December 2, 1991

Assuming control over the Kremlin's purse strings this weekend, Boris N. Yeltsin has moved to make the vestiges of central Soviet authority an extension of his Russian government. His agreement to finance the Soviet payroll and guarantee Soviet state bank credits may have seemed a little routine after the high drama of events beginning with the attempted Kremlin coup and its collapse 14 weeks ago. The move was announced in the form of a brief communique after a "working meeting" between Mr. Yeltsin, the Russian republic's President, and the Soviet President, Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

The Jets might have got a glimpse at their future this afternoon, as displayed by the Buffalo Bills. The Bills, runners-up in Super Bowl XXV last January, made enough mistakes to bury themselves. But then they made the necessary plays to take a 24-13 victory and clinch the American Football Conference East Division before a near-capacity crowd of 80,243 at Rich Stadium.

Should the University of Bridgeport soon end the long fall from its heyday in 1970 by closing its half-empty campus and going out of business, it would leave two legacies to the world of higher education. Its increasingly painful struggle to stay alive during the last two decades will have shown, first of all, how very hard it is to kill an American university. Yet it will also have demonstrated just how to do that, step by step.

Shuttle Glides Back Home The space shuttle Atlantis landed flawlessly in California after cutting short its mission because of a mechanical failure. Page A15. Bridgeport U. at the Brink Behind the University of Bridgeport's struggle lie pressures felt by many colleges. News Analysis, page B1. Symbolism Over Substance Symbolic politics, not economic policy, has become the driving force in the rush to do something about the recession. News analysis, page A13. Piece in Subatomic Puzzle Scientists offer new evidence that ghostly subatomic particles called neutrinos could hold the key to answering one of the most daunting questions of cosmology. Page B7.

The long Middle East hostage saga moved into a possibly climactic phase as Lebanese kidnappers said that they would free an American today, hours after Israel released 25 of the roughly 300 Arab prisoners it has been holding in southern Lebanon. A statement released in Beirut early this morning said that Joseph J. Cicippio would be released from five years of captivity today, and a Syrian official told Reuters in Damascus that the other two Americans held in Lebanon, Terry A. Anderson and Alann Steen, were expected to be free by Sunday.