December 4, 1994

Voter approval of sanctions against illegal aliens in California is reshaping the nation's immigration debate, with movements forming in other states to push through similar propositions and leaders of the new Republican-dominated Congress planning early hearings on immigration-control legislation. The California measure, Proposition 187, which requires teachers and clinic doctors to deny help to undocumented aliens and then report them to the police, has also driven a deep ideological wedge into the conservative wing of the Republican Party.

FOR 11 years, Henry Hyatt assembled power generators for Allied Signal in New Jersey. A member of Local 417 of the International Union of Electrical Workers, Mr. Hyatt was a welder who worked on airplane parts at the company's Eatontown factory. Last winter, Mr. Hyatt, a 60-year-old Neptune resident, lost his job, and he has been attending school to learn to be a tractor-trailer driver so he can support his wife and pay his mortgage.

Alabama's perfect season, and a chance to win a second national championship in three years, came crashing down today in the din of the Georgia Dome, where the Florida Gators answered two haunting questions. Could they come from behind? Could they survive a struggle to the finish? At last, Florida's giddy, redemptive response was yes. The Gators outlasted the Crimson Tide, 24-23, in a Southeastern Conference championship game won by Chris Doering's 2-yard touchdown reception from the shaken quarterback Danny Wuerffel and preserved by Eddie Lake's interception of a Jay Barker pass with 51 seconds to play. Alabama, which had been tied or behind during the second half in 7 of its 11 victories this season, finally experienced an unsuccessful comeback effort.

The ambulance for the only public maternity hospital in this capital city of 2 million people sits rusting on cinder blocks in the parking lot, its tires long gone. Fetid sewage water surrounds the hospital, clumps of garbage bobbing through the thick green algae. The hospital grounds are littered with broken and abandoned equipment: a battered sterilizing drum, a pile of old tires, a gurney with two wheels, a rusty boiler. Inside the hospital, just one example of the overwhelming problems facing President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's new Government despite initial signs of hope, it does not get better. A half-dozen women, groaning and crying as they begin to go into labor, lie on a hallway floor because the beds are filled.

The enormous global trade agreement approved by Congress this week does not mean an end to trade conflicts, economists and Administration officials say, much as arms control does not mean an end to strife. If anything, the biggest trade accord in two generations will clear the way for new struggles over a different breed of trade barriers, which may prove more daunting than those it resolved. The 22,000-page General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, known as GATT, dealt with many of the enormously sensitive political issues facing the international trading system, including the gradual reduction of tariffs on agricultural products and the protection of intellectual property rights, like copyrights and patents.

BACK in the 80's, when Dodge and Plymouth brought forth a couple of clunky, uninspired sedans and named them Shadow and Sundance, I remember thinking that the light was playing tricks with someone's eyes. The jazzy names just didn't fit the lackluster products. But naming automobiles has always been a peculiar art. For a long time, birds, animals and even fish (remember the A.M.C. Marlin?) were honored. There have even been parts of critters; the Eagle Talon comes to mind. Then came a wave of computer words: Acura, Sentra, Infiniti, Lumina, etc.

IT WAS A TYPICAL EVENING AT THE Palace Theater on Broadway, where another performance of "Beauty and the Beast" was about to begin. At curbside, taxis pulled up with late arrivals. At the box office, breathless theatergoers checked their tickets. And in the crowded lobby, by the long glass counter where a staff of six peddled "Beauty and the Beast" compact disks, silk ties and sweatshirts, the air crackled with the conversation of the contemporary theater: "How much is the T-shirt?"

When the developer of the Cove Club at Battery Park City decided recently that the time was ripe to sell the building's remaining 48 apartments, he returned to Hong Kong, where, three years ago, he had sold half of the building's 163 units to investors within a month. Before last weekend's two-day sale, Andrew Goodstein was quoted in The Hong Kong Standard predicting he would sell all 48 apartments, which had been kept by him and his partners and rented out since the building was completed in 1991. He sold nine. Eight one-bedroom apartments brought prices ranging from $169,000 to $206,000, Mr. Goodstein said, and a two-bedroom penthouse was sold for $410,000. Mr. Goodstein, the president of Goodstein Properties of Manhattan, attributed the smaller-than-expected number of sales to the competition in Hong Kong: There were 31 other dealers offering properties, mostly in London, Australia and Canada, on the same weekend. He also blamed the recent interest-rate rise and declines in the stock market.

MICHAEL REILLY is not the kind of guy one might expect to see searching the supermarket aisles for the best buys in tuna. With a beard and long hair, he describes his look as more construction worker than full-time housekeeper, cook and child-care provider. But the Cortlandt Manor husband and father of two takes pride in the fact that he performs these duties quite well. While his wife, Carolyn, works full time designing computer systems, he is Mister Mom to his sons, Steven, 7, and Dillon, 3.

For years, most passengers waiting in Bridgeport, Conn., for the Bridgeport and Port Jefferson Ferry from Long Island have sat in their cars. There was no terminal in which they could seek shelter. But there soon will be. Construction is to begin this month on a two-story, 6,500-square-foot Bridgeport ferry terminal building, said Edward Oppel, executive director of the Bridgeport Port Authority. Work is scheduled to be completed by July 4, Mr. Oppel said.

THINGS are usually slow for police officers, except when they are about to bite into a sandwich or to take a sip from the first cup of coffee for the day. R. Muriel Hanson, a retired nurse, learned that first-hand while accompanying Officer Joseph Joudy on patrol in Newtown on a recent Friday morning. Just as soon as Officer Joudy returned with two cups of coffee from Dunkin' Doughnuts, a call came over the radio. "We've got a 48-55 at the Beth Israel Synagogue," came the dispatcher's voice at about 10 A.M.

RAMON JIMENEZ is up on the balls of his feet, shadowboxing in front of his class, rolling his shoulders, throwing out his questions like quick jabs. "Another prisoner accuses you of stealing steaks from the kitchen, do you get to confront him? Does due process apply? You've got 24 hours to set up your defense. Should you go to a jailhouse lawyer? What's it like in there? You think you sleep till 11, watch your soaps, then work on your muscles?" The range of experience in this John Jay College class is broad enough for there to be laughs, snickers, blank looks. There are kids right out of high school, veteran police officers and single mothers with school-age children. Mr. Jimenez has a rule about that; if you bring your kids to class, they have to write him a note if your paper is late.