October 8, 1991

Elliott Abrams, the former Assistant Secretary of State who was one of the Reagan Administration's fiercest advocates of armed support for the Nicaraguan rebels, pleaded guilty today to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress about secret efforts to aid the guerrillas. Mr. Abrams's guilty pleas and his promise to cooperate with Iran-contra prosecutors may open another avenue for investigators as they make what appears to be a final push to broaden their search for wrongdoing at the senior levels of the Reagan Administration.

The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation said today that 17 banks and Wall Street firms that had admitted to inflating orders and submitting false information in bidding for the agency's securities had agreed to pay penalties imposed last week. The 17 companies, which were not identified by the agency, called Freddie Mac, had requested a delay until this morning to decide how to respond to the penalities sought by the agency. Another firm, Salomon Brothers, identified itself and paid the penalty on Friday, as requested. As a group, the companies were fined about $1 million and were given a deadline last Friday to pay the fine or be cut out of future Freddie Mac securities sales.

The beer keg, as much a staple of college life as the all-nighter or the incompatible roommate, is at the center of debate this fall over how to control alcohol abuse at two of New Jersey's largest campuses. With the semester in full swing and beer flowing as freely as ideas, Princeton University and Cook College of Rutgers University have moved simultaneously to establish new restrictions intended to curb drunken carousing and worse.

Following the political dictum that it is better to attack than to defend, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo asked a Federal judge today to dismiss a lawsuit filed against the Governor in state court last month by Chief Judge Sol Wachtler. But the escalating legal and political feud, which began when Judge Wachtler challenged the adequacy of this year's judiciary budget, drew an unusual rebuke from the Federal judge, who admonished the two "titans of New York" to avoid "an unseemly conflict."

ONE of the quirkiest mysteries of modern medicine -- involving mad cows, stumbling sheep and dwarfs -- will be one step closer to solution if a heterodox new theory proves true. The mystery centers on a bizarre disease that is known as encephalopathy because it attacks the brain, and spongiform because it leaves the brains of its victims chock full of holes. Humans are afflicted by three forms of spongiform encephalopathy, animals by four.