April 17, 1992

Since its incorporation in 1865, the New York City Fire Department has nurtured a tradition-bound and exclusionary culture -- where men, almost all of them white, live together in cramped quarters, where they work as a team under adverse conditions, where father hands the job down to son as an artisan passes along a craft. And even as the police and other municipal bureaucracies have made measured progress toward diversifying their ranks, the Fire Department has stubbornly resisted changing with the city around it. The few minorities and even fewer women who have broken in say they still find themselves isolated in their firehouses, the brunt of brutal pranks and innuendoes.

NEW RULES FOR PILOTS Breaking sharply with a policy that gives broad discretion to pilots, the Federal Aviation Administration intends to establish rules on when pilots can take off in snowy and icy weather. The rules come in reaction to the crash last month of a USAir jet at La Guardia Airport during a snowstorm. A1. NEW YORK CITY THE SOURCE OF THAT SMELL After years of community outrage and scientific confusion, New York City officials have finally identified the central source of the debilitating odors at Harlem's North River sewage plant: They come from beneath an eight-block concrete roof where acres of foul air collect until periodic gusts roll off the Hudson River and blow them onto land. A1. A PLAN TO ENCOURAGE GIVING Mayor Dinkins endorsed a change in tax policy intended to encourage companies to increase their contributions to museums, parks, libraries and other cultural institutions by millions of dollars. The change would allow companies to take credits against commercial rent taxes for some charitable contributions. B3. RESTORING SPENDING CUTS The Dinkins administration said it had found a way to restore $600 million in proposed spending cuts for school reconstruction and $220 million in cuts for low-income housing. B3. ASSAULT GUN LAW: MIXED RESULTS On the eve of the deadline for residents to sell or relinquish their assault rifles or else move them from the city, almost two-thirds of the guns are still unaccounted for, whether out of their owners' ignorance, procrastination or defiance. B3. The $21 million tunnel to nowhere. B2. Doctor indicted in illegal abortion. B2. REGION INSURANCE RISE FOR NEW JERSEY The State Insurance Commissioner approved an average 8 percent increase in health insurance premiums starting June 1 for nearly half a million individual subscribers of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Jersey. B5. A PROFILE OF NEW JERSEY New Jerseyans on the whole got richer, better educated, more diverse and more mobile during the prosperous 1980's, according to an economic and demographic portrait released by the Census Bureau and by the state. Yet despite the widespread benefits of the boom, which has since passed, the decade also had its losers: the number of young children living in poverty almost doubled between 1980 and 1990. B5. THE LAST, BEST HOPE Six months ago, trustees of the University of Bridgeport rejected an offer of aid from an affiliate of the Unification Church, saying they feared damage to the university's reputation and holding out hope that other aid might materialize. When trustees reversed themselves on Wednesday and decided to pursue an affiliation with the church group, one factor had changed: there was no longer any hope of another rescuer. News analysis, B5. Injured boy's family files suit in bus crash. B3. Releasing tax returns: ritual of the season. B2. Our Towns B4

An Italian court today convicted one of Italy's most powerful businessmen, Carlo de Benedetti, and 32 co-defendants on charges of fraud stemming from the sensational 1982 collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, once Italy's largest private bank. In a decision that stunned Italy, the court in Milan sentenced Mr. de Benedetti, chairman of Olivetti, the Turin-based computer giant, to six years and four months in jail. Lawyers said he would go to prison only if both an appeals court and the Supreme Court confirmed the verdict. The appeals process could last several years.

For the first time in more than a decade, transit officials are planning to reduce rush-hour service on a broad swath of New York City's subway lines because of sharply declining ridership. A total of 43 trains on 9 lines will be eliminated during the Manhattan-bound morning and outbound evening rush hours, transit officials said yesterday. Thirteen additional trains will be dropped from other routes or at other times.

I.B.M. announced a portable computer yesterday that is controlled with a pen, rather than with either a mouse pointing device or a keyboard. While it is not the first company to introduce a pen-based computer, the International Business Machines Corporation is entering the market more quickly than it has approached other new computing markets. Although its new machine, at six pounds, is slightly heavier than some of its competitors', the new market is just getting started, and I.B.M. is expected to play a significant role.