June 2, 1994

Girding for a challenge from newly unified Republicans, New York's Democrats smoothly blessed a ticketful of incumbents for re-election at their state convention today, beginning with unanimous endorsements of Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. But they could not mask undercurrents of apathy, anxiety and dissension -- or avoid contested primaries for Senator and State Attorney General.

For many West Indian women in New York, long-term separation from their children is a heartbreaking fact of immigrant life. And for some, like the Jamaican mother whose son was held for ransom by smugglers this week, it is just too much to bear. The arrest of five people in a Jamaican child-smuggling operation on Tuesday illuminates the desperate methods that some immigrants will employ to be reunited with their children.

After years of advising companies, countries and even professional sports on how to be more competitive, Michael E. Porter is turning to the outcasts of corporate America: the inner cities. Easily one of Harvard Business School's brainiest professors, he spent a day recently scampering over mud and construction debris, dodging plates of soul food and twirling sugar cane during a tour of businesses in some of Boston's toughest neighborhoods, which have been his classroom over the last two years.

NEW YORK DEMOCRATS BACK INCUMBENTS Girding for a challenge from newly unified Republicans, New York's Democrats smoothly blessed a ticketful of incumbents for re-election at their state convention, beginning with unanimous endorsements of Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. A1. CRIME RATE DROPS, HASTENING A TREND Reports of major crime in New York City dropped by 11 percent in the first five months of this year, according to preliminary police figures, accelerating the downward trend of the last few years. A1.

A computer scientist at AT&T Bell Laboratories has discovered a basic flaw in the technology that the Clinton Administration has been promoting as a way to allow law enforcement officials to eavesdrop on electronically scrambled telephone and computer conversations. Someone with sufficient computer skills can defeat the Government's technology by using it to encode messages so that not even the Government can crack them, according to the Bell Labs researcher, Matthew Blaze.