information officers court most assiduously, called recent days ``The Week That It All Went Belly-Up for Blair.''

Since coming to power in May 1997, Blair has enjoyed the highest public approval ratings of any prime minister in Britain's history. Projections have regularly shown that in the next election, expected sometime in 2001, his Labor Party would keep control of Parliament by a large margin if not its huge current 179-seat majority.

But over the past weeks he has suffered setbacks that have given rise to press articles describing an enveloping crisis and suggesting that he is starting to lose his sure and steady grip on the affections of the British electorate. Blair himself has protested these judgments and referred to the frequency with which past diagnoses of his decline had turned out to be false.

``The daily headlines, the passing frenzies _ and I have lost count of the number of times this or that week was supposed to be our toughest since taking over _ all that comes and goes,'' Blair said in a speech in London. He said he would not change his reform policies, which he cast glowingly as ``the vision of the big picture.''

It is also not clear whether public opinion has linked together the largely unrelated incidents into the damning sequence that editorialists have.

``Why would the media be so full of `Labor's midterm miseries'?'' was a question that Sion Simon, associate editor of The Spectator and a columnist for The Daily Telegraph, posed and then answered. ``Such a uniquely stable, successful, popular, boring government as this one leaves journalists nothing interesting to write about, which is bad for their careers,'' he said.

Regardless of whether the missteps of the first weeks of 2000 have cut in to his popularity, they have not affected Labor's dominant position over the Conservatives, who remain a party with sharp internal divisions and weak leadership. A MORI poll in The Times of London on Thursday showed Labor still with its 20 percentage point lead _ 50 to 30 _ over the Tories among voters asked whom they would favor were an election held now.

The problem that has caused Blair the most damage is the growth of waiting lists and shortage of beds in the National Health Service, a problem aggravated by a near epidemic of influenza throughout the country this winter. Bettering service was a campaign commitment, and the government's failure to keep that pledge has left it open to criticism that it is long on promises but short on delivery.

But however much of a setback the handling of the health crisis was, it remains an issue that the Conservatives cannot exploit since the overall sentiment in the country remains that Labor is more trustworthy to run the National Health Service.

The accumulation of issues include a rise in crime statistics and continuing problems with railroad and highway transportation, both matters that Blair had identified as special concerns of his administration.

The list also includes retreats on a new House of Lords, a freedom of information bill and a plan to change Britain's voting procedures to a more representative kind _ issues that have less resonance with the public _ and the highly publicized mismanaged New Year's Eve inauguration of the $1.2 billion Millennium Dome, whose exhibits have also drawn a distinctly mixed reception from visitors.

Blair has at least temporarily lost his vaunted control over party politics in the very visible case of the contest for Labor candidate in the race for the first elected mayor of London. He is busy these days attacking the front-runner, Ken Livingstone, whose populist tendencies he abhors.

Beneath all this is the preoccupation with Britain's relationship with Europe. Polls show a significant hardening of public resistance to substituting the pound with the euro, which is soon to be the common currency on most of the Continent. Blair has put off a final decision on when to hold a promised referendum on the matter, while the Conservatives have staked their program to the negative position that is finding increasing public favor.

Sports stories from The New York Times News Service for &UR; SUNDAY &LR; , Jan. 30:

FBN-VECSEY-COLUMN (Atlanta) _ Fringe players who can't believe they're in the Super Bowl. By George Vecsey.

FBN-RHODEN-COLUMN (Atlanta) _ On the Super Bowl quarterbacks. By William C. Rhoden.

FBN-RAMS (Atlanta) _ How the Rams defense can shut down the Titans. By Thomas George.

With photos.

FBN-TITANS (Atlanta) _ How Titans offense can keep up with the Rams. By Mike Freeman.

With photos.

FBN-SUPER-CONDITIONS (Atlanta) _ On Pro Football column. The Titans wake up at 7 a.m. to face the media and practice in a tent in 20 degree weather. The Rams sleep in and practice in a heated hotel ballroom. The second-class Titans smell an upset. By Bill Pennington.

FBN-SPECIAL-TEAMS (Atlanta) _ Comparing the Rams' and Titans' special teams. By Gerald Eskenazi.

FBN-HALLOFFAME (Atlanta) _ Hall of Fame inductees. By Mike Freeman.

BKN-NEARDEATH (Undated) _ Leon Smith, a Chicago schoolboy was drafted directly from high school into the NBA. But he did not adjust to life in the NBA. He stormed out of the gym during his first practice with the Mavericks last summer, fired two agents in three months, was arrested twice, had his contract suspended and spent 31 days in a Dallas psychiatric center after a suicide attempt. Now he is trying to turn his life around. By Mike Wise.

With photo.

HKN-DEVILS-REDWINGS (Detroit) _ New Jersey at Detroit. 7:30 p.m. By Alex Yannis.

HKN-RANGERS-SENATORS (Ottawa) _ New York at Ottawa. 7 p.m. By Jason Diamos.

BBO-NOTEBOOK (Undated) _ Baseball notebook. By Murray Chass.

BOX-TYSON (Manchester, England) _ Mike Tyson's latest match. 6 p.m. By Timothy W. Smith.

BKN-SPORTS-BIZ (Undated) _ A Sports Business column on the potential of conflict of interest in the Michael Jordan-David Falk alliance. By Richard Sandomir.

For information and repeats call the News Service at (888) 346-9867 or (212) 556-1927. And be sure to look for other sports stories from our partners: The Boston Globe, Cox News Service, Hearst News Service, The Arizona Republic, Kansas City Star, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Los Angeles Daily News, San Francisco Chronicle and Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

CONCORD, N.H. _ In their first comprehensive interviews on the topic, Bill Bradley and his three cardiologists said the former senator was in excellent physical condition and his bouts of irregular heartbeat were not a serious hazard to his health, or to his ability to serve as president, despite their recent increased frequency.

Bradley and the doctors, who have treated him since 1998, confirmed that he suffers from a condition known as atrial fibrillation. It is the most common heart-rhythm disorder that doctors treat, affecting an estimated 2.2 million Americans in one form or another. Many of these people work full schedules, and some even run marathons.

Medically, Bradley ``should be able to function perfectly fine as president,'' said Dr. Robert H. Heissenbuttel, his personal physician at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City.

Bradley, 56, agreed to talk after his heart condition received widespread news coverage and questions were repeatedly raised about his health. In the interview he said that last weekend he experienced a fifth such episode over a month. He spoke with this reporter, a physician, for an hour here on Tuesday during a break in the preparation for his debate with Vice President Al Gore in Manchester, N.H., the next day.

In addition, the three cardiologists _ Heissenbuttel and Dr. J. Thomas Bigger of Columbia University and Dr. Edward T. Anderson of Stanford University _ spoke with Bradley's permission for several hours in separate repeated telephone interviews before and after the interview with Bradley.

Dr. John F. Eisold, the attending physician to the Congress and the person who first diagnosed Bradley's irregular heartbeat in 1996, did not consent to an interview. But he gave Bradley his Senate medical records, and Bradley turned them over to Heissenbuttel, who then discussed them.

In the debate in Manchester on Wednesday night, after a reporter asked Bradley why he had not yet provided access to his full medical records, the former senator said he had done the same thing Gore had done in ``laying out the latest doctor's report.''

In the interview, Bradley said that he now regretted not having disclosed his ailment earlier. ``But, you know, you are in a campaign and you let things drift,'' he said.

Bradley takes two drugs, procanbid and lanoxin (a form of digitalis), to control his atrial fibrillation. He also takes an aspirin a day to help prevent the formation of blood clots.

For many years, Bradley said, he told only ``a few'' close friends about his atrial fibrillation. Now, he said, he has no reluctance in discussing it because he believes the public has as much right to know about the health of a presidential candidate as about his finances. Bradley, who has expressed strong views on privacy, said he did not consider an interview about his condition an invasion of his privacy.

Three times after attacks of fibrillation, Bradley has needed a procedure known as cardioversion, in which the heart is jolted with electricity to snap it back into normal rhythm. His heart beats normally at about 50 times a minute. Bradley has not had a cardioversion in the last 19 months but might need one in the future.

Before undergoing a cardioversion, a patient is made unconscious for several minutes with an anesthetic and sedative to avoid feeling the burning pain from the jolts of electricity. Anesthesiologists not connected with Bradley's case said that they generally advise such patients not to drive home. Many patients are also told not to make important decisions for the rest of the day until the aftereffects of the anesthetic and sedative wear off.

In the interview, Bradley recalled: ``They give you anesthesia, you kind of drift, and then when you wake up they say you are back in rhythm. When you wake up, you are completely alert, you can function.''

Bradley went home to sleep shortly after the procedures and returned to work the next day.

Asked what he would do if he needed such a procedure as president, Bradley acknowledged that he might have to invoke the 25th Amendment, using its provisions to turn over executive power to his vice president temporarily.

``Interesting, I do not know,'' Bradley said. ``I have not thought of that.'' He added that ``the 25th Amendment sounds a reasonable way to go,'' but that this was ``a decision that I can make down the road a little bit.''

Stroke can also be an important complication of atrial fibrillation. But the risk of a stroke or other serious damage from Bradley's type of atrial fibrillation is less than 1 percent a year, about the same as for someone his age without the condition, his doctors and other experts not connected with his case said.

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Bradley said he had intended to disclose the atrial fibrillation in mid-December after his latest complete checkup, on Dec. 3. But his campaign staff unexpectedly made the disclosure on Dec. 10 when Bradley canceled a campaign appearance in California because of a burst of atrial fibrillation. Then, while driving across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge en route to a hospital and expecting to have his fourth cardioversion, Bradley said, his heartbeat suddenly ``went back in.''

``I don't have the faintest idea why'' the beat suddenly became regular in that and other episodes, Bradley said.

Last week, on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, Bradley disclosed that he had had four episodes in a period of about a month, the most he had had in that amount of time. They lasted from 2 1/2 to 12 hours, and in each case his heart reverted to normal rhythm on its own.

In the interview, Bradley said he had experienced a fifth episode that lasted about 2 1/2 hours on Jan. 22. The doctors said they did not consider the number significant because the bouts tend to come in flurries, and they added that it is likely more will occur.

Bradley's irregular heartbeat is technically known as lone paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. ``Lone'' means the irregular heartbeat is not caused by an underlying heart condition. ``Paroxysm'' refers to the bursts of irregular beats that come on unpredictably for unknown reasons and disappear just as mysteriously. Over time, the paroxysms sometimes become permanent. Bradley has never had a heart attack.

Normally, the heart's upper chambers, the atria, send electrical impulses to make the bottom chambers, the ventricles, beat regularly. Atrial fibrillation disrupts the heart's intricate electrical circuitry so that during the paroxysms the atria quiver. The ventricles then beat more rapidly (up to 200 beats a minute) and less efficiently than usual, causing lightheadedness, weakness and other symptoms.

It was during his final checkup as a senator, on Oct. 25, 1996, that Bradley learned he had atrial fibrillation. That December, he had his first cardioversion. He said he was startled because he had been exercising on a Stairmaster four to five times a week and had experienced no symptoms, not even palpitations.

Bradley said Eisold told him, ``Just forget it, this thing might never come again.''

Bradley said he experiences no symptoms aside from palpitations. In the interview, he said that he had had one fainting episode in 1998 while exercising on a Stairmaster in Denver, where he had gone to give a speech. His doctors said the fainting was due to a drug, Rythmol, that he no longer takes.

``I just got my heartbeat way too high and passed out,'' Bradley said. ``The last thing I remember is I looked at my watch and it said 2:12. The next thing I remember was waking up on the floor'' and wondering, ``Why did this happen?''

Bradley recovered by the time a medical team responded. He was taken to a hospital and kept overnight for observation. It was the first and only time he has stayed overnight in a hospital, he said. The next morning, he gave his speech.

The risk of stroke comes from the possibility of blood clots. Their formation tends to increase when atrial fibrillation is sustained longer than about 48 hours but can occur within that period. The risk that a clot will break off and travel through the blood elsewhere in the body seems to be greatest when the fibrillating rhythm suddenly changes to normal. For that reason, doctors generally perform an electrical cardioversion only within the first 48 hours or delay it until a patient takes a drug like Coumadin for several weeks to help prevent the formation of blood clots.

However, Coumadin therapy increases the risk of bleeding. Bradley has taken Coumadin for short periods around his cardioversions but does not take it now.

Bradley has rejected a drug, amiodarone, because of its potential hazards, such as damage to his liver and lungs and even more serious heart rhythm problems.

In some people, atrial fibrillation is triggered by factors like stress, exercise, alcohol, caffeine and the time of day. Bradley said that he had taken his doctor's advice to avoid caffeine and alcohol. But he said he could not consistently correlate his bouts with anything.

The bouts of atrial fibrillation do not limit his daily work in any way, Bradley and his doctors said.

During the episodes, he said, ``I am aware I have a heart'' because it beats irregularly and sometimes faster, but ``it is not uncomfortable.''

Observers cannot detect when Bradley is experiencing atrial fibrillation, and the only reason people know about it is because of Bradley's disclosure. Many people with symptoms from atrial fibrillation have expressed surprise that Bradley says he is bothered so little by his irregular heartbeat. In response, Bradley said, ``We just have a different experience.''

``It does not affect anything,'' he said. ``That is why I consider it a nuisance.''

QUITO, Ecuador _ In presidential palaces and defense ministries all across Latin America last week, the same question was being nervously asked in the wake of the military coup here that toppled President Jamil Mahuad of Ecuador: Can it happen again somewhere else?

Having made it through the 1990s without a single elected civilian president being overthrown by men in uniform, Latin Americans thought they were finally free of the military adventurism that has plagued the region for two centuries. But Mahuad's replacement, first by a military-led junta and then by his vice president, suggests that judgment may have been premature and is forcing them into a sobering reassessment.

``The political leadership of the continent should not be sleeping too heavy a sleep today,'' Argentina's leading newspaper, La Nacion, warned in an editorial titled ``The Ecuadorean Mirror.'' ``Something is happening in Ecuador and in other countries of Latin America, and the forecast is not for an easy passage.''

Coming after the recent rise to power of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, the Ecuador coup indicates that groups of military officers all over Latin America are coming under the spell of an old ideology that is being dressed up in new clothes. Chavez calls it ``Bolivarismo,'' after the 19th-century liberator Simon Bolivar, and posits a system in which the armed forces bypass traditional political parties seen as corrupt and ally themselves directly with the masses.

During the Cold War, in contrast, the armies of Latin America enthusiastically embraced the anti-communist ``doctrine of national security,'' originally developed by U.S. policy-makers, as justification for their repeated intervention in the political process. The result was right-wing military dictatorships in Central America and countries like Argentina, Brazil and Chile and many abuses of human rights.

Not surprisingly, the loudest complaints about the Ecuador coup have come from countries that survived the Cold War experience and do not want a repetition. ``It is not tolerable that when governments face difficult situations or economic crises, all it should take to generate a situation of instability is an uprising by a group of colonels,'' said the foreign minister of Chile, Juan Gabriel Valdes.

But the passage of time, combined with the political squabbling and economic hardship that have accompanied the restoration of democratic rule, have softened some of the bitter memories of repressive military rule. ``Governments haven't produced results, politically or economically, and people are fed up and looking for an alternative that is functional and coherent,'' said Michael Shifter, a senior policy analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington.

A poll taken here just before the coup, for instance, found that the military in Ecuador has reached a level of popularity even higher than the Roman Catholic Church.

``Over the past 20 years, the Ecuadorean armed forces have maintained a course of action that, in the midst of the chaos the country has lived through, has managed to transform them into the only institution that enjoyed prestige and respect among the citizenry,'' said Simon Pachano, an analyst at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences here.

Given that opportunity, the armed forces here and elsewhere have been searching for a new role and model, and the emergence of Chavez has been fortuitous for them. His repeated citation of Bolivar's pan-American vision and the nationalist and populist regime he has installed in Venezuela resonate deeply, both among frustrated and idealistic junior military officers and left-wing politicians who have been shut out of power.

Echoing Chavez, the colonels who launched Ecuador's coup offered a classic populist program. They presented themselves as protectors of a downtrodden Indian minority, reformers who would satisfy unmet demands for social justice and patriots who had suffered along with ordinary Ecuadoreans at the hands of a corrupt and incompetent political elite.

Even before the Jan. 21 coup, diplomats here and in Colombia were acknowledging the existence of a ``Chavista'' faction within the military. Indeed, one of the colonels who was involved in the seizure of Congress here on Jan. 21 cited Chavez's pan-American ideals in a letter he made public after he sought political asylum in the Venezuelan Consulate in Guayaquil.

In the document, Lt. Col. Guillermo Pacheco Perez proclaimed his identification with ``the cause of Bolivarian liberation'' and the ``ultra-free Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.'' His goal, he said, was ``to refound a New Republic that permanently marginalizes all that has swept us away to institutional putrefaction and the servitude that Bolivar repudiated.''

Significantly, Venezuela has been the only country to break ranks and not speak out against the coup here. On his weekly radio program, Chavez, himself a former army colonel and paratrooper who led a failed coup attempt in 1992, not only condoned the rebellion, but sounded downright sympathetic to its leaders and their goals and tactics.

``I saw 25,000 Indians asking for their rights, and I saw military units supporting them,'' Chavez, who was elected to office in December 1998 after a prison term, said approvingly. ``Who are we to judge the people of Ecuador?'' he asked, adding that, ``We cannot condemn people when they take to the streets.''

On Wednesday, the Venezuelan government approved the restoration to active duty of about 200 officers who took part in Chavez's 1992 coup attempt and were cashiered as punishment, an action that raised new doubts about its commitment to democratic principles. ``Along with Ecuador's coup, that sends exactly the wrong message to every potential military conspirator in every barracks in the continent,'' a Latin American ambassador here complained.

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In Ecuador, this month's breakdown of the political order has been portrayed as a victory for constitutional rule, with Gen. Carlos Mendoza, the armed forces commander who briefly led a three-man junta before stepping aside for Vice President Gustavo Noboa, being praised by the new minister of the interior for ``sacrificing a brilliant career so the world would be spared the spectacle of a disoriented and destroyed Ecuador.'' But that interpretation has not found much favor outside the country.

``This was the stereotypical Latin American military coup,'' said Eduardo Gamarra, director of the Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University in Miami and an expert on Andean politics. ``The president was toppled and replaced by his vice president, who is supported and guaranteed by the military.''

Indeed, in an interview with foreign reporters last week, Mahuad directly linked his overthrow to his refusal to adopt policies that the military favored. ``I made peace with Peru'' _ a neighbor with which Ecuador fought several border wars in the 20th century _ ``and cut the military budget,'' he said, incurring the wrath of an officer corps unwilling to accept change.

Still, the new government here is aware that it faces ostracism from other governments in the region unless it moves decisively to punish the rebels, and it has taken some steps to do so. More than a dozen colonels are now in custody and awaiting trial on charges of sedition and conspiring against the constitutional order, and investigations of an estimated 300 junior officers have begun to determine their responsibility in the overthrow of Mahuad.

But Gen. Telmo Sandoval, who supported the coup, has been promoted to commander of the armed forces, and other generals who played major roles, like Gen. Carlos Moncayo, who permitted Indians to seize the Congress building by withdrawing his troops, are still free. ``I will not permit a witch hunt,'' the new minister of defense, Adm. Hugo Unda Aguirre, said Thursday.

MONTREAL _ Delegates from more than 130 nations Saturday adopted the first global treaty regulating trade in genetically modified products, setting up an international framework for the increasingly contentious debate about foods made with biotechnology.

The biosafety treaty, forged after a week of intense negotiations that often pitted the United States against almost everyone else, allows countries to bar imports of genetically altered seeds, microbes, animals and crops that they deem a threat to their environment.

But virtually all of the proposed provisions that Washington had feared would cripple world food trade and endanger billions of dollars a year in American farm exports were watered down or eliminated. This led some European delegates and environmentalists to complain that the accord had been unduly weakened.

Whether the treaty heightens consumer concern or helps to ease it, the debate surrounding genetically altered food is sure to continue. European consumers, in particular, are wary of risks to human health and the environment.

Still, when the biosafety protocol was finally approved around 5 a.m., weary delegates from all sides stood up and applauded and hailed it as a significant achievement.

``By reaching an agreement today, I hope we have taken an important step toward depolarizing the debate about biotechnology,'' Frank E. Loy, U.S. undersecretary of state for global affairs, said Saturday. ``Conversely, failure to reach an agreement today would have exacerbated tensions over this issue.''

Chee Yoke Ling of the Third World Network, an environmental group based in Malaysia, said that the treaty had ``a lot of holes.'' But she added, ``I think it's historic in the sense that international law is recognizing that GMO's are distinct and have to be regulated separately.'' GMO stands for genetically modified organism.

About half the soybeans and one-third of the corn grown in the United States last year contained foreign genes making the crops resistant to herbicides or insects. European consumers are rejecting food made with those grains.

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration held public hearings on the subject recently and some members of Congress are calling for food with genetically modified ingredients to be so labeled.

Biotechnology company executives said the new treaty could actually help the industry by countering a perception that biotechnology is not adequately regulated. ``I think it will give some members of the public a stronger feeling that there is appropriate amounts of oversight,'' said Steven J. Daugherty, director of government and industry relations at Pioneer Hi-Bred International, the huge seed company.

But no one thinks the controversy will go away. Indeed, the treaty could make consumers even more aware of the issue, raising more concerns. Delegates said the treaty represented a rare recent success in balancing environmental protection with free trade, interests that are often difficult to reconcile.

At the World Trade Organization meeting late last year in Seattle, talks on these topics broke down and huge protests were held by environmentalists, foes of biotechnology and others.

The biosafety talks themselves broke down a year ago in Cartagena, Colombia, when the United States and a handful of other big agricultural exporting nations blocked a treaty agreed to by virtually all the other countries.

But here in Montreal demonstrations were small and peaceful. And the atmosphere in the negotiating halls was far more positive than in Cartagena, as all nations realized that the rising controversy over bio-engineered foods made it important to reach an agreement.

Still, early Saturday morning, it appeared that history might repeat itself. The United States and Canada refused to agree to a requirement _ supported by virtually all the other countries _ that shipments of genetically altered commodities like corn or soybeans contain identification of the specific variety. The two countries said such a requirement would be unworkable, requiring different strains that are now intermingled to be segregated and tracked from field to dock.

A tense standoff with the European Union ensued for hours and threatened to scuttle the entire treaty. Finally, frowning and grumbling, the Europeans backed down. Instead of requiring identification of the particular strain of genetically engineered crop, the treaty requires stating only that the shipment ``may contain'' genetically modified organisms.

Industry officials said genetically modified crops would not have to be segregated from others. But the treaty might encourage a trend that is already under way _ segregating crops free of genetic modification.

The new treaty will be known as the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and will go into effect after being ratified by 50 countries.

nn

Several years in the making, the protocol is an outgrowth of the Convention on Biological Diversity forged in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. Because the United States never ratified the biodiversity convention, it cannot become a party to the biosafety protocol. But American industry will still have to comply with the rules when exporting to countries that are parties. And federal officials here said the government would honor the treaty.

The new biosafety protocol is mainly concerned with protecting the environment from the consequences of genetic engineering. For instance, genes that make crops herbicide resistant could spread by pollination to weedy relatives, creating super-weeds. Or fish given genes to make them grow faster might out-compete the native population for food or mates.

The protocol is not really aimed at risks to human health from food made using biotechnology, although it does contain some vague language saying that such risks should be taken into account.

The treaty also does not address whether food containing genetically altered ingredients, like corn flakes made with bio-engineered corn, should be labeled as such on store shelves. It deals only with labeling commodities like wheat or corn during international shipments.

The key requirement of the treaty is that exporters must obtain permission in advance from the importing country before the first shipment of a particular ``living modified organism'' meant for release into the environment, like seeds, microbes or fish to be put in a river.

But advance notice and permission will not be required for exports of agricultural commodities meant for eating or processing rather than for release into the environment. Washington had argued that requiring such advanced notification would have tied up food trade in red tape.

According to the compromise in the treaty, when a crop is approved for commercial use in one country, that country must send information about that crop to a central clearinghouse. Other countries can then decide whether to prohibit imports of that crop based on their own legislation. Countries that do not have their own legislation, however, can use the protocol to bar imports.

There are other deletions from the protocol that American industry cheered but that some environmentalists said weakened the accord. The treaty, for instance, does not apply to human pharmaceuticals. And advance permission is not required for shipments of genetically altered organisms intended for what the protocol terms ``contained use,'' such as a vial of cells for use in a research laboratory.

Environmentalists, as well as delegates from Europe and developing countries, said the most significant achievement was inclusion in the treaty of perhaps the strongest formulation to date of the ``precautionary principle.'' This principle states that a nation can take action to protect itself _ in this case by barring import of a genetically modified organism _ even if there is a lack of scientific certainty that it would be dangerous.

The United States fears Europe will use this principle as a pretext for trade barriers. But Washington did win language assuring that the biosafety protocol will not relieve a nation of its obligations under World Trade Organization rules. So if a nation does ban a crop, it could be subject to challenge under trade rules.

MOSCOW _ With Russian soldiers dying again in Chechnya, Galya A. is ready to do anything to keep her gangly 18-year-old son, Ruslan, from doing his compulsory two-year military service.

If she could, she would bribe her local draft board. But on the paltry $25 pensions she and her disabled husband get each month, it would take them another lifetime to save up the going price, which ranges from $2,000 to $5,000.

She could try to dramatize Ruslan's list of childhood ailments, but none is serious enough to warrant a coveted medical exemption.

So what is a desperate mother to do?

``Divorce, my dear,'' said Ludmila Obraztsova, a volunteer for the Soldiers' Mothers Committee who conducts a weekly seminar on ways to dodge the draft legally, held oddly enough in a central Moscow veterans club. ``You can live together with your husband, you do whatever you want together, but if you want to get your son out of the draft, your best chance is divorce.'' In that way, Mrs. Obraztsova said, Ruslan could legally argue that hewas the only able-bodied person available to support his 63-year-old pensioned father, a certified invalid.

This is the kind of blunt if convoluted advice that Mrs. Obraztsova has been giving since 1990 when she, herself a mother of two sons, joined the Soldiers' Mothers Committee, an advocacy and support group that sprang up during the war waged by Soviet troops in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989.

Mrs. Obraztsova, 53, a researcher at a medical-technical institute, has counseled thousands of mothers on how to get their 18-to 27-year old sons out of Russia's twice-yearly draft, guiding them through the maze of draft laws, past a hostile military that has resisted the concept of alternative service, and around the increased pressure created by two bloody wars in Chechnya.

Many of the mothers who come to the sessions, scribbling copious notes, would come anyway, but the latest war _ while broadly popular as a move to keep the Russian state intact _ has added urgency to their quest. ``Who would want to give up their son to such a war?'' said Tanya Knyazina, who came on behalf of her 19-year-old son. ``As my son says himself, if it were a question of fighting for the motherland, of defending Moscow, he would gladly serve, but why should he go and fight, and die, for Chechnya?''

Getting out of the Russian draft is, in many ways, similar to unraveling other Russian bureaucratic tangles: It takes intimate knowledge of arcane rules and regulations, and a readiness to juggle family, residence and more to avoid a direct conflict with the authorities. If all else fails, you can try to buy your way out of a situation _ provided that you have the means.

``People who can afford to pay bribes don't come to our Monday meetings,'' said Mrs. Obraztsova. ``We counsel the middle class, the ones who can't pay.''

Under the circumstances, Mrs. Obraztsova's suggestion made perfect sense to Galya A., a 56-year-old pensioner who asked that her last name not be used. Since she has two sons by a previous marriage, the family could not argue that Ruslan was the only able-bodied breadwinner. But if Galya divorced Ruslan's father, then Ruslan could easily get a deferment as his father's only means of support.

``A divorce is nothing, you just show up and do it,'' she said. ``Of course, we don't want to do it, but with this war going on, what else can we do? He is our last, and only, son. Without him, we would both probably die of hunger.''

For other young men, the solution could be, for instance, adoption. A single father of a child under 3 gets an automatic exemption, prompting some young couples to file for a divorce. The father can also get an exemption if the mother is under 18, or considered unfit to cope alone. Mrs. Obraztsova herself used one of these loopholes several years ago to get her younger son out of the draft.

``A friend of ours had a daughter who was pregnant out of wedlock, and didn't want anything to do with the father,'' she said. ``They knew our situation and asked me if my son wanted to be the adoptive father. Of course, he does, I said. It worked, and I often pass on the advice to others. How many take it, I can't tell.''

Even in peacetime, even in the Soviet Union prior to the Afghan War, many families go and have gone to extraordinary lengths to keep their sons out of an army notorious for its brutal treatment of conscripts. Suicides, hazing and deaths by beating are regular occurrences. They are the subject of periodic investigations and reports, but rarely of criminal prosecutions.

There are no reliable figures on Russian draft dodgers, although the Defense Ministry last spring claimed their number in 1998 had been halved, to 20,000 from 40,000 nationally. According to the Moscow city draft board, an estimated 1,500 Muscovites are avoiding military service, but according to a draft board spokesman, many of these are students from other cities, whose registration is tossed back and forth between draft boards.

In the spring draft last year, a presidential decree called for 168,776 men to be drafted, of which 120,900 were destined for the armed forces. The rest were sent to other quasi-military units like the border guards and the Railway Ministry troops. With each draft, about 25 percent of the armed forces' personnel is replaced.

The easiest way to get out of the army is to study. Indeed, the incentive of avoiding the draft often encourages a sudden devotion to studies among 17-year-old males. In Moscow, for instance, where an estimated 50,000 young men were due to be processed last fall, an estimated 52 percent of draft-age men were exempted because they were enrolled in institutes, and technical colleges where they sign up for military courses that put them on an officers' track.

A student deferment can be prolonged indefinitely provided the student is accepted at bona fide institutions that will keep him enrolled until he is 27, when he is no longer eligible for the draft.

Medical deferments provide an increasingly popular way out. According to recent statistics, more than 30 percent of draft-age men are excused for medical reasons. The high rate is usually explained by the deteriorating health of Russia's male population generally, but it may also be due to efforts by people like Mrs. Obraztsova.

``Get your own checkup before your son is called up to the medical commission,'' she said at a recent seminar. ``Please, please, remember, if he has any medical complaints, get them documented _ send him to as many clinics as you can. I know what they will say at the draft board _ they will say that he is healthy, that you bought the medical records. Believe me, I know plenty of doctors who want to send your sick son into the armed forces.''

nn

There is not a disease, ailment or injury that Mrs. Obraztsova cannot peg to an article in the draft law. ``Hepatitis,'' she said. ``A, B, C, it doesn't matter: six months. Spinal disorders. I am glad somebody mentioned that. If it is a third degree, then it can be a deferrable disease. Migraines? Accompanied by fainting? Get it checked. It can be deferrable. Ulcers? Beware of radical imported medicines. They are so effective they can clear away the scar tissue, and you don't want that.''

A mother came up to her with a medical card showing that her son suffers from a serious disease. ``Very good,'' said Mrs. Obraztsova, nodding sagely, before she stopped herself. ``I mean, of course there is nothing good about it at all, except in these circumstances.''

Mrs. Obraztsova is a stickler for the law, which she arguably knows better than most draft board officials. She constantly reminds mothers, and the few fathers and sons who occasionally attend the meetings, how to stand up for their rights.

``Remember you have a right not to agree with the draft board, but do not lose your temper, keep your voice quiet, just stick a copy of the law under their noses,'' she said.

``If they won't listen, don't bother with them, write out your complaint in a letter and mail it. But keep a copy. Little mothers, always, always, keep copies of all your documents. One mother came to me, and said the draft board had kept her medical file, and wouldn't return it. I said to her, my darling, my little swallow, who do you think you are dealing with?''

For some Russian men, the yearly drafts _ from April to June and from October to December _ may be times to get out of town, and perhaps hide out at the family dacha, or country house.

But increasingly, draft boards have been asking the police to hunt down stragglers. Late last December, Moscow residents reported that their buildings had been surrounded by police officers waiting for young men to return home.

``There are cases when parents think that their children have been kidnapped,'' said Valentina Melnikova, a spokeswoman for the Soldiers' Mothers Committee. ``They come home and their sons are gone.''

With characteristic sang-froid, Mrs. Obraztsova has advice for parents who find the police at their door, looking for their son. ``Tell them he went away with a girl,'' she said. ``Tell them you yourself are horrified, but there's nothing you can do. That one usually works.''

To parents whose sons are now abroad, her advice is simple: Keep them away. ``If they tell you they want to come home, tell them that an undeclared war is going on here, and that our boys are being killed.''

WASHINGTON _ Gov. George W. Bush of Texas began his campaign last March with an unassuming one-page letter that announced the formation of his Presidential Exploratory Committee. Almost as an aside, the recipients were asked to contribute a few dollars.

Within four weeks, Bush had collected an astonishing $7.6 million, including 500 checks for $1,000, the maximum amount that individuals may donate to a presidential candidate. Half of the first flurry of checks came from Texans, but far more important were the thousands of checks signed by longtime supporters and old friends of former President George Bush.

``The old man's network is probably 50,000 people, and I think they were looking for some sort of vindication for the president,'' said John Ellis, a first cousin of George W. Bush who is a columnist at Fast Company magazine. ``I don't think you can possibly overstate the hatred of Bill Clinton in the Republican Party. The disgust with him. And so Governor Bush became the vehicle to win back the White House. He was a brand name. And it was so easy.''

The feat was accomplished with the help of the Pioneers, a well-connected group of 200 fund-raisers who raised $100,000 each for Bush's campaign. They were enlisted by Bush many months before he mailed his exploratory letter last March, and their early organization and coordination were what helped the governor raise so much money so quickly early last year.

Now, as the candidates prepare for the New Hampshire primary, Republican fund-raisers say the Pioneers have begun to line up pledges of the unlimited contributions known as ``soft money'' from individuals and corporations. Some Republicans have estimated that if Bush is the nominee, the Republican Party could easily raise $250 million in soft money, more than twice the amount raised in 1996 by the party and its nominee, Bob Dole.

Bush finance officials last week denied that they had begun to raise soft money, or that they had even begun to discuss how to do it.

The issue is an especially sensitive one for Bush, who has been criticized by his Republican rivals as the big-money candidate beholden to special interests. In the Republican debate in New Hampshire on Wednesday night, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Gary Bauer criticized Bush as being beholden to special interests in Washington.

``Do you know that the Republican Party is now taking _ setting up a mechanism for this huge soft-money thing?'' McCain said. ``The Democrats also. We're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, that are going to be washing around in this presidential campaign, usually in the form of negative ads.''

Bush shot back, saying, ``John, I don't appreciate the way you've characterized my position. I'm for reform. I'm for getting rid of the corporate soft money and labor-union soft money.''

In fact, interviews with donors and an examination of records show that the success of Bush's early fund raising was driven largely by personal and family ties to campaign donors.

If Bush can capitalize on his victory in Iowa, survive the test of New Hampshire and go on to win the Republican nomination, that early money will have been one of the most important ingredients of his success.

It sent an unmistakable message to Republican and Democratic rivals alike that Bush was poised to overwhelm his rivals in the all-important financial primaries of 1999 and 2000. Three Republican candidates _ Lamar Alexander, Elizabeth Dole and Dan Quayle _ dropped out because they discovered it was impossible to compete with the Bush money machine.

And since those early days, Bush has raised over $67 million from 171,000 Americans, more than triple his fund-raisers' original goal of $20 million. With more cash on hand than any other candidate, Bush may be able to use money as a fire wall while his competitors deplete their coffers in expensive states like California and New York. By declining federal matching funds, Bush is not bound by the primaries' state-by-state spending limits.

``For every dollar we went out and raised, another $2 came in, unexpected, over the transom,'' said a Bush senior adviser, who insisted on anonymity.

Thanks to a well-coordinated fund-raising organization that tapped his father's network of money men and women, Bush has managed an unprecedented feat in U.S. politics: He has raised more than the total combined amount of individual contributions raised by the two major party candidates in the previous presidential election, Clinton and Bob Dole in 1996.

Although Bush finance officials say they have not yet begun to think about a soft-money strategy, Bush himself has already begun to quietly raise soft money for Republican state party committees.

On Nov. 19, Bush attended a $25,000-a-couple dinner at the home of the financier David Murdoch in Los Angeles. The event raised over $2 million for the state's Victory 2000 committee, which was set up with the help of Bush's campaign.

Bush campaign officials said that the $2 million, though raised by the governor, would be spent by the California Republican Party. But much of that evening's total, some of which was soft money, would assist Bush if he became the party's presidential nominee, two California fund-raisers said.

The California dinner was one of 18 fund-raising events that Bush attended in October, November and December. The campaign had pulled in so much money that the Bush finance team significantly scaled back its fund-raising operation at the end of last year, and still managed to collect $10 million in the last three months of 1999.

Although Bush campaign aides have portrayed $67 million as evidence of grass-roots support, the windfall is the handiwork of the Pioneers, which had been quietly and meticulously built by Bush, with help from his father.

In January 1998, more than a year before the first check was sent to a Bush exploratory committee, Bush had begun meeting in Austin, Texas, with the Republican Party's most influential fund-raisers and lobbyists, many of whom had raised huge sums for President Bush.

The governor had lunch or dinner with groups of eight or 10 people, and by early 1999 he had verbal commitments to raise money from hundreds of influential Republicans and several governors, including John Engler of Michigan and Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania.

Bush, who is a year into his second four-year term, had his own formidable fund-raising team and a rich Texas base to draw from. In 1994 he raised $15.8 million when he defeated Gov. Ann Richards. And in 1998 he collected nearly $25.2 million for his re-election.

Nearly 25 percent of Bush's presidential contributions, over $12 million by Sept. 30, were from Texans, according to Federal Election Commission records. In addition, Bush has received many $1,000 checks from executives in the oil and gas industries and other companies that do business with the state.

nn

At several Texas companies, employees' combined contributions to Bush totaled over $100,000. Vinson & Elkins, the Houston law firm, led all contributors; with individual donations of $1,000 or less, the firm's partners and lawyers gave Bush a total of $185,100 by the end of September.

Bush also received nearly $100,000 from lawyers at Jenkens & Gilchrist, a Dallas firm, and $86,650 from executives and employees of Enron, the Houston corporation that is one of the world's largest energy companies.

In addition to his Texas supporters, Bush was helped by his father's national network built over three presidential campaigns. ``They had a great list to work from,'' said a senior Republican fund-raiser who insisted on anonymity. ``The Bush Christmas card list is 35,000 people, and probably everyone on that list gave somewhere between $100 and $1,000.''

Donald L. Evans, a former oilman from Midland, Texas, and one of Bush's closest friends, acknowledged that President Bush had been an immense help.

``He's been supportive from the very beginning,'' said Evans, the Bush finance chairman. ``He was most helpful because of the great person that he is. There are people across America who care deeply about America's family, the Bush family.''

Evans declined to say how many calls the elder Bush had placed on behalf of his son's quest. Evans said: ``Was he helpful? Did he participate in some events? Did he make some phone calls? The answer to all of those questions is yes.''

Money has flowed generously to Bush's campaign from California, with some $6 million in donations, and from Florida, where his brother, Jeb, is governor, with $3.3 million. Even in the least populous states, the Bush candidacy has exceeded all expectations.

In North Dakota, the Bush finance chairman had hoped to raise $15,000, a bit more than Republicans in the state gave Dole in 1996. But last year North Dakota residents contributed nearly $150,000 to Bush.

``After we got $25,000, we raised the goal to $50,000,'' said Russell F. Freeman, the Bush campaign's North Dakota fund-raising chairman. ``And then we got $100,000, so we raised it to $125,000. After we got that, we raised the goal to $150,000.''

Bush has received the most support from contributors who are retired, but he has also received over $4 million from lawyers and generous support from the real estate industry. The governor, who is a former oilman, has received more support than his rivals from the oil and gas industry.

Several senior Republican fund-raisers said that the states' victory committees would be used to raise soft money later this year. In November and December, the Bush campaign raised a total of $5 million for as many as 20 state parties, focusing the most attention on important battleground states like California, New York and Michigan.

``I'm glad we did it,'' Evans said. ``The state parties will have control over those dollars, not us.''

But Republican fund-raisers have discussed asking some of their largest donors to write soft-money checks to the state parties. That money could then be spent in highly contested states during the general election campaign.

The 1999 state victory fund committee allowed the campaign to take advantage of federal election rules that permitted some donors to give as much as $25,000 to the state committees. That money could then be used by state parties for their voter-turnout programs.

At the Republican National Committee meeting in San Jose, Calif., this month, several fund-raisers predicted that the party could easily raise over $250 million in soft money once the Pioneers began giving and raising large sums.

Despite that chatter, Ari Fleischer, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, said that the Bush finance team had not discussed soft-money strategy. ``Our sights are set on securing the nomination,'' Fleischer said. ``Every team enters the playoffs thinking about getting to the Super Bowl. But the best teams focus on the game in front of them _ and they don't begin planning for the Super Bowl until they get there.''

Here are the New York Times News Service Macintosh graphics scheduled for Sunday, 013000. They are available to all NYT graphic clients via satellite on Associated Press GraphicsNet, and will be posted on PressLink, Newscom and the Wieck PhotoDatabase bulletin boards. For retransmission of graphics from the AP, call the AP Service Desk at 212-621-7983.

Non-asubscribers may make individual graphics purchases or get additional information by calling the NYT Photo/Graphics desk at (212) 556-4204 between noon and 10 p.m. EST.

GENERAL

BUSH_Contributions -- 2 x 5 3/4-- (BC-BUSH-FUNDRAISING-NYT)

A look at who is contributing how much to the Bush campaign.

RACKETEERING_Douglas, AZ map -- 1 x 2-- (BC-RACKETEERING-JUDGE-NYT)

Locator map.

FUEL_Price rise -- 2 x 5-- (BC-FUEL-COSTS-NYT)

Cold weather and high crude oil prices has produced a steep rise in heating oil prices.

MALI_Tindjambane map -- 1 x 2 1/4-- (BC-MALI-SCHOOLS-NYT)

Locator map.

ECUADOR_Quito map -- 1 x 2 1/2-- (BC-ECUADOR-REACT-NYT)

Locator map.

SKYWATCH_Weekly 0130 -- Weekly feature

What to watch for in the sky this week

SUPERBOWL

FBN_Super matchups.pdf -- 6 x 10-- Stand alone graphic

Titans and Rams offense and defence matchups. Pdf file; Posted only.

FBN_Last played.pdf -- 2 x 8 -- (BC-FBN-RAMS-NYT) & (BC-FBN-TITANS-NYT)

What happened when the Rams and the Titanms last played one another. Pdf file.

FBN_Middle defense.pdf -- 1 x 12-- (BC-FBN-RAMS-NYT) & (BC-FBN-TITANS-NYT)

Titan's offense up the middle and the Ram's defense up the middle. Pdf file.

WEEK IN REVIEW

CLINTON_Tax poll -- 18p x 5 1/4 -- (BC-CLINTON-CAMPAIGN-REVIEW-NYT)

Variations on the question: ``What should be done with the nationUs budget surplus?''

SUBURBAN_Before/after.Pdf -- 18p x 5 1/4 -- (BC-SUBURBAN-SPRAWL-REVIEW-NYT)

New York's opening of the Tappan Zee Bridge gave way to sprawl.Pdf file.

DAILY WEATHER

0130 COLOR WEATHER -- 3 x 4 1/4 -- National forecast map in color

0130 B&W WEATHER -- 3 x 4 1/4 -- National forecast map

0130 CLOUD COVER -- 15p x 1 7/8 --Predicted cloud cover each day

0130 MOON PHASES -- 1 x 5/8 -- The weekly phases of the moon.

The New York Times News Service

Here are the New York Times News Service Macintosh graphics scheduled for Sunday, 013000. They are available to all NYT graphic clients via satellite on Associated Press GraphicsNet, and will be posted on PressLink, Newscom and the Wieck PhotoDatabase bulletin boards. For retransmission of graphics from the AP, call the AP Service Desk at 212-621-7983.

Non-asubscribers may make individual graphics purchases or get additional information by calling the NYT Photo/Graphics desk at (212) 556-4204 between noon and 10 p.m. EST.

GENERAL

BUSH_Contributions -- 2 x 5 3/4-- (BC-BUSH-FUNDRAISING-NYT)

A look at who is contributing how much to the Bush campaign.

RACKETEERING_Douglas, AZ map -- 1 x 2-- (BC-RACKETEERING-JUDGE-NYT)

Locator map.

FUEL_Price rise -- 2 x 5-- (BC-FUEL-COSTS-NYT)

Cold weather and high crude oil prices has produced a steep rise in heating oil prices.

MALI_Tindjambane map -- 1 x 2 1/4-- (BC-MALI-SCHOOLS-NYT)

Locator map.

ECUADOR_Quito map -- 1 x 2 1/2-- (BC-ECUADOR-REACT-NYT)

Locator map.

SKYWATCH_Weekly 0130 -- Weekly feature

What to watch for in the sky this week

SUPERBOWL

FBN_Super matchups.pdf -- 6 x 10-- Stand alone graphic

Titans and Rams offense and defence matchups. Pdf file; Posted only.

FBN_Last played.pdf -- 2 x 8 -- (BC-FBN-RAMS-NYT) & (BC-FBN-TITANS-NYT)

What happened when the Rams and the Titanms last played one another. Pdf file.

FBN_Middle defense.pdf -- 1 x 12-- (BC-FBN-RAMS-NYT) & (BC-FBN-TITANS-NYT)

Titan's offense up the middle and the Ram's defense up the middle. Pdf file.

WEEK IN REVIEW

CLINTON_Tax poll -- 18p x 5 1/4 -- (BC-CLINTON-CAMPAIGN-REVIEW-NYT)

Variations on the question: ``What should be done with the nationUs budget surplus?''

SUBURBAN_Before/after.Pdf -- 18p x 5 1/4 -- (BC-SUBURBAN-SPRAWL-REVIEW-NYT)

New York's opening of the Tappan Zee Bridge gave way to sprawl.Pdf file.

DAILY WEATHER

0130 COLOR WEATHER -- 3 x 4 1/4 -- National forecast map in color

0130 B&W WEATHER -- 3 x 4 1/4 -- National forecast map

0130 CLOUD COVER -- 15p x 1 7/8 --Predicted cloud cover each day

0130 MOON PHASES -- 1 x 5/8 -- The weekly phases of the moon.

The New York Times News Service

Here are the New York Times News Service Macintosh graphics scheduled for Sunday, 013000. They are available to all NYT graphic clients via satellite on Associated Press GraphicsNet, and will be posted on PressLink, Newscom and the Wieck PhotoDatabase bulletin boards. For retransmission of graphics from the AP, call the AP Service Desk at 212-621-7983.

Non-asubscribers may make individual graphics purchases or get additional information by calling the NYT Photo/Graphics desk at (212) 556-4204 between noon and 10 p.m. EST.

GENERAL

BUSH_Contributions -- 2 x 5 3/4-- (BC-BUSH-FUNDRAISING-NYT)

A look at who is contributing how much to the Bush campaign.

RACKETEERING_Douglas, AZ map -- 1 x 2-- (BC-RACKETEERING-JUDGE-NYT)

Locator map.

FUEL_Price rise -- 2 x 5-- (BC-FUEL-COSTS-NYT)

Cold weather and high crude oil prices has produced a steep rise in heating oil prices.

MALI_Tindjambane map -- 1 x 2 1/4-- (BC-MALI-SCHOOLS-NYT)

Locator map.

ECUADOR_Quito map -- 1 x 2 1/2-- (BC-ECUADOR-REACT-NYT)

Locator map.

SKYWATCH_Weekly 0130 -- Weekly feature

What to watch for in the sky this week

SUPERBOWL

FBN_Super matchups.pdf -- 6 x 10-- Stand alone graphic

Titans and Rams offense and defence matchups. Pdf file; Posted only.

FBN_Last played.pdf -- 2 x 8 -- (BC-FBN-RAMS-NYT) & (BC-FBN-TITANS-NYT)

What happened when the Rams and the Titanms last played one another. Pdf file.

FBN_Middle defense.pdf -- 1 x 12-- (BC-FBN-RAMS-NYT) & (BC-FBN-TITANS-NYT)

Titan's offense up the middle and the Ram's defense up the middle. Pdf file.

WEEK IN REVIEW

CLINTON_Tax poll -- 18p x 5 1/4 -- (BC-CLINTON-CAMPAIGN-REVIEW-NYT)

Variations on the question: ``What should be done with the nationUs budget surplus?''

SUBURBAN_Before/after.Pdf -- 18p x 5 1/4 -- (BC-SUBURBAN-SPRAWL-REVIEW-NYT)

New York's opening of the Tappan Zee Bridge gave way to sprawl.Pdf file.

DAILY WEATHER

0130 COLOR WEATHER -- 3 x 4 1/4 -- National forecast map in color

0130 B&W WEATHER -- 3 x 4 1/4 -- National forecast map

0130 CLOUD COVER -- 15p x 1 7/8 --Predicted cloud cover each day

0130 MOON PHASES -- 1 x 5/8 -- The weekly phases of the moon.

The New York Times News Service

Here are the New York Times News Service Macintosh graphics scheduled for Sunday, 013000. They are available to all NYT graphic clients via satellite on Associated Press GraphicsNet, and will be posted on PressLink, Newscom and the Wieck PhotoDatabase bulletin boards. For retransmission of graphics from the AP, call the AP Service Desk at 212-621-7983.

Non-asubscribers may make individual graphics purchases or get additional information by calling the NYT Photo/Graphics desk at (212) 556-4204 between noon and 10 p.m. EST.

GENERAL

BUSH_Contributions -- 2 x 5 3/4-- (BC-BUSH-FUNDRAISING-NYT)

A look at who is contributing how much to the Bush campaign.

RACKETEERING_Douglas, AZ map -- 1 x 2-- (BC-RACKETEERING-JUDGE-NYT)

Locator map.

FUEL_Price rise -- 2 x 5-- (BC-FUEL-COSTS-NYT)

Cold weather and high crude oil prices has produced a steep rise in heating oil prices.

MALI_Tindjambane map -- 1 x 2 1/4-- (BC-MALI-SCHOOLS-NYT)

Locator map.

ECUADOR_Quito map -- 1 x 2 1/2-- (BC-ECUADOR-REACT-NYT)

Locator map.

SKYWATCH_Weekly 0130 -- Weekly feature

What to watch for in the sky this week

SUPERBOWL

FBN_Super matchups.pdf -- 6 x 10-- Stand alone graphic

Titans and Rams offense and defence matchups. Pdf file; Posted only.

FBN_Last played.pdf -- 2 x 8 -- (BC-FBN-RAMS-NYT) & (BC-FBN-TITANS-NYT)

What happened when the Rams and the Titanms last played one another. Pdf file.

FBN_Middle defense.pdf -- 1 x 12-- (BC-FBN-RAMS-NYT) & (BC-FBN-TITANS-NYT)

Titan's offense up the middle and the Ram's defense up the middle. Pdf file.

WEEK IN REVIEW

CLINTON_Tax poll -- 18p x 5 1/4 -- (BC-CLINTON-CAMPAIGN-REVIEW-NYT)

Variations on the question: ``What should be done with the nationUs budget surplus?''

SUBURBAN_Before/after.Pdf -- 18p x 5 1/4 -- (BC-SUBURBAN-SPRAWL-REVIEW-NYT)

New York's opening of the Tappan Zee Bridge gave way to sprawl.Pdf file.

DAILY WEATHER

0130 COLOR WEATHER -- 3 x 4 1/4 -- National forecast map in color

0130 B&W WEATHER -- 3 x 4 1/4 -- National forecast map

0130 CLOUD COVER -- 15p x 1 7/8 --Predicted cloud cover each day

0130 MOON PHASES -- 1 x 5/8 -- The weekly phases of the moon.

The New York Times News Service

NEWPORT , N.H. _ William the Good is so very patient with us.

He has been disappointed when reporters and voters and even his own advisers and big-shot supporters failed to understand why he has dithered so much about Closing the Deal, why he hasn't just picked up Al Gore by the scruff of his neck and said: ``Back off, you phony, smarmy, sniveling, preppy sneak, you no-controlling-legal-authority-Buddhist-nun-shakedown artist.''

But the tall guy has been more interested in ``building a relationship with the voters of New Hampshire'' than in razing Al Gore. He's been preaching his gospel of New Politics, all positive all the time. If he gave in completely to Old Politics, it might be effective. But it would be wrong. Worse, it would be inconsistent.

Sonia Sheridan, a retired fine arts professor who came to see Bradley at a Newport senior citizens center Friday morning, did not understand New Politics. ``How can you deal with the sleaze factor without yourself going through the same type of tactics?'' she asked Bradley.

This philosophical conundrum tormented the Hamlet of New Hampshire all day, as he tried to work up his nerve to deliver the Big Attack on Al Gore that his spinners had promised.

Bradley's preference is to be oblique. Or to let surrogates hint at Al Gore's hyperactive campaign finance phone calls. Or to give a dollop of directness, but preferably in the void, late on a Friday night, after the eager press pack has given up hopes of an attack and wandered off to dinner.

Call it a passive-aggressive campaign, new resisting old. In Old Politics, you tangle with your opponent. In New Politics, you tangle with yourself. OP is visceral. NP is cerebral. In OP, you try to clobber your rival, without subtlety or ambivalence. In NP, winning is beside the point: beliefs and convictions are the point.

Bill Bradley has less time to take on Al Gore because he's so busy examining his own feelings about how far he should go in taking on Al Gore. He finds his analysis of himself fascinating. Sure, the primary that will decide his presidential fate is days away. But he clings to tantric campaigning. He holds back, seeking a level of self-realization deeper than the merely electoral.

There are so many moral and political dilemmas still to wrestle with: If he smacks his Democratic foe, is it fratricide? What is the most just way to apportion blame for the Chinese money scandal and Lincoln bedroom scam between the president and vice president? If one goes negative, how negative can one go and remain true to oneself? And when does a double negative become a positive? If one is obviously better and smarter, why should one have to prove it?

All day Friday, Bradley would only go so far as to call Gore ``tricky.'' He said he was waiting for him to repent about his ``misstatements.'' (Dream on, Dollar Bill.)

But finally, at a Nashua fund-raiser at 9:30 p.m., he stuck his little toe in the water on the topic he feels most strongly about in private _ the fund-raising scandal of '96. Passive-Aggressive said Gore must ``face up'' to the ``disgraceful'' behavior, but it ended up sounding more like a hint from Heloise. ``If we don't clean our house,'' he said, ``the Republicans are going to clean it for us in the fall.''

Bradley is also trying to hector Gore on abortion, saying he must explain to the public his ``journey'' from opposing Medicaid funding for abortion to supporting it. Here's a hint, Heloise: It's called being the Democratic front-runner.

Gore is a master panderer who turned up at an MTV rally in jeans so weirdly tight that even Ted Koppel felt compelled to comment. But Bradley thinks trying to please is beneath a politician. His campaign has been choking on dignity.

When he played basketball, he hated being called a jock. He said he dreaded ``the unnaturalness of being a sex object'' for groupies. As a politician he doesn't want to stoop to politics. He says he hates the ``rat-a-tat-tat.'' He doesn't care for the rah-rah either. It would be so much more gratifying if voters could be illuminated without expecting to be excited.

``You just want him to hit Gore or something,'' said Mrs. Sheridan.

She doesn't understand. Bradley has been working to restore trust in the process. Under duress, he's trying to attack. But you get the feeling that for him, losing, with its negation of craven self-interest, might be the best way to prove he was worthy of winning.

He's too good for us, really.

DAVOS, Switzerland _ Maybe it's a sign of maturity; or maybe it's just that typical American obliviousness to the outside world. Whatever the reason, the United States has an admirably relaxed attitude toward the international value of its currency. When the dollar slides against the yen, we do not take it as a slur on our national virility. Indeed, the strong yen mainly has the Japanese worried, because they fear _ rightly _ that it may price their goods out of world markets and make their now-you-see-it-now-you-don't economic recovery vanish into thin air.

As far as the economic fundamentals are concerned, euroland _ the group of 11 European nations that has adopted the euro as its common currency _ ought to be as blase about currency fluctuations as we are. Like the United States, euroland is a huge economic area, mainly trading with itself; if its exchange rate fluctuates, as exchange rates will, why should it be concerned?

In fact, however, the decline of the euro since it was introduced at the beginning of last year _ it was worth $1.17 at the outset, and finally fell below $1 last week _ has led to much wailing and rending of garments.

In strict economic terms this dismay is not warranted. Serious students of the new currency (eurologists?) will tell you that the true test of its success is internal: does it deliver the promised unification of the European market? Does it enhance the economic stability of the euroland nations? And for what it is worth, things are off to an OK if not great start: The first year of European Monetary Union has actually been a fairly prosperous one for most EMU members. It's just that the United States is doing even better _ and so the euro has been falling against the dollar.

The reason this matters is that although the serious economic case for EMU has always been internal and long term, some euro enthusiasts _ the French in particular _ have always had a less creditable agenda: the desire to stick one in America's eye, to take the dollar down a peg. Over the long years of discussion that led to EMU, I have heard over and over again the claim that by challenging the dominance of the dollar, the euro will somehow lead to a large transfer of wealth and power across the Atlantic.

This was and is nonsense: No doubt in the year 2005 Russian gangsters will make payoffs with 100-euro notes instead of $100 bills, but so what? Though it may be foolish, however, this hidden agenda means that many Europeans have a predisposition to judge monetary union not by the performance of the European economy, but by the euro's competitive status against the dollar. And this in turn means that the latest slide in the euro presents a dilemma for the barely year-old European Central Bank: Does it defend the euro's prestige _ which it can only do by putting its fundamental goals at risk? Or does it stand by its principles, let the exchange rate decline and live with the resulting embarrassment?

Up until last week, the ECB was playing a dangerous game, trying to have it both ways. Officially it had no target value for the euro-dollar exchange rate. But repeated statements by ECB officials that they regarded their currency as undervalued were taken by markets as a strong hint that the euro would not be allowed to fall below ``parity.'' And this hint itself supported the euro: whenever the exchange rate fell close to $1 (and it has in fact spent most of the last few months hovering just barely above parity), speculators would buy the currency, figuring that it could go up but not down.

Now the game is up. The only effective way to strengthen the euro now is to raise interest rates _ and thereby threaten to undermine the growth of the real European economy. On the other hand, if the ECB does not raise rates, speculators may declare open season on the currency and at least temporarily drive it still lower.

The right thing to do is nothing. There will be some jeering headlines, but a month or two later people will look around, see that Europe is still standing and forget about the whole thing. The question is: Does the ECB have the courage not to act? We'll soon find out.

TOKYO _ In the cutthroat world of Japanese show business, which is dominated by teen-age idols, few people exercise the power and creative genius of Johnny Kitagawa.

As president of Johnny's Jimusho, the country's top talent agency, Kitagawa has a knack for creating young male stars who sing, dance, act and make him millions of dollars along the way.

So influential is the 68-year-old Kitagawa that media analysts and reporters say he has tightly controlled what newspapers, magazines and television programs report about his clients and himself.

Indeed, no credible media organization in Japan had crossed him until last fall when Shukan Bunshun, one of Japan's largest magazines, began publishing a series of articles accusing him of having sexual liaisons with teen-age boys he had groomed for stardom.

``If you're a television station and you don't comply with Johnny's Jimusho's wishes, then all the popular stars will be withdrawn from your programs, your variety shows will not get any interviews with celebrities, and your ratings will plummet,'' said Masaru Nashimoto, an entertainment reporter. ``The same thing goes for publications,'' he added.

Since the articles began appearing in late October, Kitagawa's agency has declared war on the magazine. It has accused Shukan Bunshun of publishing lies, filed a libel suit and denied its requests for promotional photos and interviews with acts managed by Kitagawa. The magazine's sister publications have also been denied access to Kitagawa's groups.

None of Japan's other major news media have reported the magazine's allegations or Kitagawa's lawsuit. Neither have they taken note of several tell-all books written in recent years by men who claimed that when they were boys, Kitagawa forced them and others to have sex with him.

Hiroshi Fujita, a journalism professor at Sophia University in Tokyo, said he was not surprised. The Kitagawa story, he said, reflects the well-known weaknesses of the Japanese press.

``The Japanese media tend to be quite cautious and timid when it comes to sensitive subjects like sex, the royal family, and right-wing groups,'' Fujita said. ``Only if the authorities launch an investigation of Kitagawa we can expect widespread media coverage,'' he said.

Most reporters rely on official news sources and rarely dig up information beyond that provided by government agencies, corporations and public relations firms. Many reporters belong to official press clubs established by government ministries, and the reporters dutifully report what the ministries want to say.

Kiyondo Matsui, Shukan Bunshun's editor in chief, is proud of the Kitagawa stories because after the first article appeared, his magazine received a flood of information from boys and men who had been part of Johnny's Jimusho. The information was so compelling that the magazine, despite pressure from Kitagawa's lawyers, decided to proceed with what became a 10-part series.

For two months, reporters at Shukan Bunshun interviewed about a dozen teen-age boys. While initially reluctant to talk, the boys eventually recounted their experiences after receiving assurances that their identities would not be disclosed.

The articles have sent shock waves across the entertainment business, not only because of their graphic descriptions but also because of their potential to dethrone Kitagawa, the industry's most powerful broker.

``This is the first time that a publication with a good reputation and a large circulation has written about this,'' said Jinichiro Sudo, a former entertainment reporter who is now a local assemblyman in Tokyo.

For the moment, however, Kitagawa's reign appears as strong as ever. He declined to be interviewed for this article, but his lawyer, Tsugio Yada, said in an interview that the sexual abuse allegations against his client were a ``complete fabrication.''

``Johnny Kitagawa is a good person with a great reputation, and no one believes the lies that were published,'' Yada said. ``Writing a story based on the confession of people who are now separated from the talent agency is not a reliable way of reporting.''

According to the articles, the boys took part in Kitagawa's talent training corps, in which they received singing and dancing lessons and did promotional activities in the hope of making it into one of Kitagawa's major groups.

Some of the boys told the magazine that they regularly had sexual relations with Kitagawa because they feared that if they refused he would not advance their careers, and that boys who did refuse were ejected from the training program.

Through Shukan Bunshun, The New York Times tried to get in touch with the boys quoted in the magazine series, but all of them refused to be interviewed.

But one former member of a 1970s teen-age group managed by Johnny's Jimusho told The New York Times in an interview that Kitagawa raped him when he was a 12-year-old recruit.

The man reluctantly agreed to the interview on the condition that his name not be used, for fear that he might lose his job as a musician. At his request, the interview took place in a Tokyo hotel room with a reporter from Shukan Bunshun, which arranged the meeting.

Now in his 40s and married, he nervously recounted how he and other boys had suffered. After reading the initial articles in the magazine, the man said, he decided to tell his story because he was outraged that Kitagawa was continuing to sexually abuse boys.

``I didn't like what was going on,'' he said. ``But if I said no, I would have been kicked out, and there was nowhere else for me to go.''

According to articles in Japanese publications, Kitagawa and his older sister Mary, 71, with whom he runs the agency, were raised in Los Angeles.

Kitagawa and his sister returned to Japan in the early 1950s, and in 1962 he started his career as a manager of young male talent. Kitagawa had his first major success with the Four Leaves, one of the the decade's most popular groups.

From there, Kitagawa displayed a golden touch for forming groups aimed at teen-age girls. The most popular and profitable has been a diverse group of five young men called SMAP, whose members are the hottest draw on Japanese television.

In 1997, the most recent year for which statistics were available, AERA magazine said that Johnny's Jimusho's clients appeared in about 40 television programs and 40 commercials for products and services from food to life insurance.

Nashimoto, the entertainment reporter, said he regretted that he and other media organizations had been reluctant to explore the sexual abuse allegations, even after the books were published making similar accusations against Kitagawa.

``If the mass media, including myself, had fully investigated these claims a long time ago, especially when the books first came out, then maybe we could have prevented other boys from suffering abuse,'' he said.

ATLANTA _ Some of Ted Turner's $1 billion gift to the United Nations has boomeranged right back to Atlanta. CARE USA, the Atlanta-based relief and development organization, will use the Turner money to conduct the United Nations' land mine education programs around the world.

The initiative, which encompasses two related programs, will use $500,000 of Turner's money. Japan has donated an additional $100,000.

Under one of the contracts, already signed, CARE's pocket-size, 74-page mine safety handbook will become, with minor editing, the official U.N. handbook. The second contract, signed last week by the U.N. Office for Project Services and scheduled to be signed soon by CARE, calls for the humanitarian agency to work around the world with employees of the United Nations and other nongovernmental organizations.

Beginning in February, CARE will conduct education programs in five regions of the world _ the Balkans, East Africa, Southwest Asia, Southern Africa and Afghanistan _ said Bob MacPherson, a former Marine colonel who is CARE's top security analyst. Among other assignments, MacPherson traveled to Kosovo last year to supervise the start of mine removal there.

Leaflets will be prepared that are specific to each region, because different kinds of land mines are prevalent in different areas, MacPherson said. And the handbook will be translated into languages appropriate to each area.

The handbook, designed for people who must work or travel in high-risk areas, includes a wealth of harrowing advice. ``Do not leave the road for any reason, even to relieve yourself,'' the booklet says.

And for those on foot: ``If there is no obvious safe exit route, if you reach a point where you simply cannot remember what path you took, or if you find a mine on what you thought was a safe exit route, then you will have to feel first for trip wires and then prod for mines in order to exit, a slow, painstaking, and potentially very dangerous task. It cannot be hurried.''

Experts say many millions of land mines _ 10 million in Angola alone, for example _ remain strewn around various parts of the world, retaining the capacity to kill or maim long after the conflicts that prompted their use have ended.

The education sessions will be conducted by a subcontractor, Mine-Tech, the Zimbabwe-based land mine removal company with whom CARE worked in Kosovo. The sessions will be overseen by MacPherson and a representative from the U.N. Mine Action Service.

MacPherson, 54, is no stranger to the danger of mines. On April 7, 1969, as he crossed a rice paddy in Vietnam, he was injured by a Claymore mine. He spent 17 months in hospitals and rehabilitative treatment.

More than 20 years later, he said, ``Desert Storm was a real eye-opener. When we went into southern Kuwait, we had to breach endless miles of minefields to open up the two gaps.''

The goal of the CARE/U.N. program is to ensure that employees of the United Nations and other nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, stay as safe as possible as they go about their work.

No one at the United Nations Foundation, the organization set up to distribute Turner's gift, was available late last week to comment on why CARE was selected to run the program. But MacPherson said CARE is one of the best.

``I would now say CARE is in the top four international NGOs that actually are involved in mines initiatives,'' MacPherson said.

Story Filed By Cox Newspapers

For Use By Clients of the New York Times News Service

ATLANTA _ On a day an ice storm paralyzed the region, nearly 100 people stood in the freezing rain, burning candles for an old friend, David Ronald Chandler.

Chandler is the marijuana ``kingpin'' from northeast Alabama convicted of ordering the murder of a man who was keeping police informed about his operation. He is on track to become the first person executed by the U.S. government in almost 40 years. He is running out of appeals.

On Tuesday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments on whether Chandler is guilty and whether his attorney's performance at trial was so poor he deserves a new sentencing hearing.

``We think Ronnie deserves a new trial,'' said Connie Farmer, an organizer of the recent candlelight vigil and rally for Chandler, held last weekend at Fagan's Park in Piedmont, Ala., his hometown. ``It would be a disgrace if he's executed.''

In a statement to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Chandler proclaimed his innocence, saying he wants ``my basic right to a fair trial and to be heard.''

Just three months ago, Chandler's capital sentence was vacated. In a 2-1 opinion, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit ruled that Chandler's lawyer was so unprepared and ineffective during the sentencing phase of the trial that Chandler deserved a new one.

But his reprieve was short-lived. In early January, the full 11th Circuit court vacated that decision and will now reconsider it.

Chandler now sits on federal death row in Terre Haute, Ind., where inmates are to be executed by lethal injection. The last federal prisoner to be executed was Victor Feuger, hanged in Iowa in 1963 for murder and kidnapping.

Chandler's case raises important issues. First is the question of whether Chandler was involved in the May 8, 1990, shooting death of Marlin ``Marty'' Shuler. A federal jury in Birmingham convicted Chandler of having Shuler killed to silence him.

The triggerman, Charles Ray Jarrell, was the government's star witness in tying Chandler to the slaying. He said he killed Shuler for $500, although he admitted Chandler never paid him. In return for Jarrell's cooperation, prosecutors declined to prosecute him for the death penalty; he is serving a 25-year sentence.

But Jarrell has since recanted his testimony, saying it was all a lie. Jarrell now says prosecutors pressured him into incriminating Chandler. He says he killed Shuler because of Shuler's abuse of his wife and mother-in-law, who were Jarrell's sister and mother.

Even though Jarrell recanted his testimony, Chandler's requests for a new trial have been denied.

LAWYER LACKED PREPARATION

In motions before the court, Justice Department lawyer Robert Erickson said the federal prosecutors and agents who tried Chandler were found to be credible when denying Jarrell's new accusations that they put him up to lie. The trial judge presiding over the case found Jarrell's recantation was ``obviously untrue'' in some respects and ``internally contradictory'' in others.

Chandler's best chance on appeal appears to be obtaining a new sentencing hearing. In a line of court cases dating back decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has said convictions and sentences can be overturned if a defendant did not receive effective legal representation.

To accomplish this, two conditions must be met: First, a court must find that the lawyer's work did not meet acceptable standards. Second, the court must find that the lawyer's deficient performance so prejudiced the case there is a ``reasonable probability'' the outcome would have been different.

In other rulings, the high court has said lawyers cannot be prohibited from presenting mitigating evidence on behalf of capital defendants, so the jury can treat the defendant as a ``uniquely individual human being.''

During the sentencing phase of Chandler's trial, his lawyer, Drew Redden, called only two witnesses, Chandler's wife and mother.

In preparing an appeal, Chandler's new lawyer, Jack Martin of Atlanta, found dozens of witnesses who said they would have come forward at trial and testified on Chandler's behalf if only they had been asked. Their testimony, during post-trial hearings in Birmingham, was filled with remarkable stories of Chandler's kindness, patriotism and benevolence.

Chandler brought groceries, clothing and firewood to poor families, taught laid-off workers carpentry and masonry skills, helped build a church fellowship hall for free, gave money to an indigent family so they could afford to bury their recently deceased son, and bought two pairs of shoes for a boy he saw running barefoot through the projects, according to some of the testimony.

When asked what he did to prepare a mitigation case on behalf of Chandler, Redden has said, ``I would say basically not anything explicitly.''

COMPARING CASES

In the ruling vacating the death sentence, Judge Stanley Birch of Atlanta noted that the scant testimony from Chandler's wife and mother stated little more about Chandler ``other than the fact he liked to participate in building houses.''

Birch said the jury should have heard far more. This is not a case in which ``only marginal mitigating evidence existed,'' Birch wrote. ``There is no evidence that Redden asked a single question or conducted any interview specifically with mitigation in mind.''

But in a strong dissent, Judge J.L. Edmondson urged that Chandler's death sentence be upheld.

As for Redden's performance in Chandler's case, Edmondson said, ``We have vindicated lawyers who did far less.''

Edmondson, a former Gwinnett County school board lawyer, wrote that the majority opinion was ``out of step'' with prior court decisions, particularly the case of Robert Lee Tarver.

In March 1999, Edmondson wrote the 11th Circuit's ruling upholding the death sentence against Tarver, convicted in the 1985 murder and robbery of an Alabama grocer.

Like Redden in Chandler's case, Tarver's trial lawyer tried to get the jury to focus on lingering doubt as to whether Tarver committed the killing. Tarver's lawyer also presented scant evidence on his client's behalf in mitigation.

``We determined that his acts were not ineffective; but today's court says that counsel in this case was,'' Edmondson wrote in his dissent in the Chandler case. ``Cases that are essentially similar _ Tarver and this one _ ought to have the same result.''

In an ironic twist, Edmondson added, ``The evidence of guilt in (Chandler's) case was, by no means, overwhelming.''

Birch countered that the record shows that Redden began preparing for the death penalty phase of the case ``only when it was absolutely imminent. ... The fact there is a reasonable chance of acquittal on capital charges does not in any way alleviate the attorney's obligation to prepare for the worst.''

In court motions, Martin, who will argue Chandler's case Tuesday, said Edmondson was ``flat wrong'' in saying Tarver's and Chandler's cases were virtually identical.

Tarver's lawyer conducted a ``substantial character witness investigation'' before making a deliberate decision not to use it, Martin said. Redden failed to make even a preliminary investigation on which to base a decision, he said.

Story Filed By Cox Newspapers

For Use By Clients of the New York Times News Service

ATLANTA _ During a 1996 shakedown at Dooly State Prison in Georgia, guards engaged in sadistic and degrading abuse, several inmates have alleged.

Eleven inmates filed a federal lawsuit, saying guards made them take off their clothes in front of a female guard, tap dance naked and shave with an unlubricated razor.

On Tuesday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments in Miami as to whether a law passed by Congress in 1996 bars such lawsuits by prisoners.

``If this law is upheld, guards can treat prisoners like animals at the zoo, and so long as there is no physical injury involved, they can get away with it,'' said Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Rights, a lawyer in the case.

Department of Corrections officials have denied the allegations, saying guards did nothing wrong at the prison.

Last fall, a three-judge 11th Circuit panel dismissed most of the claims. Only claims filed by prisoners who are no longer in prison were allowed to go forward. But the full 12-member court vacated that decision and will reconsider the case Tuesday.

At issue is whether Congress, when it passed the Prison Litigation Reform Act, could bar prisoners from seeking remedies for certain constitutional violations. The act says no federal action may be brought by a prisoner for mental or emotional injury suffered while in custody, without a prior showing of physical injury.

If this is the case, inmates will be unable to collect damages for claims of psychological torture, racial discrimination, sexual harassment and invasion of bodily privacy, Robert Toone, a lawyer for the inmates, said.

The U.S. Justice Department, in a motion supporting the state, urged the court to uphold the law. Five international law professors, who filed their own brief, say the law is unconstitutional.

``The law of the United States does not allow torture, even if the torture leaves no physical scars,'' said the brief, written by Georgia State University Professor Natsu Saito.

Story Filed By Cox Newspapers

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John McCain's campaign bus was somewhere in New Hampshire, five days before voters will sort out McCain's political future.

Inside the bus, the setting was Vietnam.

McCain, former prisoner of war, was telling a sweet story of revenge.

Dinah Shore's version of ``I'll Be Home for Christmas'' and other holiday songs played on the loudspeaker as McCain sat alone in his Hanoi Hilton cell on a cold Christmas Eve 1970. ``They did everything they could to help our morale,'' he deadpans.

In walks ``The Cat,'' as he is called by POWs. The chief of North Vietnamese prisons, this is the man who offered McCain the chance to go home two years earlier, an offer McCain felt bound to refuse. ``I had not seen him since,'' McCain recalls.

The Cat is in an expansive mood and they talk for maybe 45 minutes. Unlike in previous encounters, The Cat speaks English, going on about Ho Chi Minh, North Vietnam's leader.

The Cat talks about Ho's private villa on an island in Ha Long Bay, where Ho and his guests watch the sun set over the bay. Then The Cat leaves, and McCain never sees him again.

Years later, McCain, now a senator from Arizona, is lunching in the Senate dining room with a Vietnamese official who worked on restoring ties between the United States and Vietnam. McCain mentions that he's planning a trip to Vietnam.

The man asks McCain if he'd like any help, McCain says he would and begins to describe Ho's island villa.

``The guy almost fell out of his chair,'' McCain says. ``He said, `How do you know about that? No one knows about that island.'''

Sometime later, McCain, his wife, Cindy, and Mark Salter, his chief Senate aide, visit Vietam and take a boat to the island and watch the sunset. The ex-Navy pilot who once rained bombs on Ho's people stays the night in Ho's villa, which by now is rundown.

``What did you think?'' he is asked on the bus.

``If you live long enough ...'' he says, laughing.

LESSONS FROM THE KING

As I watched the last debate between Al Gore and Bill Bradley in Manchester, N.H., on Wednesday, I couldn't stop from mentally morphing Bradley into Elvis Presley.

I had only recently learned that Bradley, while in the U.S. Senate, had studied the King's movies. The senator thought that this could, in some way, help him improve his own communications skills.

Really.

So, when Bradley began duking it out with Gore in the debate the other night, in my mind he slowly morphed into ``Kid Galahad.''

That's the movie in which Elvis plays a singing ex-GI mechanic who becomes a boxer and rises to fame and fortune.

Elvis' best line in the movie certainly reflected the new fighting-back nature of the Bradley campaign: ``This is one grease monkey that don't slide so easy.''

But there's more.

It also seems that Bradley, at the age of 22, and already a national celebrity as a result of his basketball skills, made a pilgrimage to Graceland, the Presley home in Memphis, Tenn.

``I climbed up the wall that surrounded Graceland, reached over to a limb that was from a tree inside the wall, snapped the leaf off the tree and kept that leaf in my wallet for about six years,'' Bradley told MTV last week.

Bradley came into the press filing center after the debate, but I couldn't get close enough to tell him about how he had turned into ``Kid Galahad'' in my mind.

I also couldn't tell him that a man who claims to be the King's illegitimate son is working for his rival.

I met that man last fall in Nashville when Al Gore was moving his campaign headquarters to Music City.

He had bushy sideburns, wore sunglasses and a jacket covered with gold buttons. He signed one of the campaign volunteer forms ``Elvis.'' Then, before driving off in a black Corvette with the license plate ``Elvis 1,'' he declared, ``Gore is our leader for the next millennium.''

Really.

PIE IN THE SKY

After losing two-to-one to Al Gore in the Iowa caucuses, former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley beat a hasty retreat to New Hampshire.

But Bradley was in jovial spirits as he boarded a Boeing 727 Monday night for the flight to the Granite State. Before take off, Bradley wandered back to the section of the plane reserved for the press with a special treat for reporters: macadamia nut pie.

Bradley cheerfully cut up pieces of the pie _ a gift from a supporter _ and handed them out to reporters one at a time. Bradley raved about the pie _ until New York Times reporter James Dao examined the pie's list of ingredients.

One of the ingredients was Kona coffee beans from Hawaii, a source of caffeine. Bradley must avoid caffeine because it can trigger an irregular heart beat, a non-life threatening condition he was diagnosed with in 1996.

``You're kidding me,'' Bradley exclaimed, rolling his eyes, shaking his head and forcing out a laugh.

The pie apparently wasn't enough to trigger any problems for Bradley, as he stayed in the back of the plane chatting with reporters until the it was airborne.

About 15 minutes into the flight, the pilot of the charter jet announced that the plane was leaving Iowa airspace. A spontaneous cheer erupted among the press corps and Bradley's staff.

Bradley only smiled.

For in-depth reporting, opinion and cartoonists, visit the Cox News Campaign 2000 Web site: http://www.coxnews.com/2000.

Story Filed By Cox Newspapers

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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. _ Shirley Caesar answers the phone in her North Carolina home with just a hint of formality. ``Is this for radio?'' she asks. When told the interview is for a newspaper, she relaxes her voice _ no need to sound peppy and perfect _ and says, ``This is good. I can lay down to talk.''

And talk she does. When you're the reigning queen of gospel, a 61-year-old dynamo who delivers the truth as song, you've got stories to tell.

Like the time she sang for Bob Dylan at the Kennedy Center Honors. The rock legend insisted she attend _ or else he wouldn't bother showing up. ``Well, Bob is crazy,'' she says with affection.

Or the time she took a small bit of the money she earned as a child on the gospel circuit and treated herself to a cherry cola and a hamburger. ``I felt guilty,'' she says, noting that she normally saved her pay to support her ailing mother.

But these stories pale in comparison to the music. When Caesar sings, it's a joyful noise indeed. She maintains the praise-be-to-Jesus bedrock of traditional gospel _ the music of such greats as Mahalia Jackson and James Cleveland _ but she weds it to a more R&B-friendly sound. The voice is big and beautiful, the place where grand opera meets the dirt-road church. ``The spirit of the Lord is upon me,'' Caesar exclaims in one of her numbers. It's hard to disagree.

``I'm a singing evangelist, I have the two ministries in one,'' she explains.

She doesn't take her mission lightly: Caesar has looked beyond the stage and started her own church in Raleigh, N.C. There are about 600 members in the congregation, but she's already thinking of building a house of worship that seats 1,500. She's hesitant to ask for money, but if that's what it takes, she'll do it. ``There was a time I was ashamed, because I've always been the giver. I've come to a point now where I need everybody's help,'' she explains.

When she's not on the pulpit, Caesar is likely to be in class: She's going for her master's degree in theology at Duke University. What could she possibly be learning that she doesn't already know?

``You sound like one of my instructors,'' Caesar says with a laugh. She's taking a course this semester called ``Introduction to the Old Testament.'' And, yes, she says she's learning plenty.

But Caesar's main activity is singing. She gives 150 performances a year and has recorded 30 albums, earning nine Grammy Awards along the way (she's up for another this year). Her work has also extended into film: She's recorded songs for the soundtracks of ``The Prince of Egypt'' and ``The Preacher's Wife,'' among others.

``I want to do more of it. It gives my career a boost,'' Caesar says, adding that she'd also be willing to try a role in front of the camera. ``As long as I don't have to act out of character, play the role of a prostitute or something like that,'' she explains.

There seems little chance of that. After all, Caesar resisted the temptation to do straight-ahead R&B and soul, despite the many opportunities she's had. It's what distinguishes her from so many gospel-trained singers: Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, et al. Caesar has no objections to other people's choices; she just has to do what's right for her.

``I just feel that somebody has to keep up that tradition,'' she explains. That also means that even when she's still singing about Jesus Christ, she's not about to let her sound stray too far in a contemporary direction. ``With a lot of the music today, you don't know whether you're listening to a gospel song or R&B ... If the music is too far out then you will lose the message.''

Caesar discovered her gift early in childhood. The inspiration was a sink full of dirty dishes that she and her sister had to wash. As she tells it, the two would sing to pass the time _ and in those days before air-conditioning, ``our voices began to ring out in the community.'' Performances in churches and schools soon followed. By 8, she was touring as ``Baby Shirley.''

Her name was firmly established a decade later when she became a member of The Caravans, a renowned gospel troupe. A decade after that, she went solo. It's been a busy career, with little time for slowing down. Caesar says her biggest regret is that she married late and never raised a family. ``At one point, I felt that life had passed me by,'' she admits.

But even without children, she's got a circle of friends, family and admirers. She is revered by other singers, especially those outside gospel, as evidenced by the Dylan anecdote. Her next album may join her with the likes of Franklin, Houston, Gladys Knight and Lauryn Hill for a gospel-meets-R&B series of duets. She likes the idea of bringing some established artists back into the gospel fold, but she also likes the idea of finding a more mainstream audience.

``That way, you can stay in the running,'' Caesar says. ``I don't want to get left behind in any sense.''

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INTERNATIONAL

CLINTON-DAVOS _ DAVOS, Switzerland _ President Clinton addresses the World Economic Forum on Saturday. (Glass, Cox News Service).

EDs: Moving spot on Saturday.

JOURNAL-ELIAN _ MIAMI _ In a letter from Miami, Cox Newspapers Caribbean/Latin America correspondent Mike Williams shares his first-person view of covering the Elian Gonzalez saga. Developing. (MWilliams, Cox News Service). WITH PHOTO.

EDs: MOVED Fri., Jan. 27, in (i) International and (k) Commentary categories.

ISRAEL-OLDCITY _ JERUSALEM _ Some have not been back since they patrolled there with an M-16 ten years ago. But, in the last several months, Israelis are flocking back to Jerusalem's ancient Old City. Though it is a primary stop for tourists, the walled old city is mostly populated by Arab Palestinians and was the scene of sporadic attacks on Jews in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It has quieted down slowly and, some say spurred by the resumption of peace talks under new Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Israelis now feel safer going to shop in the narrow market streets or eat at the many hummos restaurants. (Kaplow, Cox News Service). WITH PHOTO.

EDs: MOVED Thurs., Jan. 27.

BRITAIN-WALMART _ LONDON _ The giant American retailer's takeover of British supermarket chain Asda already is changing the landscape in Britain ? as well as much of Europe. Developing. (Roughton, Cox News Service). WITH PHOTO and chart information. (Chart material attached to story.)

EDs: MOVED Friday, Jan. 28, in (i) International and (f) Financial categories.

MEXICO-GARCIA _ MEXICO CITY _ She's diminutive, soft-spoken and genteel. She's also an ardent feminist and one of Mexico's most powerful political figures. Amalia Garcia, 47, is the first woman to be elected president of a political party in this country where machismo still generally rules. She was born one year before Mexican women won the right to vote in 1953. She was deeply involved in politics by 1975, the year when Mexico finally erased a law declaring that husbands could forbid wives from working outside the home. Today Garcia leads the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, a leftist party that fiercely opposes Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which has controlled Mexico's federal government and most state governments for 70 years. Garcia is considered the brains behind a PRD strategy to gain power by softening its left-wing image and forging electoral coalitions with other Mexican opposition parties. Last year her party won, for the first time, not just one governorship but five. (Ferriss, Cox News Service). WITH PHOTO.

EDs: MOVED Wed., Jan. 26.

CARE _ ATLANTA _ Some of the money Atlanta media boss Ted Turner is giving to the United Nations will find its way back to Atlanta-based CARE USA. Thanks to a Turner grant, CARE will develop land mine awareness programs for the UN worldwide. (Melvin, Atlanta Journal-Constitution) MOVED

POLITICS

PREZCOL _ Road to the White House. A column on the campaign for the presidency. (Austin American-Statesman)

NH-ADVANCE _ A look at what is at stake for each candidate in Tuesday's primary and the changing political landscape of New Hampshire, with a special focus on much-examined but widely misunderstood segment of the electorate, independents. (Baxter, Atlanta Journal-Constitution). 35. MOVED

NH-MCCAIN _ Winning Tuesday in New Hampshire and several other early primaries is key to John McCain's plan to win the Republican nomination. But if he prevails in the Granite State and elsewhere in the next few weeks, what next? What are his long-term strategies and just how many stars must be in perfect alignment for them to be realized? (Sherman, Atlanta Journal-Constitution). 30. MOVED

NH-TALES _ The week between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary is one of the most frenzied periods in the election year, made more so this year with back-to-back debates and the State of the Union address. The Cox political team takes you behind the scenes of the action in Tales from the Trail. (Baxter/Foskett, Atlanta Journal-Constitution) MOVED

POLITICAL-NOTES _ Mark Sherman's political notes. (Sherman, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

NATIONAL

WACO-ESCAPE _ WACO, Texas _ FBI employees dispute the government's official explanation for ripping apart the gymnasium at Mount Carmel, according to depositions in the upcoming wrongful-death suit filed by surviving members of the Branch Davidians. According to a driver and passenger in one of the FBI's CEV vehicles, they were not trying to provide escape routes for the Davidians. They were trying to clear a path to a tower _ where the FBI apparently thought the Davidians' leadership had retreated _ so tear gas could be inserted. (England, Waco Tribune-Herald). 35.

TECH-SCHOOLS _ NEW ORLEANS _ An overflow crowd of educators from public schools across the country jam into two days of classes here on how to get their hands on more of the $30 billion available to help elementary and secondary schools buy and make intelligent use of technology. (Mollison, Cox News Service). 25. WITH PHOTOS

EDs: With TECH-CHART.

TECH-SUMMIT _ AUSTIN, Texas _ With Rotary _ or the Lions, Optimists and the Junior League _ already helping the community, why don't the well-intentioned tech titans of 2000 join up? The problem is that pe