August 12, 1994

The 10th International Conference on AIDS ended here today with no major breakthroughs reported and with the world's researchers still far from defeating the foremost new medical threat of the decade. Meanwhile, the epidemic marched on.

The Economy Producer prices rose one-half of a percentage point in July, the biggest increase in 15 months, while retail sales slowed slightly. But both overall figures masked changes in key sectors that give contradictory indications of whether the current economic expansion will lead to a sharp rise in inflation. [ Page D1. ] The Senate Commerce Committee approved a sweeping bill to rewrite the nation's 60-year-old communications law. But local phone companies threatened to oppose several provisions. [ D1. ]

IF the major-league players and owners don't agree on a contract, last night's games will turn out to be the end of the 1994 season. One by one, the lights will go out in stadiums across America. The bright beacon of Yankee Stadium will fade to black. Shea Stadium, admittedly a flickering beam this year, will be extinguished like a sputtering candle. And millions of fans will be left in the lurch. There's only one thing to say. Let's go, Pittsfield Mets! Come on, Albany-Colonie Yanks! PLAY BALL!

Clinton Sets Bosnia Deadline Seeking to forestall Congressional action, President Clinton pledged to seek an end to the arms embargo against Bosnia by late October if Serbs do not accept peace. Page A3. Congressman Is Indicted Representative Walter R. Tucker 3d, Democrat of California, was indicted by a Federal grand jury on charges of extortion and tax evasion. Page A12. Clinton's New Lawyer Man in the news: Judge Abner J. Mikva, the newly named White House counsel, is widely regarded as a pillar of official Washington. Page A15.

From President Clinton's point of view, the timing could hardly have been more wretched. Just when he needed to start building momentum for the forthcoming votes on health care legislation, just when his party needed a victory to give it a bit of a boost heading into this fall's elections, just when the White House staff needed to have its spirits restored after the blow it took last week with the change of Whitewater prosecutors, something else went wrong.

For months over the last year, Mirza Smailbegovic, a 4-year-old boy from Bosnia, lay in a bed at New York University Medical Center, as drugs dripped through a tube surgically implanted in his chest. Suffering from a rare and virulent form of cancer, the boy begged for his mother, who was trapped with his father by the fighting that raged around their village. But Mirza's story, which began so sadly, is ending most happily.

At noon yesterday, Phil Brandenberger of Philadelphia went shopping for a compact audio disk, paid for it with his credit card and made history. Moments later, the champagne corks were popping in a small two-story frame house in Nashua, N.H. There, a team of young cyberspace entrepreneurs celebrated what was apparently the first retail transaction on the Internet using a readily available version of powerful data encryption software designed to guarantee privacy.

With the two sides in baseball's labor dispute far apart and rigid in their positions, major league players went on strike after last night's games, shutting down the season with the eighth work stoppage in 23 seasons. The dispute, centering on the owners' demand to create cost control by putting a limit on player payrolls, was so severe that negotiators for the two sides didn't even bother to meet and barely spoke to each other yesterday.

The German authorities have discovered a second tiny sample of weapons-grade nuclear material that may have been smuggled out of Russia to interest foreign governments or terrorist groups that may want to build atomic bombs, the police said today. They said they had seized the material, 0.028 ounces of highly enriched uranium-235, in June in Landshut, Bavaria, and have since arrested five Czech and Slovak men and a German woman as suspects in what they surmise was an attempt to arrange the sale of a larger amount to someone who wanted to build a bomb.

Opposition to Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's plan to merge the housing police into the New York Police Department in October is mounting in the City Council, in Congress and among leaders of public housing residents, who are collecting petitions and threatening a rent strike to oppose the move. The Giuliani administration is taking the challenge so seriously that Police Commissioner William J. Bratton is planning to tour housing projects next week to calm public fears that a merger would bring inferior police protection to the one million New Yorkers who live in public housing.

The course of the House health care bill became more uncertain with debate being delayed and the unveiling of a rival bipartisan plan. Page A18.

In a startling defeat for the House Democratic leadership and an embarrassment for President Clinton, the House shelved the Administration's anti-crime bill on a procedural vote today. It was the third time in four years that a major crime bill was stifled or scaled back at the last minute. A move to bring the bill to the floor was defeated 225 to 210, with 58 Democrats going against their party and their President to derail the $30 billion package that contained a ban on the sale of 19 assault weapons. The assault-weapon ban was strenuously opposed by gun proponents, while death penalty provisions were opposed by liberals and blacks.