June 23, 1994

The U.S. shocked Colombia, 2-1, for its first World Cup victory since 1950. SportsThursday, page B9.

The Federal Communications Commission is close to completing a plan that would give small businesses, women and members of minority groups preferences worth hundreds of millions of dollars in bidding on new licenses for wireless telephone and data communications. The plan, to be adopted next week, would reserve nearly 1,000 radio licenses for small businesses in what commission officials call "entrepreneurs' blocks." In addition, companies owned by minorities or women would receive an array of bidding credits, or discounts, and flexible payment terms, which could shrink the cost of a wireless license by as much as half. A Mandate From Congress Agency officials say they plan to adopt the rules formally at a meeting next Wednesday, as part of the commission's broader program to begin auctioning more than 2,000 licenses for a new generation of wireless "personal communication services" in December. Each license authorizes a company to operate wireless services on a specific band of frequencies that cover a region somewhat larger than today's cellular telephone franchises.

THE best architecture and design that America has to offer: That was the mandate of officials at the American Center in Paris, a cultural institution in need of a modern building. For its new headquarters, which opened last month on the banks of the Seine, the center's board turned to Frank Gehry, the bemedaled guru of American deconstruction. But most of the interiors and all the furnishings went to a furniture designer who has been called a national treasure: John Hutton. John who?

WE were rustling roses in western New Jersey, headed for the Pennsylvania line. The women in the deli in Clinton had told us to check out the town cemetery, but when we saw the men spraying around the graves with weedkiller, we made a U-turn. "Too clean for us," said Stephen Scanniello, our gang leader, as he whipped the van onward to Easton.

Moderate Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee approached agreement today on a national health insurance plan that would require people to buy health insurance for themselves and not make employers buy it. If the three Republicans and five Democrats can agree among themselves, they said, they will present their plan to the 12 other members of the committee on Friday. They said they thought they could get enough votes to have the committee then send the measure to the full Senate.