March 12, 1994

School officials at Monsignor Scanlan High School in the Bronx had 650 report cards to mail yesterday. So they did the obvious thing. They drove to the post office in Mount Vernon -- 20 minutes away in Westchester County. Although the United States Postal Service poetically proclaims that nothing stays its couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds, the Bronx has been plunged into a postal mystery in the last several months as residents and local officials report chronic problems with letters being misrouted or taking weeks to arrive at addresses in the city -- even between points within the Bronx.

Boston Irish Cancel Parade Hours after a gay group won the right to join the St. Patrick's Day parade, organizers canceled the march, a 92-year-old city tradition. Page 6. Mexican Political Breakout? The Mexican Government's negotiator for peace with the Zapatista rebels may challenge his own party by seeking the presidency. Page 2. Russian Navy to the Rescue The Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, scheduled to close in 1995, may get an unusual reprieve: new work dismantling Russian warships. Page 6.

A year ago, Terri Welk, a 37-year-old airline worker with a new bachelor's degree in the emerging field of computer-based information systems, sent out a single resume. After an interview two weeks later, she landed a job paying close to $40,000 a year. Behind these prosaic facts is an adventure story of one woman's escape from the trap doors and falling pillars of the economy of the 1990's. Mrs. Welk may not have struck gold, but she had seen disaster coming and stayed one step ahead. She is a winner in a world of work that for so many has become a world turned upside down. A Night School Route Working as a telephone operations manager for Trans World Airlines here in the late 1980's, she watched as the airline began reducing its work force and reorganizing its reservations business. "I started wondering how secure my job really was," she said.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher arrived in Beijing on Friday night to deliver a tough message to Chinese leaders on the country's human rights performance. The atmosphere was decidedly chilly, with each side keeping the other at arm's length and backing away from routine diplomatic niceties. China showed its disdain for American human rights concerns by continuing to round up dissidents.

The leader of the apartheid homeland of Bophuthatswana today bowed to a popular uprising and agreed to let his ostensibly independent domain take part in the first nonracial elections in South Africa. After the homeland leader, Lucas Mangope, ended his defiance, President F. W. de Klerk sent the South African Army into Bophuthatswana tonight to subdue rioting and to drive out thousands of gun-slinging whites who had come to defend this bastion of apartheid.