February 5, 1992

In unusually direct language, Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, said today that the central bank had not ruled out further interest rate cuts as insurance to push the economy out of its doldrums. In testifying before the House Budget Committee, Mr. Greenspan, the nation's most influential economic policy maker, seemed to aim his remarks at the nation's financial markets, which had tumbled last week after he testified before the Senate Banking Committee.

On a narrow street near art galleries and boutiques, next door to an acupuncturist who trades in Chinese herbs, is an encouraging sign of how the nation's scientific best and brightest might redirect themselves now that the cold war is over. It is the Prediction Company, a private spinoff of the Los Alamos laboratory, the birthplace of the atomic bomb high in the mountains near here. Computers and young men with ponytails dot the office. Company scientists, once on the Federal payroll, are now private entrepreneurs using world-class skills in chaos theory to predict the rise and fall of stocks and bonds. Some Win, Some Hunker Down "We have something that wins," J. Doyne Farmer, 39 years old, a company founder and theoretical physicist, said with an easy smile, his computer screen alive with numbers.

Congress voted overwhelmingly today to extend unemployment benefits for two million jobless people for 13 more weeks, agreeing on an issue that inspired bitter debate much of last year. President Bush has promised to sign the bill quickly. The quick and nearly simultaneous actions of the House and the Senate demonstrate that the White House and Congressional Republicans want to avoid being portrayed as insensitive to the needs of those who have been hard hit by the recession in an election year.

Lifted by an active stock market that generated commissions for its brokerage subsidiary and buoyed by lower operating costs in its retail operations, Sears, Roebuck & Company yesterday reported sharply higher earnings for the fourth quarter and full year. Earnings for the fourth quarter, which ended Dec. 31, jumped 35.5 percent, to $513.1 million, from $378.8 million in the period a year earlier. In the fourth quarter of 1990, income had been reduced by a pretax charge of $264.4 million to pay for the costs of laying off more than 33,000 employees and consolidating some operations.

Attica Trial Jury Gives Mixed Verdict A Federal jury found a former Attica deputy warden liable on two civil claims of having overseen brutal reprisals against inmates. But it rejected claims that the former Corrections Commissioner, Russell G. Oswald, failed to provide adequate medical care to inmates. Page B1. Venezuela Repulses Coup Soldiers repulsed an attack by rebel troops and tanks on the presidential palace. A leading paper said 70 were killed and 300 arrested. Page A10. U.S. to Ease Haiti Embargo The Bush Administration said it would modify its embargo against Haiti's Government to ease the plight of workers made jobless. Page A8. Whistle-Blower's Fate The Government found that a technician at a nuclear plant was told to sit in a room filled with toxic chemicals and do useless work. Page A16. Sumo Movie Canceled Sony Pictures canceled the filming of "Hell Camp," a comedy about Americans in Japan, after the Sumo Association refused to cooperate. Page C15.