October 25, 1993

Who could blame Todd Jancaitis for a little trepidation the other day as she embarked on her latest search for a quality used car? Years ago, shopping for a four-wheel-drive vehicle, she encountered a friendly saleswoman at one dealership, only to be steered toward station wagons. "She told me that's what I needed," said Mrs. Jancaitis, a mother of three. So much for female bonding. As for the salesmen who assisted her at other lots, she said: "They don't talk seriously to women buying a used car. They assume you have no money, no brains and no willpower."

Workers' compensation costs have soared in the region over the last decade, fueled by rising health-care costs, leaving the states struggling to cut spending on programs to compensate employees for work-related injury or disease. For example, while new claims in New York have not gone up appreciably in the past ten years, payments have tripled, and medical payments alone increased 30 percent from 1991 to 1992. The premiums for workers' compensation insurance, which businesses are required to carry, went up 14.4 percent in New York on Oct. 1. Connecticut cut costs in June by reducing insurance premiums 17.5 percent and lowering minimum benefits.

Irving M. Pollack, a father of modern securities regulation, is a judicious man steeped in the ways of Wall Street, so he is not about to come right out and reveal his deepest convictions about the Prudential Securities case. But given his life work as a Government crusader, it is perhaps safe to say that the allegations against Prudential turn his stomach. A visceral reaction to wrongdoing has long motivated Mr. Pollack, and it seemed to figure prominently in his decision last week to take a job that could prove fraught with frustrations: the administrator overseeing the settlement of the vast fraud charges against Prudential, which is accused of cheating hundreds of thousands of customers in the sale of more than $8 billion of limited energy partnerships in the 1980's.

Rather than let a rival walk away with its long-sought prize, Viacom Inc., the friendly suitor in the bidding war over Paramount Communications Inc., decided yesterday to match the competition. At meetings yesterday, Viacom and Paramount reached a revised merger agreement under which Viacom would pay $10 billion to buy the giant entertainment company, approving a package nearly identical to a hostile bid by QVC Network Inc., the television home-shopping service.

There comes a moment in the trial of four men in the bombing of the World Trade Center when worlds mingle and sometimes clash. The scene is this: A tall Federal agent with the standard-issue mustache and dark blue suit has been led through his testimony by a prosecutor (who, except for the mustache, looks quite a lot like the witness). The prepared testimony finished, the moment for improvisation arrives and Hassen Ibn Abdellah, a slim, agile man with a closely cropped beard, strides to the lawyer's podium and interrupts the smooth and cozy proceeding.