December 13, 1993

When representatives of a dissident shareholder visited Edward A. Brennan, the chief executive of Sears, Roebuck in 1992 to lodge complaints, Mr. Brennan's instincts were to ask for time so he could do what shareholders were asking. When representatives of the same shareholder, Lens Inc., visited another chief executive, Anthony S. D'Amato, at Borden Inc.'s Park Avenue headquarters in September, also to complain, Mr. D'Amato simply told the unwelcome guests to shoo. If they really wanted to help, he said, they would go away, adding that they were "a distraction," according to two people who were present. Different Outcomes Today, Mr. Brennan still has his job and Mr. D'Amato is in need of a new one. On Thursday, Borden's directors removed Mr. D'Amato, replacing him with Ervin R. Shames, who had been named president and chief operating officer in June.

Less than six weeks before Gov. Mario M. Cuomo must propose next year's state budget, his administration is considering pressing the Legislature for the first increase in rent subsidies for welfare recipients since 1988. Both Michael J. Dowling, the State Social Services Commissioner, and JoAnn M. Smith, the Governor's deputy secretary for human services, have been spearheading discussions about the fiscal and political impact of an increase, said aides to Mr. Cuomo who insisted on anonymity. Neither has formally recommended an increase to the Governor.

Amy Federici, a 27-year-old corporate interior designer who was just widowed, today became the sixth person to die as a result of Tuesday's shooting on the Long Island Rail Road. Mrs. Federici, whose husband died of cancer just a year ago, only three months after they were married, died at 10:13 A.M. at Winthrop University Hospital here, a hospital spokesman said. Doctors said a single bullet wound to the neck had severely damaged her brain.

After more than a week of steady if uneven progress, world trade talks have run into a roadblock amid pronounced differences between the United States and France over the movie and entertainment business. Although trade officials reported progress on several issues in the negotiations among 116 nations, two meetings on Sunday between Mickey Kantor, the United States trade representative, and the European Community's chief trade official, Sir Leon Brittan, failed to resolve a deadlock over the export of American movies. This left the fate of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade talks uncertain with three days remaining until an agreed-upon Wednesday deadline.

The Thinking Machines Corporation, the supercomputer maker based in Cambridge, Mass., will sign a three-year $16 million contract today with the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington to deliver an upgrade to the lab's existing CM-5 supercomputer system. The Government research center will use the huge parallel-processing system to create more accurate weather forecasts, to research fluid dynamics in the building of aircraft and submarines, and to study ocean currents, said Danny Hillis, Thinking Machine's founding scientist.