May 8, 1991

So intense and so haphazard is development along the Jersey Shore that it has become an example to other coastal states of what not to do. For 18 years, builders have taken advantage of a loophole in state law that exempts any development of fewer than 25 units from state regulation. As a result, the 137-mile shoreline is dotted with 24-unit complexes, often shoe-horned in between the beach houses, motels, restaurants, and arcades that make New Jersey's coast one of the most heavily used in the nation.

The Comcast Corporation, a cable television company that is expanding into the cellular telephone business, agreed yesterday to buy the Metromedia Company's cellular operations in Philadelphia for $1.1 billion. For Metromedia's chairman, John W. Kluge, the stock-and-cash deal caps a $3 billion payoff on an initial $20 million investment in the cellular telephone industry, although yesterday's price for each potential customer in the market appears to be below the record $313 value established when Metromedia acquired the franchise several years ago in a stock transaction.

Last August, when the Persian Gulf crisis erupted, Rafi Harlev, president of El Al Israel Airlines, decided to act quickly, knowing that Iraq's invasion of Kuwait meant hard times for his business. Even before tourist traffic began to fall, he and his managers converted three Boeing 747 planes, which can each hold 450 passengers, into all-cargo carriers. They laid off 650 of the airline's 4,000 employees. A few weeks later they raised fares by 10 percent and then an additional 9 percent in December to help offset soaring jet-fuel prices.

EVERYONE has heard all the phrases: young American chefs, new American cooking, fresh local ingredients, regional style. Hardly a food story of the 80's went by without some such reference. For the 90's, only the location has changed. California, Southwest, Northwest, New England and the Midwest have come and gone. The new star in the culinary galaxy is South Florida.

There are as many ways to catch fish as there are lies to tell about them, but none are stranger, more frenetic or less safe than the annual Alaska halibut derby, the Oklahoma land rush of commercial fishing. At the stroke of noon today, about 4,000 commercial fishermen lowered enough baited hook lines into the water to circle the globe. In one of the most intense food-gathering rituals in North America, they have, according to current regulations, only 24 hours to catch as much halibut as human endurance, or greed, will allow.

An overactive thyroid that is easily treatable caused the irregular heartbeat that struck President Bush on Saturday and put him in a hospital for two nights, the President's physicians said today. Dr. Burton J. Lee 3d, the President's official doctor, said he was "very pleased" that the cause of Mr. Bush's heart flutter was not more serious. But he said the President's medical team would need at least a week to decide on the best treatment.

Companies America West said it would cut most of its full coach fares by an average of almost 40 percent. The cuts will bring down the cost of business travel on many major routes. [ Page D1. ]

With the smell of tear gas lingering in the air, Central American immigrants said today that the unrest in their neighborhoods was rooted in what they saw as brutality and discrimination by the Washington police and was an unwelcome reminder of the strife they thought they had left in their native lands. After two nights of disturbances that prompted the imposition of a 7 P.M. curfew today, the Mount Pleasant district and part of the Adams-Morgan area in the Northwest section of Washington are reminiscent of battle zones, with storefronts and vehicles left smoldering and police officers in riot gear patrolling in groups of half a dozen or more.

As negotiations were beginning last week between New York City apartment building owners and their striking employees, a union delegation left the meeting room on the 37th floor of a midtown hotel. A reporter and photographer approached a heavyset man wearing an open-collar shirt and dark sunglasses and asked if Gus Bevona, the union's president, was there. "Mr. Bevona hasn't arrived yet," said the man, who disappeared quickly into an elevator. The man was Mr. Bevona, management representatives said later. An extremely private, if not reclusive, figure, Gus Bevona managed to avoid the spotlight even while leading a 12-day strike by as many as 30,000 service workers that won his members a raise of $16 a week this year and inconvenienced hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers in about 2,800 buildings.

The Environmental Protection Agency today directed 79,000 utilities, virtually all of the water suppliers in the United States, to test tap water in hundreds of thousands of homes as the first step in a new program to reduce concentrations of hazardous lead in drinking water. The new rules, which the environmental agency said affected 230 million people, call for all water systems to reduce the levels of lead leaching into drinking water from lead pipes in the systems, as well as soldered pipes and brass fixtures that also contain lead in homes. The systems of large and small cities and rural areas are affected.

The first leg of the Treasury's quarterly refunding auctions was fairly well received yesterday, but Wall Street traders, fearing that coming sales of more speculative securities might not go well, sold outstanding issues of Treasury securities, pushing down prices and raising interest rates. As expected, demand was good for the $13.5 billion worth of three-year notes auctioned yesterday. The securities were sold at an average yield of 7.09 percent, up from an average yield of 6.98 percent at the last three-year note sale on Feb. 5.

Sir Leon Brittan has been called a lot of things. As the European Community's commissioner for competition and financial services, he has been called the second-most-influential man in Brussels, after the European Commission president, Jacques Delors. Some call him America's best friend here, thanks to his strong opposition to turning the community into Fortress Europe.