August 7, 1992

British Petroleum said yesterday that it would cut its dividend by 55 percent, take a pretax restructuring charge of $1.82 billion for the second quarter and lay off 11,500 employees, or 10 percent of its worldwide work force. The moves came five weeks after Robert B. Horton, B.P.'s chairman, resigned under pressure from the company's outside directors. Analysts anticipated a dividend cut by the oil company, the world's third largest, but the size of the cut was more severe than some had hoped. In response, shares of the company's American depository rights, each of which represents 12 shares of the London-based company, dropped $3.625, or 7.36 percent, to $45.375. It was the most active issue on the New York Stock Exchange, with 5.89 million shares traded.

Political Tactics and Attacks Back on the road, Bill Clinton and Al Gore have scrapped a political rule: that campaigning is all big events. In Colorado, President Bush made his strongest attack yet. Page A14. Abortion Rights Bill Deferred Congressional Democrats have all but given up on abortion-rights legislation that was sure to provoke a veto fight this year. Page A13.

REGION COULD GAIN MILLIONS FOR TRANSIT The New York region would receive hundreds of millions of dollars in Federal mass-transit subsidies, along with money to upgrade its rail systems, under the transportation bill now moving toward approval in Congress. Because of its heavy reliance on mass transit, the New York region stands to be one of the largest beneficiaries of this year's $33.8 billion bill. A1. NEW YORK CITY HOW BIG SHOULD A HIGH SCHOOL BE? Large high schools, with their sweat-scented, echoing gymnasiums and hallways chockablock with lockers, have long been part of the nation's mythology, the cheery locale of Archie and Veronica, Our Miss Brooks and the Fonz. But a rising chorus of American educators is arguing that they no longer work, particularly for youngsters growing up in a society of shattered families and a pervasive distrust of authority. News Analysis, B3. POLICE SERGEANT SHOOTS MUGGER An off-duty police sergeant, who was assaulted by three men at an automated teller machine early yesterday morning in mid-Manhattan, chased the men a block and half and shot one of them in the abdomen, the police said. B2. DELIVERY MAN HELD IN SLAYING A Staten Island delivery man was arrested yesterday in the murder of a student, and the police called the killing the culmination of his two-year obsession with the young woman, who, they said, he had lured on in the guise of a theatrical agent with rainbow promises of fame and fortune as she tried to realize her ambitions in acting and modeling. B3. REGION NEW JERSEY FINDS BIAS IN COURTS A task force set up to study the New Jersey judicial system has found widespread bias and a lack of opportunity for racial and ethnic minorities to work in the system or receive even-handed treatment from it. The task force said blacks were more likely to be arrested, less likely to be released on bail, and less likely to see members of their own race in the courtroom and jury box. B5. CLASSROOM TV GETS GO-AHEAD The New Jersey Education Commissioner has ruled that about 300 New Jersey schools can continue showing Channel One, a classroom television program that mixes news and commercials. But he warned that his decision does not give school boards "an unfettered right" to contract with commercial television companies and he said that school boards "must assiduously guard against the potential for abuse" of commercialism in a classroom setting. B4. JOBS FOR WELFARE RECIPIENTS Seeking to increase the ranks of people who must work for their welfare grants, New York State will begin creating thousands of temporary part-time jobs for single and childless welfare recipients next month. B5. RELATIVES LED POLICE TO SUSPECT In a story that could come out of a mystery novel, the critical breakthrough in the arrest of Nathaniel White, who has confessed to killing six women, came not from any of the four police departments that were investigating the slayings. Instead, the name of the suspect was first offered to the police by the mother and two sisters of one of the victims. B5. Our Towns by Charles Strum B5 Chronicle B4

The New York region would receive hundreds of millions of dollars in Federal mass-transit subsidies, along with money to upgrade its rail systems, under the transportation bill now moving toward approval in Congress. The bill, which passed the Senate on Wednesday and the House last month, now moves to a House-Senate conference committee. It exemplifies the radically new philosophy enshrined by Congress last year in giving states great leeway in spending Federal transportation dollars on mass transit. The New York region, because of its reliance on mass transit, stands to be one of the largest beneficiaries of this year's $33.8 billion transit appropriation bill.

TO teen-agers and members of the 20-something generation, Cheese isn't simply something that comes on top of a pizza or burger; it's an esthetic concept, what Camp was to an earlier generation in the 60's. Barry Manilow is Cheese. Pat Sajak is Cheese. Donny Osmond is Cheese. Lime-green shag carpeting is Cheese. Wide-bodied neckties are Cheese. Bill Murray's sleazy lounge-lizard impersonation is Cheese. Disco music is Cheese.