July 18, 1994

Mike Keenan, who abruptly quit as coach of the Rangers only Friday night, completed a stunning weekend of job-shopping and job-hopping last night when he joined the St. Louis Blues as coach and general manager. "This has come around very quickly," Keenan said. "I'm very fortunate to have this opportunity." Asked if he planned to fulfill the five years of his new contract, Keenan replied: "I hope so. I hope I'm here longer than that."

The Challenge in North Korea The biggest job facing the expected successor to power in North Korea will be to rescue the country's plummeting economy, and if he fails, the country could collapse. Page A3. Apollo 11, Reconsidered Many Americans remain proud of the effort that produced the first manned lunar mission 25 years ago, but their pride is tempered by mundane challenges as yet unconquered. Page A11. Price Wins British Open Sinking a 50-foot eagle putt on the 17th hole, Nick Price overcame Jesper Parnevik to win the 123d British Open with a 72-hole total of 268 at Turnberry. SportsMonday, C1.

Every three months, a 12-year-old from Long Island goes to a secret place in Manhattan to visit her mother. She tells friends that her mother is in Las Vegas, "dealing with her divorce." In fact, she is in the Bayview Correctional Facility serving a 3 1/2-to-7-year sentence for attempted sale of drugs. "I don't want the whole world to know, because I don't want anybody to judge me because of what my mother has done," said the girl, who lives with her maternal grandparents and a younger brother and sister.

Rather than reining in the Microsoft Corporation, the consent decree that the Justice Department announced over the weekend with Microsoft, the world's largest software publisher, frees the company to define the computer industry's ground rules through the rest of the decade. The agreement leaves untouched what many computer industry executives say is Microsoft's principal advantage -- that it develops both the basic operating-system software that makes personal computers run, known as MS-DOS, and applications software, like word-processing programs or spreadsheets, that perform specific tasks.

Being majority leader of the House is a fine job when a majority exists behind a bill. But building a majority is an entirely different experience, a painstaking exercise in ego stroking, family therapy, ideological fire-walking and endless nudging toward compromise among members passionately at odds. This is one of those moments for Representative Richard A. Gephardt, the man who must build a consensus for a health care bill in the next four weeks. His task is variously described as "herculean" and "almost undoable" by his colleagues; it is clearly not for the faint of heart or the short of temper.