March 18, 1993

Consumer prices climbed a moderate three-tenths of 1 percent in February, the Labor Department said today, but "core" inflation rose an unnerving five-tenths of a percent for the second straight month. Many analysts considered the results, combined with last Friday's report of the biggest jump for producer prices in two years, fairly solid evidence that inflation was no longer on the wane.

IN John and Ann Hauberg's new house, a sleek, modern version of an Italian villa, all that glitters -- in the occasional rays of the elusive Seattle sun -- is not gold but glass, used in a myriad of inventive ways that include but hardly stop with windows and skylights. Here, glass doesn't just illuminate the architecture -- it is the architecture, used for pedestals, sinks, shelves, balcony rails and even mantelpieces. The glass is blown or cast; it comes clear or filled with tiny, carefully placed bubbles, flecked with 24-karat gold, or in brilliant shades of ruby, cobalt, amber or orange.

Helen Hayes, the tiny actress whose big-hearted portrayals of Queen Victoria and other regal women helped make her one of the century's best-loved stars, died yesterday at Nyack Hospital in Nyack, N.Y. She was 92 and lived in Nyack. The cause was heart failure, said John Springer, her longtime press agent and friend. Miss Hayes was admitted to the hospital on March 9 suffering from congestive heart failure and irregular heartbeat.

Gregory E. Herrick believes he is doing all he can to survive the costly war in prices and customer services that has roiled the personal computer industry since last June, forcing some of his competitors, namely Nippon Steel's Librex brand and Philips Electronics' Magnavox, to abandon the personal computer market in North America and changing the nature of the business for even the strongest. The Minneapolis-based company he heads, Zeos International, hired a new president, won applause from the trade press for three of several new machines, slashed costs by auctioning small operations and paring inventories, attracted new financing and opened gleaming new assembly lines.

In an effort to encourage voter registration, the Senate today passed legislation that would allow a person to register to vote when applying for a driver's license. The quick and relatively lopsided approval of the bill, by a vote of 62 to 37, belied the two angry weeks of partisan sniping that preceded it. Passage came only after the Senate's 57 Democrats conceded that they lacked the 60 votes needed to halt a Republican filibuster against the bill, and after they gave in to demands for small but politically important changes that must now be negotiated with the House before the bill can become law.