February 23, 1995

WHO DECIDES WHO WILL DIE? IT DEPENDS As New York prepares to restore the death penalty, just how it will work remains an open question -- both because some details of the legislation are not final and because, in practice, the use of the death penalty depends as much on prosecutors and juries as on the letter of the law. A1. The State Senate released its version of death-penalty legislation, detailing how New York would restore capital punishment. B6.

For the last five years, Creative Labs Inc. has been doing more than just riding the multimedia wave that is sweeping the personal computer industry. With its Sound Blaster equipment, many people say, Creative Labs helped invent the wave. Beyond its sound cards, which are circuit boards that can be inserted inside a PC, the company has also become leading seller of multimedia upgrade kits, or all-in-one packages that turn a plain vanilla PC into one that can provide sound and video using a sound card, speakers and a CD-ROM drive.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 Setting the tone for promised reductions in the Federal budget, House Republicans today began moving on the first of up to $15 billion in cuts to the current budget, marking for elimination many social programs championed by Democrats for decades. Calling the action a first installment on their promise to balance the budget by 2002, Republicans approved cuts in job training and education, assistance to homeless youths and veterans, foreign aid to Russian republics, money for United Nations peacekeeping operations and Federal subsidies to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. - If they stand, the cuts approved by five subcommittees today -- and those to be made by eight other panels in the next few days -- will eliminate many of the social programs that conservatives have criticized as wasteful and redundant. But the Democrats, with President Clinton in the forefront, have already begun to fight back, and many of the midyear cuts in the 1995 fiscal year budget are expected to run into resistance in the Senate, which will not take them up until the House has completed its work. After a strategy session with Democrats on Capitol Hill today, Mr. Clinton emerged to lambaste the Republicans for a proposal to replace the Federal school lunch program in the budget for the 1996 fiscal year with block grants to the states, calling it "a terrible mistake." The most influential of the subcommittees -- Labor, Health, Human Services and Education -- proposed cutting $4.3 billion, affecting 142 programs, including 84 that were marked for elimination. Among them were dozens of youth-training and education programs, like the Clinton Administration's Goals 2000, which sets national standards for secondary education. The Republicans would also reduce the $3.5 billion Head Start program by $105 million, eliminate $1.3 billion for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance program that provides fuel oil to the needy and would mark for termination a host of grants, like the National Science Scholars ($4.4 million) and the Javits Fellowships ($7.5 million). The Corporation for Public Broadcasting's $285.6 million budget was not marked for cuts this year, but in 1996 its budget would be cut by 15 percent, or $47 million, with an additional $94 million, or 30 percent of its current budget, pared in 1997. Representative David R. Obey of Wisconsin, the ranking Democrat on the panel, said, "It represents the first whack in what the Speaker has said will be the total elimination of funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting."

PARIS, Feb. 22 France has accused five Americans, including the former C.I.A. station chief here and his deputy, of political and economic espionage and asked them to leave the country immediately, French officials said today. The other Americans who were asked to leave were two other C.I.A. agents, who are listed in diplomatic jobs on the roster of the United States Embassy, and a woman working as an undercover C.I.A. agent who lacks diplomatic status, according to an article published today in Le Monde and confirmed by diplomats. - The Americans were accused of trying to bribe high-ranking French Government officials into disclosing France's negotiating position on movies and entertainment in recent global trade talks, secrets about French domestic politics, and telecommunications. The spectacle of one ally publicly demanding the withdrawal of another's diplomats for spying plunged relations between France and the United States into one of the strangest crises of their history. Pamela Harriman, the United States Ambassador to France, visited the office of Prime Minister Edouard Balladur to discuss the affair this afternoon, American Embassy officials said. She emerged impassive after 30 minutes and said she would make no comment.

Anglo-Irish Plan for Ulster Britain and Ireland released the details of a proposal for talks to find peace in Northern Ireland. Page A3. From China to Captivity A 46-year-old illegal Chinese immigrant who could not pay the gang that smuggled him in was kidnapped and held hostage -- twice. Page B1. Top Diver Has AIDS Greg Louganis, who won diving gold medals in two Olympics, says he is infected with AIDS. Page B11.