January 18, 1994

Governor-elect Christine Todd Whitman has nominated a Cabinet whose members will bring a wide range of backgrounds to their new positions. Raw political experience is not noticeable among them. In contrast to her predecessor, Jim Florio, Mrs. Whitman, who takes office tomorrow, seems to have spent more time studying the professional resumes of her recruits than their political pedigrees. Nowhere in her Cabinet can be found the core group of party politicians that Mr. Florio brought down the hall from the Legislature to his Cabinet room.

Ventura Boulevard, the main thoroughfare through the devastated San Fernando Valley, was ghostly this morning, its shops a shambles, its sidewalks littered with broken glass, its traffic signals out and its automatic teller machines useless. But the stillness was misleading.

By ELIZABETH KOLBERT Erik Pearson heard a loud explosion and felt a jolt like a bomb. Still on their bed, he and his wife then fell 12 feet through the ceiling of the apartment below. "We were airborne," said Mr. Pearson, a 27-year-old nursing student. "I heard the glass break from the glass sliding doors. Our apartment came down and pitched diagonally." The door was jammed shut, the couple said, but they climbed down to safety off their once third-floor, now second-floor, balcony.

After months of fruitless trade negotiations with the Japanese Government, the Clinton Administration is taking a new tack. It has begun to talk directly to Japanese companies, urging them to buy more foreign products and take other actions on their own to reduce Japan's huge trade surplus. The direct appeal to the companies is partly an effort to circumvent Japan's bureaucrats, whom American officials accuse of being recalcitrant and responsible for the current stalemate in negotiations under a new framework for trade talks agreed to by the two nations in July.

SNOW CUTS A WIDE SWATH Up to 30 inches of snow piled up on a layer of ice and brought parts of the Ohio Valley sliding to a halt, with National Guardsmen mobilized and major highways shut down. B8. NEW YORK CITY 'DISCIPLINE' REMARK BRINGS ANGER Mayor Giuliani, in the midst of an effort to improve his relations with black New Yorkers, was criticized by black elected officials who complained that Mr. Giuliani's comments on Sunday about Representative Charles B. Rangel and black officials reflected racial insensitivity. B3. Excerpts from Mr. Giuliani's speech yesterday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. B3. BACK TO THE ONE-ROOM SCHOOL In a two-story brick house in the Wakefield section of the Bronx, Bridget Carruth teaches a houseful of children every day, running a modern, urban version of the one-size-fits-all schools that once dotted the American prairie. Ms. Carruth, whose school has 14 students, is one of a small but growing number of teachers who have left large urban school systems to open home-based schools. B3. REGION GRUMMAN PLANS TO LAY OFF 800 Grumman Corporation, the largest employer on Long Island, plans to lay off 800 employees over the next two years and move all its manufacturing operations off the Island by the end of 1995, company officials said. B6. ANTICRIME LEGISLATION CONSIDERED The Legislature met, in a session ordered by Governor Cuomo, to consider laws against gun violence. B4. CUOMO NAMES CAMPAIGN MANAGER Governor Cuomo has named a veteran political aide, John A. Marino, to manage his 1994 re-election campaign, Mr. Marino said. B4. FROM THEATER TO NIGHTCLUB TO COURT For almost 17 years, the Darien Dinner Theater was a major attraction in Fairfield County, a place where Connecticut suburbanites could enjoy a Broadway-style show without trekking into Manhattan. But those days are over. B5. REDUCTION OF CASINO PANEL IS URGED State Senator William L. Gormley said he would introduce legislation this month to eliminate two of the five members of the commission that regulates Atlantic City's 12 casinos. B6. YONKERS LOOKS TO ITS RIVERFRONT By early in the next century, city officials hope, the downtown portion of Yonkers's 4.5-mile Hudson River shoreline will be transformed into a lively strand bustling with sightseeing ships, canoes, a public marina and shops. B6. THE HEIR AT WHITMAN'S SIDE For Malcolm S. Forbes Jr., Christine Todd Whitman's victory in New Jersey was proof that the tax-cutting ideology he has championed outlives the end of the 1980's. B7. Neediest Cases B2 Chronicle B5 Our Towns by Evelyn Nieves B6

The earthquake that struck Los Angeles before dawn today crippled crucial freeways, raising the prospect that the American city most defined by its cars and interlocking highways would be gripped by traffic chaos for months. The city's freeways and highways, mostly built since World War II, soar and wind like roller coasters, often resting atop columns as they crisscross one another. The buckling and collapse today of three heavily traveled elevated portions raised the prospect of at least partial paralysis for a city where the automobile is seen as intrinsic to the region's life.

Woodward & Lothrop Holdings Inc., the parent company for two venerable retailers in the Washington and Philadelphia areas, said yesterday that it had filed for protection from its creditors under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code and had reshuffled top management. Joining in the filing, which was entered in United States Bankruptcy Court in New York, are John Wanamaker Inc., the Philadelphia-based retailer that is a Woodward & Lothrop subsidiary, and Woodward & Lothrop Inc., the retailer that has catered to Washington customers for more than a century.

SOUTH of Chichen Itza, the spectacular Maya ruins in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico familiar to archeologists and tourists, lies the plain of Yaxuna. Dark mounds of stone rubble rise out of the fields of corn like islands in an archipelago. Excavations at these mounds have now revealed scenes out of the past that are both regal and macabre. Archeologists working at Yaxuna (pronounced YASH-oo-nah) last summer and fall discovered two tombs that over 16 centuries had somehow escaped the depredations of looters. These are the first undisturbed ancient tombs to be scientifically investigated in the Yucatan, and their contents are seen as striking evidence that the rule by kings so common in the Maya cities of the southern lowlands, in present-day Guatemala and Belize, extended to the northern lowlands -- and so did a pattern of ruinous conquest warfare.

IMAGINE that the body keeps a book of insults. Recorded there are injuries done to it by environmental agents, from noxious chemicals to intense sunlight. Now imagine that scientists might learn to read this record to discover which agent was the cause of a person's cancer, or which might be likely to lead to cancer in the future and how soon.

China and the United States reached an 11th-hour textile agreement today, averting a major trade clash about the $7.3 billion in Chinese textiles sold in the American market each year. The Clinton Administration on Jan. 6 had threatened to reduce Chinese textile imports by more than $1 billion unless a new agreement could be signed by today to stop gross overshipments and cheating by China.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani faced down boos and hecklers yesterday at a Brooklyn tribute to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and in a passionate address told the predominantly black audience, "For you to succeed, I have to succeed because we're in this together if this city is going to move forward." The moment that Howard Golden, the Brooklyn Borough President, introduced Mr. Giuliani to the 1,800 people gathered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, boos erupted. The heckling alternated with scattered applause as Mr. Giuliani spoke, forcing Mr. Golden at one point to chastise the audience and urge it to show the Mayor "a little common decency."

The Microsoft Corporation will supply portions of the basic software for controlling the new video game machine to be introduced late this year by Sega Enterprises, according to people familiar with the agreement. Microsoft, which dominates the market for personal computer operating system software, has been seeking to extend its reach by developing basic controlling software for hand-held information appliances, office equipment and advanced cable television systems. The agreement to contribute to an operating system for Sega, one of the top companies in the video game business, could represent a big stride beyond personal computing for Microsoft. Operating system software controls the inner workings of computers and computer-like devices.