July 22, 1994

Shenandoah sheep country. Stubbornly sweet, picturesque children's film. First hour best.

White House Talks Up Dollar The dollar surged after the Clinton Administration signaled that it did not want to see a lower dollar to pressure Japan on trade. Page D1. Argentines Protest Bombing As the death toll rose to 44, about 150,000 Argentines protested the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. Page A8. Power Problem on East Side After several cables failed, Con Edison turned off electricity to more than 20 apartment buildings on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Page B1. Support for Cable TV Bid Comcast gained crucial support in its bid for the QVC cable television channel from John C. Malone, a leading power in the cable industry. Page D1.

Companies Liberty Media will join Comcast in a $44 a share bid for QVC. The move will put John C. Malone, who wields significant power in the cable television industry, on Comcast's side. Although QVC's chairman, Barry Diller, said his company would consider the offer while seeking higher bids, analysts said they thought the Comcast-Liberty offer had a good chance of being approved. [ Page D1. ] The success of Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, a buyout firm that has made $4.3 billion in acquisitions since 1989, is testimony to at least one thing: Texans still like to do deals with Texans. [ D1. ]

President Clinton is seeking explicit United Nations authorization for any invasion to oust Haiti's military leaders, a decision likely to put any military action there on hold until late August at least, senior American officials said today. The decision reflects a sense of diminished urgency within the Administration now that the flood of refugees from Haiti has dwindled to a trickle, the officials said. They said it also reflects Mr. Clinton's uneasiness about taking unilateral military action even within the hemisphere unless he sees no alternative.

The Christian right, which has been the focus of an intense debate in the Republican Party, is a far more diverse group in terms of geography, politics and even religious doctrine than is generally suggested by either its critics or its most vocal proponents, the latest New York Times/ CBS News poll shows. Predictably, these Christians are more conservative on social issues like abortion and homosexuality than most Americans and even most Republicans. But from there, the caricature of Republican Southerners following a monolithic religious agenda breaks down.

When President Clinton announced last year that he had picked John H. Dalton to be Secretary of the Navy, he praised the nominee's "true leadership ability" as a Texas businessman. The resume made public by the White House was impressive: Naval Academy graduate with distinction, service in the Navy on two submarines, former head of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, executive for Stephens Inc., the influential Arkansas investment bank, and, for nearly five years in the 1980's, chief executive of the Freedom Capital Corporation.

I.B.M. surprised Wall Street yesterday with second-quarter earnings far in excess of analysts' estimates, attributing the gain primarily to cost reductions. It was was the third consecutive profitable quarter for I.B.M. after a long series of losses. I.B.M. shares were buoyed by the news, surging $6.50 to close at $62.375 on the New York Stock Exchange.

A hospital in Representative Dan Rostenkowski's neighborhood in Chicago is getting Federal aid for a $580 million construction project. Representative Charles B. Rangel has secured similar assistance for a hospital on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. And Representative Barbara B. Kennelly of Connecticut has obtained special dispensation for the Hartford Life Insurance Companies. Those are a few of the little-noticed provisions tucked into health care legislation for the benefit of specific hospitals, drug companies and insurance companies.

It took near disaster at Pirelli S.p.A., Italy's giant rubber company, to bring Marco Tronchetti Provera to the helm. Rapid expansion in Europe and the United States in the 1980's had spawned a mountain of debt, and by 1992, when Mr. Tronchetti took over as chief executive in the midst of recession, the company's anchor businesses of automobile tires and electrical cables were floundering. The success of Mr. Tronchetti, who is 46, in refloating Pirelli made him just about the most-talked-about man in Italian business, raised the company's sagging share price, and last year landed him on the cover of Fortune magazine's international edition as one of Europe's tough new generation of managers.

More high-level resignations are expected soon at Kidder, Peabody & Company, the troubled brokerage firm owned by the General Electric Company, people close to the two companies said yesterday. The resignations could come even before the findings of a three-month internal investigation into the Joseph Jett case are made public in a week or two. Mr. Jett was dismissed as head of the firm's government-bond trading desk in April and accused by the company of fabricating $350 million in profits with phony trades.

The first significant deliveries of food and medicine to treat cholera arrived yesterday in Goma, Zaire, as foreign governments and relief agencies worked to organize help for up to four million Rwandan refugees as they continued to flee at the rate of 2,000 an hour. In Goma, where more than a million refugees have gathered, the camps were filled with hundreds of bodies. Doctors Without Borders, a medical relief agency, has set up tents to begin treating thousands stricken with cholera. The group predicted as many as 50,000 cases, half of whom could die.

The Jordanian police said they had captured an American who the authorities in New Jersey say fled with his two young children after strangling his wife in Parsippany-Troy Hills. The arrest of the fugitive, Mohammad Ismail Abequa, 45, a native of Jordan, came after a weeklong manhunt ordered by King Hussein, a security official said. Mr. Abequa's children, Lisa, 6, and Sami, 3, are safe with one of Mr. Abequa's sisters, the police said.