May 23, 1994

The Southwestern Bell Corporation has applied for permission to offer traditional telephone service in a suburban Washington market served by the Bell Atlantic Corporation, the first such attempt by one regional Bell company to compete directly against another. Although Southwestern Bell, based in San Antonio, has been competing in other Bell companies' markets with its cellular phone service for some time, it said Friday that it would modify the cable television system it owns in Montgomery County, Md., to offer local phone service in competition with Bell Atlantic.

As a sweeping international embargo took effect here today, Haiti's military leaders appeared to be resolved to ride out the sanctions, convinced that the United States would not mount an armed intervention to unseat them. The broadened embargo, pushed by a Clinton Administration that has been increasingly exasperated by the Haitian military, covers all trade with the country except for medicines and certain foods. A United Nations ban on shipments of fuel and arms has been in place since October.

Of all the things that went wrong during Amine Baba-Ali's journey through New York City's criminal courts, perhaps the most jarring was the performance of his court-appointed lawyer. The lawyer, J. Edward Cardoso, neglected to subpoena a crucial witness who could have refuted the charge that Mr. Baba-Ali raped his 4-year-old daughter. Mr. Baba-Ali said Mr. Cardoso rarely returned his calls. And the lawyer made little effort to recruit medical experts for the defense. He made a few telephone calls, court records show, but gave up after getting busy signals.

Federated Department Stores Inc. vowed yesterday to continue its quest for a merger with R. H. Macy & Company, even though it has been at least temporarily sidelined by a court decision that allows Macy alone to submit a plan for emerging from bankruptcy protection. Many people involved in the Macy talks said they were wondering why Federated stopped short last week, when it clearly had the upper hand in negotiations to produce a reorganization plan for Macy. At midweek, Federated was within tens of millions of dollars of obtaining enough support from creditors to win with its merger bid, but it balked at committing the extra money.

The Federal Government quietly adopted a much-debated standard last week for creating digital electronic signatures that cannot be forged, using a method developed by researchers at the National Security Agency that has been bitterly opposed by many computer companies. A digital signature allows one person to produce a specially encrypted number that anyone can later verify could only have been produced by that individual. Digital signatures are vital in the information age because they can authenticate electronic documents and insure that the documents have not been tampered with or altered.