August 9, 1993

THE YEAR OF THE WOMAN LAWYER With few celebrated male lawyers around, a triumphal appearance by Justice-to-be Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the bar group's first woman president now on the horizon, the American Bar Association convention in New York City has been an affair to remember for women. And Janet Reno, the first woman to head the Justice Department, has been the undeniable star of the proceedings. B10. NEW YORK CITY ANGRY SHOUTS FROM STATEN ISLAND The Staten Island secession movement, once dismissed as pointless grousing from a borough angered by its diminished role in city government, has grown in recent years into a powerful shout of resentment and distress that will go to a vote Nov. 2. Even die-hard supporters of secession do not think the proposal would make it through the gantlet in Albany. Yet successful or not, the movement has already sent a disturbing message to City Hall. A1. MAN ARRESTED IN BOMBING OF FIRE TRUCK A man who the police say firebombed a fire truck in Washington Heights in July, injuring three firefighters during a night of unrest, was arrested in the Dominican Republic and brought back to New York City, the police said. The suspect, Jesus Corporan, 20, was charged with three counts of attempted murder, first-degree arson, first-degree riot and related charges in the attack. B3. A CHRONICLER OF BLEAK TRUTHS In the filthy streets around Westchester Avenue in the South Bronx, where most people find only despair, Abraham Rodriguez Jr. found material for his first novel, published in June by Hyperion, a Walt Disney company, with an 18,000-copy first printing, large for a new author. The story of a runner named Miguel who is trying to break free from his posse, the novel was recently purchased by Columbia Pictures for $350,000. And already Puerto Rican authors and advocates are praising and condemning him for showing Hispanic people at their best and worst. B3. LOOKING BACK, LINDSAY SENDS WARNINGS John V. Lindsay, 71 years old and suffering the effects of a stroke that has impeded his speech, has completed the first draft of a book manuscript and left New York City for a vacation, lamenting a lack of leadership in a government that has grown even more complex since he gathered up his shattered lances and left Gracie Mansion two decades ago. Metro Matters. B3. MAN KILLED IN FIRE IN SUBWAY BOOTH A fire swept through a subway dispatcher's booth in the Church Avenue station in Brooklyn, killing an unidentified man inside and disrupting service on the F line for several hours, the authorities said. The fire broke out inside the booth after drums containing cleaning material apparently exploded, a spokesman for the transit police said. B3. REGION RABIES DEATH STILL A MYSTERY Richard and Margaret Ahrendt buried their 11-year-old daughter, Kelly Anne, almost a month ago in a small cemetery near their home in Bloomingburg in Sullivan County, N.Y. The grief of this quiet family of eight at Kelly's death from rabies is made all the more painful because the family cannot explain how she contracted the disease. Her death was the first from rabies in New York since 1954, health officials said. B4. RECYCLING AND THEN CYCLING For many children in Ithaca, N.Y., the price of a brand-new bicycle is just too high. But in a makeshift workshop supported by the city and community groups, they can get their wheels by working. Since 1990, an organization called Recycle Ithaca's Bicycles has collected unwanted bikes, matched them to prospective owners and, after teaching the young people some rudimentary cycle repair, watched with satisfaction as bicycles were overhauled and returned to the streets. B4. CHANGE WORRIES KODAK'S HOMETOWN After more than a century of basking in the generosity of the Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester is facing a future where the cozy relationship of company and community will be challenged by the more tightfisted values of Wall Street. D1. Chronicle B2

The Economy Low interest rates are leading an increasing number of homeowners to refinance their houses -- not to reduce their payments but to pay off their debt faster, thus building equity and cutting anticipated interest costs by thousands of dollars. [ Page A1. ] Aggressive tax planning is expected to make a comeback in the wake of the Clinton budget plan's passage, especially for well-to-do taxpayers. "There is going to be virtually nobody out there who can do their own taxes," a planner said. [ D1. ] Many investors may find the budget plan will be costly to them, even if they aren't making a lot of money. The value of some municipal and corporate bonds may go down, and investing in bankrupt companies will become even more hazardous. [ D1. ] Companies The generous role of Eastman Kodak in metropolitan Rochester is facing a future in which the cozy relationship of company and community will be challenged by the tight-fisted values of Wall Street. [ D1. ] Federated Department Stores' swift retaliation against Roger N. Farah, the chairman of its merchandising office who planned to leave the company to take a senior position at R. H. Macy, caught retailers by surprise. Federated sued the executive, saying his contract prevented him from working for a competitor for two years after the contract's expiration on June 30, 1994. [ D1. ] Volkswagen admitted that former G.M. employees who defected had destroyed documents belonging to the American auto maker, after severing their ties to it. But VW insisted that neither it nor its employees had been in possession of G.M. trade secrets. [ D2. ] Supermarkets General faces neighborhood opposition as it plans to build a Pathmark megastore in Queens. [ B1. ] International Rising costs of European welfare programs for the disabled, elderly and unemployed threaten the economic future. [ A1. ] The Media Business CBS is battling its affiliates over whether they will carry the new David Letterman show. Some CBS stations have balked because they can make more money by broadcasting syndicated shows or reruns. Bill Carter: Television. [ D1. ] Television stations are increasingly using cash prizes to lure viewers to local news programs. But some broadcasters question whether giveaways are appropriate. [ D10. ] Three leading publications for lawyers are finding that, while the profession is in profound transition, their business is good. [ D10. ] The issue of corrections in the press grew more complex as an influential national legal body proposed a new law aimed at encouraging corrections and limiting libel suits. [ D10. ] A proposal to auction off part of the nation's airwaves for the first time is contained in the tax bill passed by Congress. Such sales may fetch far more than even the $10 billion the Government is conservatively estimating. [ D11. ] The governing body for United States tennis is trying to polish its image. Stuart Elliott: Advertising. [ D11. ] Today's Columns Investors appear eager for this week's 30-year bond auction by the Treasury. Jonathan Fuerbringer: Credit Markets. [ D9. ] A small company gets a big patent covering financial transactions from home computers. Teresa Riordan: Patents. [ D2. ] McKesson emerges as a hot company in the pharmaceutical business. The reason: its PCS unit's growing role in the booming discount drug field. Market Place. [ D8. ]

After more than a century of basking in the generosity of the Eastman Kodak Company, this metropolitan region of 700,000 people near Lake Ontario -- one of the nations' largest centers of manufacturing and exports -- is facing a future where the cozy relationship of company and community will be challenged by the more tight-fisted values of Wall Street. On Friday, Kodak's board announced that it had ousted the chief executive, Kay R. Whitmore, a 35-year employee, and said it was planning to bring in an outsider to run the company. The news came as a shock to community leaders and residents. It also raised questions here about the future of the region's largest and perhaps most paternalistic employer and longtime community benefactor.

The distance between SoHo and Staten Island is a short hike and a 50-cent ferry ride, but for Daniel Singletary, a New York artist who has lived on Staten Island for more than 20 years, the mental gap is meaner than the flooded Mississippi. "I don't know how long I've been going in to the Manhattan art world but I'm still considered the Staten Island redneck artist," he said. It rankles. So, like a growing number of his neighbors, Mr. Singletary wants to get out of town without ever leaving home: he wants Staten Island to secede.

The battle of the budget now behind them, President Clinton and his advisers are turning to overhauling the health care system, hoping to complete their plan within six weeks and begin an intensive public campaign for the idea of secure and universal health insurance. White House aides and Democratic strategists in Congress say they have learned valuable lessons from the exhausting struggle over the President's economic plan. Still wincing from the Republicans' success at casting the plan as old-style taxing and spending, these Democrats say the drive for health care legislation must be more bipartisan. And from the start, they argue, it must be sold to the public far more aggressively.