January 1, 1991

Oakman Boulevard meanders across Detroit's tumbledown northwest side like a dry riverbed, past boarded-up storefronts and empty lots. But east of Linwood Avenue, the bleak roadscape suddenly comes to life: lights burn inside a row of deserted factories, and the street is filled with cars and delivery trucks. Here, amid classrooms and offices carved from the heart of an abandoned industrial neighborhood, the Rev. William Cunningham, a tough-talking Roman Catholic priest, has created one of the nation's most eclectic and ambitious urban enterprises. It is a vast, nonprofit civic organization that is part charity, part business and part job training program.

People who have worked for the Navy's nuclear reactor program, which has been quietly based here for four decades, have accused the program of serious safety lapses and say they were disciplined for raising safety concerns. Their allegations, denied by program officials, have contributed to pressure here and in Washington for wider scrutiny of the training and research centers, which make up the only branch of the Government's nuclear defense program with its secrecy mostly intact.

Because of holiday production requirements, The Times is printed today in two sections. Science Times begins on page 35, Business Day on page 41.

Israeli military experts are virtually unanimous that in the event of war, Iraq would launch at least 20 missiles against Israel armed with conventional or chemical warheads, and that some of those missiles would be certain to penetrate Israeli defenses. The military experts and Government officials say they think that Israel would survive an Iraqi missile assault without catastrophic damage or loss of life. But the experts are divided on what Israel's response to an Iraqi attack should be.

The old year is barely out the door, and already the record-keepers are saying it was one for the books: 1990 was New York City's warmest year. On a day when see-your-breath cold whistled into the metropolitan region and temperatures plunged from the sweaters-off 60's to the zipped-up 20's, that was news to the rainbow-colored parkas and shivering bare-legged joggers in Central Park, where the Weather Service has been taking the city's temperature since 1869.