September 26, 1992

The United States has obtained reliable information that "as many as 3,000" Muslim men, women and children were killed in May and June at Serbian-run detention camps near the Bosnian town of Brcko, several senior Administration officials said today. Reports of mass killings in Bosnia have been circulating since July, but Administration officials said that this was the first time that they had developed independent information corroborating such reports.

Gregory Kingsley, the determined 12-year-old boy who went to court to change his parents, realized his goal today when a juvenile court judge here ended the parental rights of his natural mother and allowed the boy's foster parents to adopt him. The ruling by Thomas S. Kirk, a state circuit court judge, is believed to be the first time in which family rights were ended based on a legal action brought by a child.

At a time when the debate over gay rights looms large in national politics, Gov. Pete Wilson signed into law today a measure that protects homosexuals against job discrimination. The action by the Republican Governor, a year after he vetoed a similar bill, comes while other prominent Republicans are casting homosexuals as enemies of traditional family values. In the current climate, gay groups up and down the state were braced for another veto from Mr. Wilson and had mobilized for demonstrations this weekend, which will now be recast as celebrations.

If you smile at patients, help them read their charts, let them sleep all night without waking them up for tests, provide a kitchen where they can make a sandwich or brew a cup of tea -- in other words, if you treat each patient like a person rather than an illness -- will they get better faster? That is the question behind a $2 million experiment being conducted on the sixth floor of Beth Israel Medical Center at 16th Street and First Avenue. An entire hospital floor has been completely renovated so it looks warm and welcoming to patients with every variety of illness, and a staff of 54 is being retrained to make hospital stays more comfortable and less stressful.

Responding to broad hints that Ross Perot will soon re-enter the Presidential race, President Bush and Gov. Bill Clinton said yesterday that they would send emissaries to Dallas on Monday to talk to the Texas billionaire's followers. Each group of emissaries will try to convince the gathering that its candidate is the better alternative to a Perot candidacy. Officials from both the Republican and Democratic campaigns said they had accepted an invitation from Mr. Perot to address a gathering on Monday of state leaders of United We Stand, America, the organization Mr. Perot set up and financed after he quit the Presidential contest on July 16. Mr. Perot will also attend the meetings.