February 18, 1992

COLD WAR, HOCKEY STYLE The United States advanced to the hockey quarterfinals in a 3-3 tie, but the American coach was outraged after one of his players suffered a concussion when he was charged. VICTORY WITHOUT A MEDAL Mary Docter finished 17th in the 5,000-meter race, but the American speed-skater considers herself a winner because she remains sober. SportsTuesday, page B9.

AS much as puppies or pandas or even children, dolphins are universally beloved. They seem to cavort and frolic at the least provocation, their mouths are fixed in what looks like a state of perpetual merriment, and their behavior and enormous brains suggest an intelligence approaching that of humans -- or even, some might argue, surpassing it. Dolphins are turning out to be exceedingly clever, but not in the loving, utopian-socialist manner that sentimental Flipperophiles might have hoped. Researchers who have spent thousands of hours observing the behavior of bottlenose dolphins off the coast of Australia have discovered that the males form social alliances with one another that are far more sophisticated and devious than any seen in animals apart from human beings. They have found that one team of dolphins will recruit the help of another team of males to gang up against a third group, a sort of multi-tiered battleplan that scientists said requires considerable mental calculus to work out.

AS delegates from around the world meet at the United Nations today to try to avert the threat of global warming, the Bush Administration finds itself in the hot seat, but there are signs that it may be preparing to wiggle out. Negotiators from Europe and Japan are expected to continue putting pressure on the United States to agree that all industrialized countries should accept a limit on their emissions of carbon dioxide, the chief heat-trapping gas that scientists fear will bring on a possibly catastrophic warming of the earth's climate.

The New Hampshire primary contest rolled into its final, frantic hours today with candidates in both parties hanging on the whims, anxieties and passions of perhaps 265,000 voters. President Bush fought to stave off an embarrassingly strong showing by his conservative challenger, Patrick J. Buchanan. "Don't worry about trying to send some message," Mr. Bush said in an interview from the White House on WMUR-TV in Manchester tonight, reflecting the underlying concern of his campaign about this recession-racked state.

Hispanic factory and industrial workers in the United States get hurt on the job more often and more seriously than non-Hispanic white and black workers in similar jobs, according to state health officials, private research groups and the doctors who treat them. Most of the workers are immigrants and like immigrants historically, they take the hazardous, low-paying jobs that other Americans spurn. But studies in Illinois, California and New Jersey show that Hispanic workers, both legal and illegal immigrants, also have injury and illness rates that are two or three times higher than non-Hispanic white Americans who take the same jobs. Black workers suffer higher rates than whites, too, but lower rates than Hispanic workers.