December 24, 1993

The Economy Fresh evidence of an improving economy was reported by the Government. New orders for durable goods surged 2 percent in November, marking the longest streak of gains since 1987. The Commerce Department also reported that personal incomes rose 0.6 percent and personal spending grew 0.4 percent. [ Page D1. ] Sales of domestically built vehicles rose 31 percent in mid-December. Nearly every company that builds vehicles in North America sold more of them. [ D1. ]

After Denver malls received violent threats against their Santas, area children were invited to visit St. Nick at police stations. Page A12.

To the delight of lobbyists, the Internal Revenue Service proposed unusually simple regulations today to begin taxing lobbying expenses. But the agency postponed until next year the key issue of defining what lobbying is. At President Clinton's urging, Congress voted during the summer to eliminate the tax deductibility of lobbying. But trade associations and big corporations said that regulations putting the law into effect would force them to keep prohibitively detailed records.

In a case that addresses a problem facing towns and cities across the country, a Federal judge has ruled that 23 municipalities do not have to help pay to clean up toxic waste from two landfills in Connecticut. The ruling, if upheld on appeal, would be significant defeat for a strategy by corporations sued by the Environmental Protection Agency to draw other waste producers -- from towns and cities to small businesses and individuals -- into multimillion-dollar cleanup cases.

It was 4 P.M., well after the close of another New York City school day last week, and the squawking radios at the headquarters of the school safety force of the Board of Education had fallen silent. Gary Armstead, operations coordinator, was leafing through the day's reports on violence in schools across the city. Safety officers had rescued a student slashed in the head with a box cutter by a high school classmate, as well as an intermediate school teacher slugged in the face by a teen-ager. One officer had been injured breaking up a cafeteria brawl, and another had been shaken up when a student she was escorting to the dean's office punched her to the floor.