August 5, 1994

When George E. Pataki was an undergraduate at Yale in the mid-1960's, the college's Political Union sponsored a debate on whether outside agitators did more harm than good in the civil-rights movement. On the left was the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., the university's chaplain and a prominent civil-rights advocate. On the right was William F. Buckley Jr., the darling of Yale's Conservative Party, which was led by Mr. Pataki. But when it came time for the students to rise and cast their votes, Mr. Pataki did not stand for Mr. Buckley. "I just couldn't vote with him," Mr. Pataki explained. "I happened to think that we needed the civil-rights crusades and the demonstrators to break down the state barriers to equality. All the liberals gave me a standing ovation."

METRO DIGEST SNIPER ON LONG ISLAND STRIKES 3D TIME A night-stalking Long Island sniper who apparently selects victims at random and fires through the windows of businesses struck for the third time in 12 days, critically wounding a waitress in Stony Brook. A1.

House leaders today put off a vote on national health insurance until Aug. 19, a one-week delay that is likely to give nervous representatives time to see how the Senate votes before they have to stick out their own necks on the politically dangerous issue of requiring employers to insure their workers. Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate insisted that they were not basing decisions on what was going on in the other chamber. The reason given for the House postponement was the time it was taking legislative draftsmen and the Congressional Budget Office to process various alternatives. But Democratic lieutenants made it clear that the delay would bring sighs of relief in the House.

THE world of horse racing can be harsh, even seamy, sometimes. Aqueduct in Queens on a freezing winter day, for example, is not a sight to gladden the heart, and the sound of grown men banging on trash cans and cursing as their long-shot play fails does not please the ear. The horses still look noble, but there's not much else to prop up the image of thoroughbred racing as the sport of kings. When the wind off Jamaica Bay howls down the back stretch, there's only one thing to do: dream of Saratoga. The annual summer meeting at Saratoga Springs, N.Y., now in its 126th year, is horse racing's Garden of Eden: five weeks of top-quality racing presented in ideal surroundings, and wrapped in the festive atmosphere of a county fair. Money is wagered, of course. But for a brief, idyllic interlude, finer feelings come to the fore.

It was a scene made for a B movie. Early yesterday morning, a truckload of 24 million honeybees bound for Florida crash-landed in New York instead when their flatbed trailer overturned on a highway near Tarrytown.