April 14, 1992

A 25-year-old paroled rapist who had been in prison since he was 14 was charged today with five murders and four rapes in East Orange and Newark that the authorities said began in December, less than a month after his release. The suspect, Jerome Dennis, was arrested Sunday morning before dawn at his home in East Orange. He was formally charged today, two days after law-enforcement agencies formed a task force to investigate the deaths of several women whose bodies were found in desolate parts of East Orange in the last eight months. Three bodies, including the most recent victim, a high school girl, were found on Friday within a block of each other. A fourth was found Saturday afternoon.

Milton A. Ellison is considered a walking public health threat. A 34-year-old homeless man from New York City with tuberculosis, Mr. Ellison has repeatedly failed to take the medicine that he needs. So last month health officials took a step that they said was the only way to protect Mr. Ellison and the people around him: They detained him in Orange County and took him to a hospital where he was guarded by sheriff's deputies and shackled by wrist and ankle to his bed.

The Ford Motor Company announced a $3 billion investment in new machinery and plant space today, some of which will be used to build a new mini-van in late 1993. When auto sales were brisk in the 1980's, Ford was tightly constrained by too little production capacity, and today's announcement is a step to correct that problem. The No. 2 auto maker's actions will affect a number of plants in the United States and Canada and should result in 1,300 new jobs at Ford's truck plant in Louisville, Ky., a spokesman said. Before the recession, Ford's hourly employees typically worked a great deal of overtime to meet demand for vehicles.

President Boris N. Yeltsin's entire Cabinet formally offered to resign today unless an unexpectedly aggressive Parliament halted efforts to scale back the Government's program of economic reform. Any such dilution of the Russian President's program could lead the West to reconsider its offer of billions of dollars in assistance and jeopardize Mr. Yeltsin's plans for economic recovery. Yegor T. Gaidar, the Deputy Prime Minister and chief architect of the economic reforms, said the Cabinet had submitted its resignation en masse, reflecting a growing power struggle between Mr. Yeltsin and the Congress of People's Deputies, the highest legislative authority in Russia. Keep Working, Yeltsin Says Mr. Gaidar said Mr. Yeltsin had asked his ministers to continue working until the end of the Congress session in the next few days, when he will decide whether to accept their resignations. Their action was in protest against a resolution adopted by the Congress on Saturday ordering Mr. Yeltsin to relinquish the post of Prime Minister and to name a new Government within three months, as well as to make broad changes in the economic program, which came under sharp criticism.

TAKING a tip from carpet layers and tire designers, a number of eminent seismologists are challenging the basic theory of how earthquake faults behave. While many experts remain unconvinced, the new ideas are expected to provoke heated controversy because they reject much of what lies behind modern earthquake prediction.