October 14, 1993

About 300 Somalis are believed to have been killed in the street fighting in Mogadishu on Oct. 3, and hundreds of those treated in hospitals were women and children, military and relief officials say.

Gov. Mario M. Cuomo of New York is already feeling the pinch of the move on Wall Street to stop political contributions aimed at winning bond-selling business. Invitations to be on the committee for his Victory 1994 dinner on Dec. 1 were being opened on Wall Street just as 11 major firms last week announced a moratorium on contributions. "I guess I'll have to turn this down," said one top executive at a major firm.

A Merger of Giants Bell Atlantic and Tele-Communications announced details of their proposed $33 billion merger, offering a majestic vision of how telecommunications might transform the home. [ Page D11. ] The merger suggests a method of navigating the "information superhighway," with a box on top of each television combining diverse streams of data. [ A1. ] John Malone and Raymond Smith come from opposite directions, but they have much in common, including a vision. [ D11. ]

The Bell Atlantic Corporation and Tele-Communications Inc. announced the biggest media merger in history yesterday, a deal offering perhaps the clearest evidence yet that American industry is serious about building the vaunted "information superhighway" of the future. In announcing the $33 billion deal, the cable industry entrepreneur John C. Malone held out the vision of a single powerful box on top of each home television set that would combine the diverse streams of information that now flow separately into the home: telephone calls, television shows, video rentals, newspapers and even books.

4 Share Nobel Prizes In Physics and Chemistry An American and a Canadian won the chemistry prize for developing new techniques in genetics. Two Americans won the physics prize for their investigation of gravitational forces exerted by dense stars. Page A6. Training the Dispossessed The Administration proposed a $100 million program to retrain Americans left jobless by the North American Free Trade Agreement. Page B8. Israel Admits Sales to Beijing Prime Minister Rabin acknowledged that Israel had sold arms to China, but insisted that the sales did not violate American laws. Page A3. Gun Control in Utah In Utah, violence among youth gangs has caused residents to favor what was long considered unpatriotic: gun control. Page A16.