December 11, 1990

In a significant shift in marketing, the Ford Motor Company said today that it would stop offering cash rebates to buyers of most of its vehicles starting on Tuesday. Instead, discounts will be given to dealers for the next two and a half months, allowing them to choose whether to provide cash payments to buyers or use the price break in other ways. Ford executives said the company was halting most customer rebates, at least temporarily, because they had not proved effective in raising sales in what is currently a soft market for vehicles. Ford will continue rebates on five, mostly small models.

For 22 years Oscar Marchant's job has been teaching inmates at Essex County Jail Annex. He is a rare county worker who loves his work. "Yes, yes, oh yes," he says. It gets harder. He's never seen conditions worse for teaching here, he says. In the 1970's, there were 19 full-time teachers for 600 inmates. About 75 prisoners got high school equivalency degrees yearly. Today there are two teachers for 1,065 inmates. "I'm the only teacher for men. If I'm not there, no school." No inmate will get a degree in jail this year.

Charging that government officials had unlawfully ignored alternatives to rebuilding the West Side Highway as it stands, a coalition of civic groups in New York City announced yesterday that they will sue to force consideration of other approaches. The groups, including the Municipal Art Society, the Parks Council and People for Westpride, will argue that a failure by city and state officials to review alternatives to the existing viaduct, which runs from 59th to 72d Street, violates Federal laws that require environmental reviews and protect parkland.At stake is the future of the Hudson River waterfront where Donald J. Trump dreams of building his enormous Trump City complex, but which the civic groups envision as a riverfront park, with development further east. A Break With Dinkins The lawsuit, to be filed today in Federal Court in Manhattan, would also mark a rupture in relations between Mayor David N. Dinkins and a number of the civic leaders who had earlier cheered his pronouncements on city planning and community involvement in land-use issues.

The Security Pacific Corporation, which expanded aggressively in the 1980's, said yesterday that it faced big loan losses and was cutting back its activities in the securities markets and overseas lending, resulting in a big quarterly loss. The Los Angeles-based banking company, the nation's fifth largest, said it would lose $320 million to $360 million in the fourth quarter because of the changes and the big increase in losses on overseas and domestic loans.

AN animal cell is a tiny, tumultuous factory, where tens of thousands of proteins of an extraordinary variety of shapes and duties labor to keep their shop alive. Some proteins are receptors, thrusting through the surface of the cell with arms agape, primed to catch passing hormones. Many proteins are enzymes, knobbed and ribbed in just the right places to carry out intricate biochemical reactions. Some proteins curl around the DNA molecule and help switch on genes; others serve as filamentous beams and girders to lend the cell its supple strength.

The hostage drama in Iraq and Kuwait drew closer to an end today with a series of hastily arranged airlifts and surprise reunions across several continents. An American official here said he thought that a single charter flight on Tuesday with 175 seats could retrieve all of the remaining Americans in Kuwait and Iraq who want to leave. On Sunday, 163 Americans left Iraq and Kuwait. It now appears that about half of the 750 Americans who were in the two countries as of last week have chosen to stay, because they are married to Iraqis or Kuwaitis or for other reasons. Some remain in hiding, and may not yet have learned that they can leave.

The Food and Drug Administration today approved the first substantially new contraceptive in 25 years, a set of small, soft tubes that are implanted under a woman's skin where they release a hormone that can prevent conception for five years. The method is essentially a new way of delivering the female hormone progestin, which along with estrogen is one of two components in current birth control pills. The implant can be put into place in a simple surgical procedure in a doctor's office. Fertility is restored by the next menstrual cycle after the implants are removed. 'The Dream Method' "In some ways it is the dream method that people who work on birth control have looked for for decades," said Dr. Daniel Callahan, director of the Hastings Center, a research institution in Briarcliffe Manor, N.Y., that studies issues of medical ethics. "It is long-acting and would make a woman infertile until she takes an active decision not to be."

As it prepares for its annual meeting in Vienna starting Wednesday, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is in disarray, perhaps more so than at any time in its 30-year history. And it faces a long period of uncertainty because of the consequences of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The OPEC system of country-by-country production quotas has been discarded by most of the 13 member states, which are pumping all the oil they can pull out of the ground. OPEC is producing much more than its production ceiling of 22.5 million barrels a day, even though exports of 4 million barrels a day from Iraq and Kuwait have been shut off since Baghdad invaded Kuwait in August.

THE latest mission of the space shuttle Columbia was conceived as a unique approach to advancing scientists' understanding of the cosmos, particularly the hot, violent events that send out radiations invisible to the naked eye. The shuttle's much-troubled mission was saved from technical failure after quick improvisation by ground crews. But the success was qualified. Due to land early this morning, it was brought back one day short of the planned 10 days and observed only 140 of its 250 targets.

For the first time, the Soviet Union publicly asked the United States today for food supplies to help it overcome shortages in major cities. In response, the Bush Administration indicated it would provide some kind of aid. Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze made the appeal in response to a reporter's question at the start of two days of talks with Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d. Mr. Baker, at the same exchange with the press, said the Bush Administration intended to be "very forthcoming."

Ruling Party in Serbia Wins; Yugoslav Breakup Is Feared The struggle over the future of Yugoslavia took an ominous turn: Serbia's ruling party, whose hard-line policies have left the country on the verge of falling apart, emerged victorious in free elections. Page A7. Czechoslovakia in Crisis President Vaclav Havel asked for special powers to help prevent the breakup of Czechoslovakia. Page A12. Rare Soviet Success Story Amid the economic gloom, a Moscow factory has actually raised wages by 65 percent since 1988. Page D1. New York's New Fiscal Pain More service cuts loomed as New York City's budget gap for this fiscal year grew to $250 million. Page B1. A Question of News Ethics The Supreme Court will decide whether a news organization can be sued for breaking a promise of anonymity to a news source. Page A24.

A panel formed to study the future of the nation's space program called today for a sweeping change in American efforts to explore the heavens. In a report issued today, the committee recommended that the agency cease its total reliance on its fleet of space shuttles by building an unmanned rocket booster and that the proposed space station be thoroughly redesigned and simplified.