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.