December 19, 1994

A major New York City bank says it has discovered calculation errors that it attributes to the Pentium chips inside some of its computers. A multimedia developer and training company on Long Island says the Pentium caused a miscalculation in a graphics program, although the error was discovered before the program was shipped to customers. Scientists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island got wrong answers in calculating the impact of colliding subatomic particles, Newsday reported.

Marian Goodman is waiting for the men to arrive. "The men'll be here," said the 40-year-old assistant store manager at Bloomingdale's flagship in midtown Manhattan, accelerating past a snow-white Clinique counter toward trays of ties layered like freshly caught fish. "You see the panic shopper. You can see the look on their faces."

A curious ritual plays out these early darkening Saturday afternoons on rural England's rolling green hills. Figures dart back and forth across the landscape, through the woods and across the glades. Everybody seems to be chasing everybody else. The chain-of-being goes like this: First comes the fox. Then the hounds. Then the hunters on horseback. Then the hunt saboteurs. Then the police.

GIULIANI CHANGES COURSE ON CORTINES Acknowledging that he will not be able to block the reappointment of the Schools Chancellor, Mayor Giuliani called for Ramon C. Cortines to be granted a contract for only one more year. He said the contract should be tied to the condition that the Chancellor show measurable progress in four areas of management and budgeting. Mr. Giuliani's decision to support the Chancellor's reappointment represented a reversal of his efforts over the last week to convince Mr. Cortines to step down on his own. A1.

Reflecting the new upbeat mood spreading through the magazine industry, Steven T. Florio, who became president of Conde Nast Publications Inc. in April, said that in 1994 the company experienced its largest financial improvement in years. "And as we go into 1995, it is my belief that every single magazine will be up in ad pages for the first quarter," Mr. Florio said in an interview last week. "We are just closing the March issues, and we will have a better idea by the first week in January. But right now it looks as if we will be up 20 percent in advertising pages for all the magazines."