December 4, 1990

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney told Congress today that military action rather than economic sanctions was the only sure way of forcing Iraqi troops to leave Kuwait. Mr. Cheney rebutted suggestions from leading Democrats and many former military officials that the United States wait a year or more to see if economic sanctions work. He told the Senate Armed Services Committee that delaying military action that long would further damage the world economy, allow Iraq to stiffen its defenses and risk the erosion of the international effort to compel President Saddam Hussein of Iraq to remove his forces.

The air here smells so bad that Judy Rosemarin, who has lived in the neighborhood for 20 years, can no longer bear to open her windows. It smells so bad that Tami Zinser, who works down the hill at a frozen-seafood importer, holds her nose and runs when she leaves the office. The smell, which Ms. Rosemarin describes as "rotten eggs in a sewer," comes from the North Hempstead landfill, which takes in 1,000 tons of trash a day. In the last few months, hundreds of tons of illegally dumped garbage and construction debris have combined with a backlog of water runoff, or leachate, at the bottom of the landfill to form a gas that can be smelled miles downwind. Cover Your Face Town officials say they inherited the problem from a previous administration. They say the gas, hydrogen sulfide, is not dangerous in the amounts being generated. But residents who have been suffering nausea and eye irritation worry about their health and say that relief can't come soon enough.

A Michigan doctor who connected a woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease to a homemade suicide device and watched as she pushed a button and died was charged today with first-degree murder. The case is being closely watched as a watershed in the debate over whether physicians should be allowed to assist terminally ill patients who want to take their own lives.

In an important interpretation of the Federal law intended to protect employee pensions, the Supreme Court gave employers a victory today. The issue involved the jurisdiction over lawsuits accusing companies of discharging workers in order to evade pension obligations. The Court ruled unanimously that such suits must be brought under the Federal law and not under state laws that are often more generous to workers.

In offering $6 billion for the NCR Corporation, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company is finally acknowledging that it cannot succeed in the computer business on its own, analysts say. The proposed purchase of NCR, which has about $6 billion in revenues, could be viewed as a bold move by A.T.& T. to quintuple the size of its computer business and in one fell swoop achieve critical mass.

The director of a city commission established to improve the election system has accused his own panel of failing in its mission -- to move aggressively to register voters, monitor activities of the controversial Board of Elections and champion a campaign to change the state's heavily criticized voting laws. The panel, the Voter Assistance Commission, was established by referendum two years ago to begin a major effort at distributing voter registration forms at welfare centers, housing agencies, schools and other government agencies and to measure the performance of the Elections Board and other parts of the voting system.

Several hundred army dissidents rebelled early today and captured the Argentine Army headquarters and four other installations, creating battlegrounds in an area that President Bush is scheduled to visit on Wednesday. But loyalist troops, acting on President Carlos Saul Menem's demand for a complete rebel surrender, moved quickly and forcefully to retake the installations and declared tonight that the mutiny had been put down.

IN the fir-covered mountains of southern Mexico, hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies packed in tight, brilliant clusters are now settling in for their winter rest after completing one of nature's most extraordinary feats. Each year, the insects migrate as far as 2,500 miles between their summer breeding grounds in the northern United States and Canada and their winter retreats in Mexico. This splendid natural phenomenon can no longer be taken for granted. The butterfly's special wintering sites in 13 Mexican mountain enclaves -- and in certain "monarch groves" in coastal California, where a smaller, separate cohort spends the winter -- are threatened by logging and development. Vigorous conservation efforts in Mexico may have helped secure the monarch's refuges there. And voters in Pacific Grove, Calif., last month approved the $2 million purchase of a privately owned monarch grove to save it from development.

Schools Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez will propose tomorrow that condoms be distributed on request to students at all New York City high schools, even without parental consent. While Mr. Fernandez had indicated earlier that he favored distribution of condoms in principle, the new plan is his first concrete proposal and suggests that he is being more aggressive on the issue than some might have expected, given the firm opposition of the Roman Catholic Church in the city and some other religious leaders.

When Hope Noah, a speech expert, is hired to coach people facing trial, she never asks much about the crime. "Absolutely not," said Ms. Noah. "I might be prejudiced. I might not do my best." She knew a first name only: Rob. "I'm not entirely sure what Rob did. I think it's some burglary thing. I don't even think he got to do it." First, Ms. Noah reviewed a questionnaire that Rob's defense lawyer had filled out. "Negatives," read Ms. Noah. "Rob comes on heavy . . . very nervous . . . lots of street talk . . . too many dees, dems, doses . . . tries to act too friendly . . . shifts body when he stands . . . has shaky credibility."

The Supreme Court, in a 6-to-2 ruling, today placed new limits on police interrogation of criminal suspects. In a decision that overturned the murder conviction of an inmate on Mississippi's death row, the Court ruled that once a suspect in custody has asserted his right to a lawyer the police may not initiate further questioning unless the lawyer is actually present.

Hit hard by lower production and a decline in new orders, the nation's manufacturing economy slowed in November to the lowest level since the recession of the early 1980's, a survey of purchasing managers has found. The National Association of Purchasing Management said yesterday that its index of economic activity fell to 41.3 percent, the weakest showing since November 1982, when the index stood at 39.2 percent. In October, the index was at 43.3 percent.