October 9, 1992

While critics have attacked the Bundesbank for adhering to a restrictive monetary policy, the German central bank has pushed down some interest rates in a shift that has helped stabilize global markets and may set the stage for broader rate cuts later. The German easing in money market rates has been under way for several weeks, but financial markets had until recently largely ignored the drop, hoping instead for a cut in the Bundesbank's key discount rate and Lombard rate, which is its ceiling on short-term borrowing rates.

THE star of new exhibitions observing the 500th anniversary of the first Columbus voyage to America is not the Admiral himself. It is that work of art and information so familiar as an instrument and record of the continuing discovery of the world: The map. This emphasis on maps may reflect the current fashion of toppling heroes from their pedestals. It could be a diplomatic evasion because so much about Columbus is in dispute, from his origins and motivations to his character and responsibility for the brutality against American Indians. But no one questions the historic import of his exploits. He changed the map of the world.

Amid intense speculation over a hostile bid from a rival European media group, trading in the shares of the troubled French communications giant Hachette S.A. was suspended today on the Paris Bourse. The suspension came with Hachette trading at 158.7 francs a share, or about $31.60, an increase of almost 12 percent over Wednesday's price and 34.5 percent above Monday's closing price of 118 francs. During the week, in a generally depressed market, 1.23 million Hachette shares, or about 6 percent of the company's stock, have changed hands.

Trying to end a grinding, unsatisfying session, the 102d Congress finished its main work today as the Senate passed bills dealing with taxes, energy, Western water resources and public health. After two years in which their public image was determined far more by scandals, confrontations and vetoes than by their legislative output, the lawmakers were trying to adjourn, finally, on Friday after sending President Bush a packet of popular bills.

"IT is those we live with and love and should know who elude us," Norman Maclean's father tells him in "A River Runs Through It," a mesmerizing family memoir fueled by sense of place, force of memory and love of nature. On the page and now on the screen, this tale of the author's youth in Montana is told obliquely, attempting to fathom a stern father and a reckless younger brother by capturing the vigorous masculine rituals they shared.