December 26, 1994

Iran Nazario roams the crack alleys of the Charter Oak Terrace projects, scouting figures in the shadows. When he finds them, he faces the hard part of his job: steering street toughs to this after-school program, to that basketball league, away from drugs and the gang life. At least he needs no introduction. In the projects, everyone knows him as Smurf, a member of Los Solidos, Hartford's biggest gang.

A month before New York State's new Republican administration must propose its first budget, Governor-elect George E. Pataki's chief adviser on health care is proposing to cut more than $1 billion in state spending from Medicaid, the costly and politically sensitive health program for the poor, disabled and elderly. While Mr. Pataki complained often during the campaign that the program was too generous, the cuts sought by the aide, Lieut. Governor-elect Elizabeth P. McCaughey, are large but not radically different in scope from those explored by Gov. Mario M. Cuomo.

Islamic militant gunmen early today forced the French and Algerian Governments to allow a hijacked French airliner to fly from Algiers to France shortly after the extremists killed a French embassy employee who was among about 170 passengers and crew members on board the plane. The plane, a wide-bodied Airbus A300 aircraft, landed at Marseilles at 3:15 A.M. local time, 40 hours after the gunmen seized control of Air France's Flight 8969 at Algiers airport on Saturday just as it was about to take off on a scheduled flight to Paris.

Representative Sherwood Boehlert, who represents Utica in upstate New York in the new and deeply conservative House of Representatives, is firmly on the left fringe of the Republican Party. He sides with Democrats on many social issues. There are years when the American Civil Liberties Union and the A.F.L.-C.I.O. rate his legislative stands more favorably than does the American Conservative Union. But when the House convenes next week, Mr. Boehlert says he will be marching to the conservative tune of Representative Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the new House Speaker. So will his friends.

The predictions of a strong holiday shopping season were apparently wishful thinking for many retailers, particularly in apparel. While the numbers will not begin to come out until tomorrow, the early indications are that the season's sales, while above last year's, have not been what retailers hoped for or stocked for. "It's not been a happy season," said Edward Johnson, the retailing analyst who compiles the Johnson Redbook Service, which tracks sales.