October 30, 1992

A black teen-ager portrayed by his lawyer as "a sacrificial lamb" in a city afflicted with racial hatreds was acquitted of all charges yesterday in the killing of a Hasidic scholar from Australia during three nights of violence in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in the summer of 1991. The verdict spawned anger and dismay in the Hasidic Jewish community, and there were scattered clashes between blacks and Jews in Crown Heights last night, with rocks, bottles and some punches thrown. But the police intervened swiftly to separate the combatants and fears of widespread violence were not borne out.

The region is shifting to a gasoline formulated to reduce air pollution. As a result, by Sunday, motorists in New York City and its suburbs, all New Jersey and southern Connecticut may be paying slightly more for gasoline that may not perform quite as well as usual. Under the 1990 Clean Air Act, Nov. 1 is the deadline for the mandatory introduction of "oxygenated" gasoline, which includes additives derived from natural gas or grain alcohol that increase the oxygen content of the fuel. That causes more complete combustion in the engine and reduces the carbon monoxide released through the tailpipe. For months, all gasoline legally sold will have to have these ingredients.

The British Petroleum Company provided estimates today indicating that the huge Colombian oilfield it had been exploring was definitely one of the largest ever discovered in South America. But even with at least 1.5 billion barrels of potential oil reserves, the Cusiana oilfield was not large enough for Wall Street. Many investors had been betting on a field as big as 10 billion barrels, or equal to the 1968 discovery in Alaska's Prudhoe Bay.

In the year of "ethnic cleansing," there is little in this mountain town that is not chillingly familiar. Stores and restaurants still burn on the main street, three days after notices were posted on lampposts and shattered storefronts ordering the pillaging halted. Along forest roads leading from the town, terrified Muslim refugees hasten away with pitiful bundles of belongings.

Brandon Tartikoff, who joined the movie business only 15 months ago after an extraordinary reign at NBC, unexpectedly resigned today as chairman of Paramount Pictures. Mr. Tartikoff, 43 years old, announced his decision to senior Paramount executives, citing his obligations to his 9-year-old daughter, who is slowly recovering from severe head injuries she received in a jeep accident on Jan. 1, 1991.