May 13, 1991

In his first response to calls for changes in the nation's health care system, President Bush will send to Congress this week a proposal to help control the fastest-rising part of medical costs -- malpractice litigation and the insurance to cover it. The plan would press the states to enact limits on court awards. According to a draft of the proposal made available by White House officials, states would be encouraged to adopt limits on the amounts that malpractice victims can collect for pain and suffering, to set up mediation systems for resolving disputes and to strengthen medical licensing boards, among other things.

President Hafez al-Assad of Syria categorically rejected Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d's compromise proposals for convening a peace conference today, raising serious doubts that Washington will be able to organize Arab-Israeli talks in the wake of the Persian Gulf war. The five and a half hours of talks in Damascus between Mr. Baker and Mr. Assad were so unproductive that they canceled the usual post-meeting news conference between the Secretary of State and Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa.

They are still tiny companies, each a few years old, but they may be in the forefront of a revolution in the telecommunications industry. Armed with high-speed fiber-optic lines and an important regulatory victory on Thursday at the Federal Communications Commission, the companies aim to compete directly against the nation's local telephone companies by luring away the biggest and best customers. For now, the upstart companies are mostly giving large corporations a way to reach their long-distance carriers without paying the stiff access charges imposed by local telephone companies. But the new companies share a much bolder vision: competing head-to-head against local telephone companies on a full range of services.

The Phoenician Hotel, where there is not much of a waiting list for its $4,000-a-night suites, stands in suburban Scottsdale in all its ostentatious splendor, a glittering monument to the savings and loan debacle, a hangover from the reckless building spree of the 1980's. In a city that once knew no limits, perhaps 3 of every 10 offices now sit empty. Housing prices are flat.

With a month to go, New York's salute to the veterans of the Persian Gulf war -- a huge, triumphant ticker-tape parade up lower Broadway's Canyon of Heroes -- is on schedule, planners say, and very likely to meet its twin goals of total private financing and a spectacle rivaling those for Lindbergh or V-J Day. In an outpouring of support for the hard-pressed city and troops of the American-led coalition, the organizers say, scores of corporations, hundreds of businesses and thousands of individuals have pledged $4.1 million in cash, goods and services, bringing Operation Welcome Home within reach of its $5 million goal for the June 10 extravaganza.