January 15, 1991

One morning last month Michelle Rogers returned to Family Court in Manhattan to try to get her children back. It was her 10th appearance before Judge Judith B. Sheindlin since July. The judge was eager to return Mrs. Rogers's three children who are in foster care, but one obstacle remained. The 31-year-old mother did not have an apartment. Because Mrs. Rogers is homeless, New York City's Child Welfare Administration was asking that the children, ages 21 months through 8 years, remain in foster care. From the bench, Judge Sheindlin angrily addressed the two lawyers and one supervisor who appeared for the agency. She said the agency was not helping Mrs. Rogers, who was making progress in her recovery from drug abuse and had been searching diligently for housing.

Government is in turmoil here, where the Suffolk County Executive, Patrick G. Halpin, has sued the County Legislature over whose budget for the county will take effect. More than 160 workers don't know whether the next envelope will bring a paycheck or a pink slip. Some people have received termination notices by mistake. No one knows what to do about insurance for county cars. The workers in four agencies, including economic development, aren't sure if the departments even exist.

The new frequent-flier lures being dangled by the nation's major airlines this winter seem to be reshuffling passengers among different carriers and have not attracted many new travelers, travel agents and airline industry officials say. One promotion, offered by Delta Air Lines, Northwest, American, United, Continental and USAir, awards free roundtrip tickets to passengers after a few flights. Two other major airlines, Trans World Airlines and Pan American World Airways, and a regional carrier, Alaska Airlines, are giving a bonus of three miles of credit for each mile traveled. The accumulated miles count toward free trips or upgrades to first class. Most of the promotions end in March.

ASTRONOMERS' increasing power of observation is exposing awkward weaknesses in cosmology's cherished theories and imposing ever-narrowing limits on the imaginations of scientists engaged in the audacious vocation of figuring out the origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the universe. Recent surveys of the heavens by telescopes and spacecraft have astonished scientists with the discovery of enormous conglomerations of galaxies that cannot be accounted for in current theory. Such large structures, and associated voids, imply gravitational forces from unseen matter that must represent at least 90 percent of the mass in the universe.

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev blamed leaders of the separatist Lithuanian Parliament and their supporters today for bringing on the Soviet military attack that killed 14 people in Vilnius on Sunday morning. He did not disavow the attack or say that it was unjustified, but said he had found out about it only after it happened, when the local military commander sent in troops to protect a pro-Soviet "National Salvation Committee" that later claimed control of the Baltic republic in place of the elected legislature.