April 2, 1993

New York State's multi-billion dollar budget agreement, hammered out early this morning, would increase aid to New York City schools, scale back proposed cuts in medical care for the poor, raise cigarette taxes and keep the city's bus, subway and commuter railroad fares intact until 1995. The deal, announced just after the midnight deadline and described by everyone involved as a "handshake" agreement, leaves many details unresolved, including the total spending for the next fiscal year, which began today. But for political reasons, it was critically important, particularly for Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, to declare that at least the broad outline was in place by April 1. [ News analysis, page B4. ]

METRO DIGEST NEW YORK CITY OVERWHELMING CHAOS IN SORTING HOMELESS A new evaluation process, part of New York City's first attempt to assess whether homeless families need more than a place to stay, is being pioneered at a center in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. But the process is unfamiliar to both workers and the people they are trying to serve, and the center is overwhelmed by chaos. A1. HOMELESS-POLICY SHOWDOWNS AVOIDED

In the Government's toughest single consumer-protection action in decades, the Federal Communications Commission today ordered sweeping cuts of cable television prices that could total well over $1 billion nationwide annually. The lower prices could show up in customer bills by this summer. The cuts, whose depth stunned some industry analysts, will force about two-thirds of the nation's cable systems to reduce their prices for most services by 10 percent. In addition, the agency ordered cable companies to reverse any price increases they imposed since Congress passed a law last fall to regulate the industry.

With all but one of the suspects in the World Trade Center bombing under arrest just five weeks after the attack, Federal prosecutors moved yesterday to begin trying the men charged in the massive explosion that killed 6 people and injured more than 1,000. Investigators meanwhile intensified an international search for Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the missing suspect who was first named on Wednesday in the bombing plot and who law-enforcement officials say played an important role.

THE contemporary vampire has a certain charm, a je ne sais quoi that comes only from being undead. Think of the irresistible passion of Gary Oldman in Francis Ford Coppola's recent "Bram Stoker's 'Dracula,' " or the smooth-talking manner of Frank Langella in the stage and screen versions of "Dracula" from the late 1970's. Even Bela Lugosi's classic count looked like nothing more than a 1930's Latin lover shipped to Transylvania. They are suave seducers, able to steal a woman's soul and body with a neat prick to the neck. (Female vampires have not been so successful on screen; "Innocent Blood," with Anne Parillaud as the vampire who seduced Pittsburgh, and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" were among last year's conspicuous flops.) Vampires have not always been so appealing. The first major movie Dracula, and still the one most capable of producing nightmares, appears in F. W. Murnau's 1922 silent film, "Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror." As Nosferatu (or the Undead), Max Schreck looks positively ratlike. He has a bald head, pointy ears, elongated hands with clawlike nails and two conspicuous fangs where his front teeth should be. His pasty-white coffin pallor hints at too many days out of the sun, and he walks stiff-armed and hunched over, like an animal not quite used to standing on his hind legs. This guy is no cutie face.