February 18, 1995

By calling for huge cuts in Medicaid and social service programs, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's plan to reduce city spending by $1.3 billion is likely to lead to the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in the health care industry, the segment of the New York City economy that has been the strongest source of job growth for more than a decade. In an interview, David R. Rubenstein, assistant director of the Mayor's Office of Management and Budget, estimated that Medicaid cuts alone would lead to job reductions of 10,000 to 30,000 at hospitals, nursing homes, mental health clinics and other medical centers, and remove $1 billion a year in wages.

Colin Ferguson was convicted of murder tonight in the 1993 Long Island Rail Road shootings that killed 6 people and wounded 19 others. The verdict, which came shortly after 9:15 P.M., was greeted enthusiastically by relatives of shooting victims and by survivors of the massacre who filled most of the seats in the Nassau County courtroom.

House Republicans today unveiled a bill that would scrap the national school lunch program and a separate Federal program that feeds pregnant women and preschool children, in favor of lump-sum grants to the states. But senior Republicans are balking at Speaker Newt Gingrich's plan to do the same with food stamps. The bill, drafted by Republican members of the House Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities, would give states vast new discretion to design their own food programs in place of the school lunch program and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC.

Many who saw Mr. Ferguson defend himself felt little satisfaction in his conviction. News analysis, page 26. Victims of the shooting pleaded for stricter gun control, rather than condemning Mr. Ferguson. Page 26.

Not since John F. Kennedy has a sitting senator run a successful Presidential campaign. One can make the case, in fact, that the very qualities that make an effective senator -- like the ability to compromise -- are a hindrance in the modern campaign. Primary voters tend to like their meat red and their ideological positions undiluted. None of this, however, has prevented the quadrennial outbreak of Presidential ambition in the United States Senate, where it is sometimes said that every senator, sooner or later, looks into the mirror and sees a President. It has happened, in recent months, to Senators Bob Dole and Phil Gramm, Richard G. Lugar and Arlen Specter.

Brenda, Amancio, Michelle and Amelia Irizarry are a family of four living in the Bronx, and at first glance, their lives seem to mirror the middle-class ideal. Brenda heads the parents' association at the local middle school. Her husband, Amancio, bustles off to work early each morning. Their younger daughter, Amelia, 13, accents her jeans with Nikes and Timberland boots. Their older daughter, Michelle, 20, attends college and hopes to become a social worker.

Huge Trade Deficit The trade deficit in 1994 was the largest in seven years at more than $108 billion; deficits with Japan and China set records. Page 37. New Questions for Secretary A $75,000 videotape shown at the Democratic National Convention figures in inquiries of Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown. Page 8. Questions on Police Pistols New York police officials believe officers with new semiautomatic guns have been firing too many shots, a former official said. Page 23.

In a sharp reversal of its bitter campaign to thwart the expansion of the Fox television network, NBC agreed yesterday to cease its effort to deny Fox licenses for broadcast stations in seven cities. NBC said it had reached a potentially lucrative agreement with Fox's chairman, Rupert Murdoch, to have two NBC-owned cable channels distributed over Mr. Murdoch's Star Television system, which delivers programs by satellite to homes in Asia.

When President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon was about to open his sudden strike against peasant rebels in the southern state of Chiapas last week, Government officials were told that army troops had the guerrilla leader known as Subcommander Marcos virtually surrounded. Mr. Zedillo then told the nation in a televised speech that Marcos and his comrades were violent criminals, and would be hunted as such. The first problem, officials involved in the operation said this week, turned out to be a balky district judge: it took the Government eight hours to get arrest warrants for the rebel leaders, and by the time the federal police and army troops finally began to move, Marcos was long gone.

A Federal judge yesterday cleared the way for the first nationwide class action against the tobacco industry on behalf of the nearly 100 million Americans who smoke or have quit smoking. The judge ruled that the tobacco industry could be sued for punitive damages on accusations of addicting huge numbers of cigarette smokers and of concealing the fact that cigarettes were addicting. In his decision, the judge, Okla B. Jones 2d of the United States Eastern District of Louisiana, has not only created the possibility for the largest class action in history, but has also exposed the tobacco companies to their most formidable legal challenge yet. So far, they have never had to pay any money penalties in court.

Efforts to smuggle radioactive materials, including potentially weapons-grade plutonium and uranium, from formerly Communist nations more than doubled last year, a Western European intelligence report says. The report concluded that so far none of the material appeared to have been stolen from nuclear-warhead stocks.

International 2-5 MEXICAN LEADER'S IMAGE SUFFERS New analysis: After seizing rebel territory and then, almost as suddenly, offering an amnesty, Mexico's new President has done little to dispel an image of political weakness and ineptitude. 1