October 5, 1992

Remember those Giants who looked so sharp in the second half against the Dallas Cowboys and the entire game against the Chicago Bears? Maybe they were an illusion. Maybe the Giants are not a good team, an opinion some of their players now seem to hold. For the first half today, they looked good against the Raiders, hitting pass after pass and building a 10-0 lead. But in the second half, the Giants were outplayed by an 0-4 team, Mark Collins was outmaneuvered on two costly pass plays and the Raiders escaped with a 13-10 victory. Their winning points came midway through the fourth quarter on Jeff Jaeger's 54-yard field goal, the longest of his career.

Bond investors will be Fed-watching, Fed-listening and Fed-sniffing this week, trying to detect the Fed's presence in each of the market's jiggles and wiggles. So many strategists expect Federal Reserve policy makers to ease interest rates after they meet tomorrow that bonds are already priced as if the central bank had cut its rates. Even Friday's news that payrolls had fallen only half as much as expected left the credit market nearly flat after a sharp run-up on Thursday.

Congressional negotiators have agreed on a tax bill that offers more than $27 billion in tax breaks and investment incentives in the next five years, many of them meant to aid depressed cities, help the housing industry and encourage personal savings and industrial investment. The measure, which the conferees are expected to present to the House and Senate this week, puts President Bush in a political bind: should he sign or veto a bill that cuts some taxes and raises others, including some of each proposed by his Administration? To pay for the tax breaks and incentives, Congress raised dozens of taxes and curtailed some deductions, just the kind of approach that Mr. Bush has so often criticized Gov. Bill Clinton for approving. Bush Stance Hard to Predict Some provisions that increase taxes were proposed by Congress, like the limit on the deductibility of moving expenses for people changing jobs. Others were proposed by the Administration, like changes in quarterly tax payments by corporations and the self-employed.

President Bush, criticized by Democrats over his Iraq policies, accused Bill Clinton of trying to arrange loans to Baghdad. Mr. Clinton called the assertion "pathetic." Page A16.

NEW YORK CITY DIAL 'M' FOR MOVIES The nation's first video dialtone system, which will transmit cable television programming over telephone lines, is expected to go into service in three large apartment buildings in Manhattan early next year. The companies planning the yearlong test of the new system -- New York Telephone and Liberty Cable Television -- say it will let subscribers choose what they want to watch when they want to watch, rather than subjecting them to the rigid schedules of traditional broadcast channels, cable systems and pay-per-view movies. The companies say this would be possible with a device they call a "video jukebox," which will let viewers use a telephone line to dial an on-screen menu from which they can select programs. B3. ACCOUNTS OF CROWN HEIGHTS In two weeks of sometimes chilling testimony in Supreme Court in Brooklyn, seven police officers, one sergeant and two detectives have each described a slightly different moment during the chaotic night in Crown Heights when Yankel Rosenbaum, a visiting rabbinical scholar, was stabbed to death. But almost all of the witnesses said they heard Mr. Rosenbaum, who was lying bleeding on a car, identify the defendant, Lemrick Nelson Jr., as his assailant. Page B3.