January 30, 1995

In a major shift for the Republicans, Gov. George E. Pataki and legislative leaders are in general agreement on a weakening of the 1973 laws that mandated stiff sentences for drug offenders but that have also propelled prison costs and quintupled the number of inmates since then. The laws, enacted under another Republican Governor, Nelson A. Rockefeller, have survived two decades despite wide criticism and increasing attempts by Democrats, especially Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, to overhaul them. But over the last week Mr. Pataki, the new Republican Governor who ran on a platform of getting tough on crime, has floated the idea of an overhaul and, for the first time, leaders in the Republican-controlled State Senate -- who have been the main obstacle in the past -- said they could support revision.

A decade after being left for dead, the expensive foreign-made cigar is back. Imports of premium cigars have surged 29 percent in the last three years, even as cheaper machine-made cigars have been sinking in popularity. Long the ensign of the fat cat and the power wannabe, premium cigars, which generally cost a few dollars and are nearly always handmade outside the United States, account for less than 6 percent of all cigars sold.

All afternoon, the two women sat in a small examining room at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in Manhattan and waited -- anxiously but patiently -- for the bleeding and cramping that would signal that the French abortion pill was working. The 21-year old college student, six weeks pregnant and referred to Columbia-Presbyterian's obstetrics and gynecology department by her college health service, was convinced it would work: she had had some nausea and bleeding since taking the three small white pills two days earlier. And two hours after taking the second round of pills, after 15 minutes of intense cramping, the tiny sac the doctors call "the products of conception" passed out of her, and relief washed across her face.

Bruised by criticism of his abrupt dismissal of the Police Department's chief corruption fighter, Police Commissioner William J. Bratton has pledged to escalate the fight to root out rogue officers. He guaranteed that several investigations that have languished in recent months would soon bring a large number of arrests. In an interview Saturday afternoon, Mr. Bratton said he ordered Deputy Police Commissioner Walter S. Mack Jr. to leave his post at the Internal Affairs Bureau by Feb. 10, largely because of what he described as Mr. Mack's inability to inspire investigators under his command.

One day, Harry Taubenfeld turned on the television in his daughter's house in Westchester County and discovered something that really ticked him off. "I looked over her channels," Mr. Taubenfeld recalled. "She's got the Comedy Channel, this channel, that channel. Two C-Spans! She shows me the bill -- and she was paying one dollar less than me. For 60 channels! And I've got only 27!"

Carl Hygrant encountered no shortage of indignities as a homeless person in New York, but one of the worst was not having a phone number. In his persistent hunt for work, he put on resumes the number of the Bronx shelter that was his temporary home. Repeatedly, when a prospective employer called and learned it was a shelter, interest in him would evaporate in a matter of nanoseconds. Then he got voice mail.

IN his early years as Joe Montana's backup on the 49ers, Steve Young was a millionaire, but he wasn't living like one. "He was staying in my house," offensive tackle Harris Barton recalled. "One day late in the 1988 season I opened his dresser drawer to get a pair of socks, and there were 13 uncashed checks in there. More than a million dollars. I guess he didn't feel like he was earning those paychecks enough to cash them."

When President Clinton decided earlier this month that the United States urgently needed to bail out Mexico from a deepening financial crisis, he argued that his primary purpose was to save the jobs of hundreds of thousands of Americans who labor to produce exports to America's third-largest trading partner. But after two weeks of public hearings and behind-the-scenes arm-twisting, leaders of both parties are declaring Mr. Clinton's proposal all but dead in its present form, even though estimates of the number of American jobs at risk are growing. [ Page D4. ]

Mexico's Financial Crisis President Clinton's proposal to aid Mexico is all but dead in its present form, say Democratic and Republican leaders, who worry that the $40 billion loan-guarantee package would bail out investors but not save many jobs on Main Street. [ Page A1. ] Tens of thousands of American jobs could be lost as a result of the plunge of the Mexican peso and the resulting sharp drop in Mexicans' buying power, according to new estimates. [ D4. ]

Taking a cue from the new Republican-controlled Congress in Washington, political leaders in more than half the nation's state capitals have pledged to cut taxes this year. And the rancorous debate is less about whether to cut taxes than about which taxes to cut -- and by how much. Paradoxically, though, many fiscal experts are warning that such cuts could prove perilous precisely because Congress itself is thinking of making major cuts in Federal aid to the states.

The city of Grozny is gone now. There are still roads, but they are marked by bomb craters, and there are buildings standing, but they are in flames. There are landmarks and street signs and dogs and burnt trees. There are even people, but they risk their lives each time they emerge from their basement shelters for a sip of muddy water. After seven weeks of war between Russia and the breakaway region of Chechnya, this is no longer a city.

In morning darkness last winter, the Feuer family was wrenched apart to protect the children from their father's camera. Three of Ejlat Feuer's children were rushed in pajamas from their home in the upper-middle-class suburb of Bernardsville to the local police station, where they were interviewed about good touches and bad, the existence of God and 110 nude photographs of the 6-year-old daughter taken by their father.