February 17, 1992

The five main Democratic Presidential candidates met tonight in a bland and largely anticlimactic debate that focused on their common opposition to President Bush, rather than the differences among their own prescriptions for the national economy. Although it took place less than 48 hours before the New Hampshire primary, the first in the nation, and had thus been considered a potentially pivotal event, the encounter produced little fresh enlightenment for the voters of this state, tens of thousands of whom say they remain uncommitted.

By documenting that crack use is widespread among the homeless in New York City, a mayoral commission is betting that leveling with the public about just how bad the problem is will pay off in support for new programs to treat the addicted and to train unskilled young people who have turned to drugs. The commission's report, which is to be released later this week, is a blistering indictment of the way the city has spent $2 billion over the last decade to shelter the homeless without confronting the deeper social problems that enmesh them.

A number of magazines have died in the last year, including Connoisseur, New York Woman and American Film. Some of those magazines had well-heeled media companies behind them, but even they felt the odds of reaching profitability were too poor in the current recession. That may explain some of the attention being given to the start-ups of two magazines -- Worth, from the mutual-fund giant Fidelity Investments, and Smart Money, a joint venture of the Hearst Corporation and Dow Jones & Company. Indeed, since these publications have such prominent parents, and millions of dollars behind them, they are drawing quite a bit of attention.

Although bankers and investors expect great savings from recently announced bank mergers, two new studies confirm earlier findings that bank combinations do not tend to lower costs or raise profits. Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta concluded in a study published last week that "we have not found any evidence that mergers significantly lower expenses."

So far, the radical changes in Moscow have brought little more than added confusion and debt to the Suvorov Collective Farm. But the frozen soil has not exhausted its powers: in one hut, a villager celebrates the first publication of his verse. It is the heart of winter, and from the road Koltsovo looks at rest. Wisps of wood smoke curl from log houses haphazardly scattered on the white hillsides, calves bellow from a warm and pungent barn, and even the rusting equipment seems less desolate now, half-buried in the snow.