March 29, 1995

The search for 16-year-old Nicole Russo continues, but the hunt for the teen-ager charged with her murder has ended. At Los Angeles International Airport early yesterday, F.B.I. agents and the police arrested Louis P. Urcinoli, 19, of Seaside Park. He had been sought since March 17, four days after Ms. Russo, a Brick High School student, was reported missing. The police said that Mr. Urcinoli killed his girlfriend of a few weeks in a Seaside Park motel. Mr. Urcinoli has said that he dropped her off in Brooklyn. Her family is clinging to hope that she might still be alive.

Two politicians were found guilty yesterday of accepting bribes in the continuing investigation of city government by Federal authorities. After a five-week trial on the awarding of city towing contracts, a jury deliberated for eight hours before convicting Councilman Gary S. Harris and former Councilman Ralph T. Grant Jr. Page A1.

Jeffrey Wolf did not speak publicly for two weeks after his wife was shot and killed during a robbery in his Franklin Township jewelry store. Mr. Wolf had said that a robber shot his wife; the police said that Brenda Wolf was fatally wounded by her husband's .357-caliber Magnum.

"Bob Stoddard, who's retired 10 in a row, is in danger of having his streak broken. Ohh, a walk breaks the spell." "Thoutsis got it, and Eufemia has set down 13 in a row."

The Ingersoll-Rand Company went public with a $1.3 billion hostile bid for the Clark Equipment Company yesterday after Clark's board spurned its cash offer. Ingersoll took its bid to Clark's shareholders after it received a letter from Clark rejecting the offer of $75 to $77 a share, which is as much as 45 percent over Clark's closing stock price yesterday.

Several airlines, following in their long tradition of breaking collective decisions, are already starting to chip away at the industry's recent move to cap commissions for travel agents. In early February, in a bid to cut costs, the airline industry imposed a maximum commission of $50 on a round-trip domestic ticket. But some carriers -- including Delta Air Lines, the pioneer of the limit on travel agent fees -- are now offering new backdoor financial incentives that reward bigger agencies for exceeding sales goals. These moves mean some airlines are effectively giving back some of the money they said they would save when they announced the caps. Before the cap, airlines generally paid travel agents a 10 percent commission on the price of ticket.

PEOPLE may know that exercise is good for them -- but they may not know how good. Steadily accumulating research is showing that exercise is far more important than was previously thought -- at least as important as good nutrition in feeling and looking good. Although it has long been known that it helps the heart, exercise also appears to strengthen immunity, control weight, promote mental health and lower the risk of developing diabetes, osteoporosis and some cancers.

Eighteen employees of Continental Airlines kept getting fatter paychecks than they had earned, and the problem was not a clerical error, according to the Essex County Prosecutor, Clifford J. Minor. Rather, Mr. Minor said, a payroll padding scheme operated at Newark International Airport over seven months in 1992. Yesterday, the workers -- now former employees -- were indicted along with the man the prosecutor says they shared their extra money with, Henry Onyluke, who used to be a payroll clerk for the airline. Continental officials said some employees had their pay inflated by $30,000, and the overall loss to the company was about $296,000. LAWRENCE VAN GELDER

BERT SUGAR?" "In the back, on the left. In the hat." The waitress pointed through the lunchtime crowd at O'Lunney's, an Irish bar and restaurant on West 44th Street, just off Fifth Avenue.

With the United States scheduled to hand over responsibility for Haiti's security to the United Nations this week, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide asked the international force today to intensify efforts to disarm those he called "opponents of democracy." Conditions are now "safe and stable enough to have that transition," Mr. Aristide said in an interview this morning at his residence here. But, he added, the situation "has to become safer day after day" in order for democracy and the rule of law to take root, and that will require peacekeepers to move aggressively against the remnants of the paramilitary groups that terrorized Haiti for three years.

In one moment during a prison interview today, Reginald McFadden, the parolee who authorities suspect went on a murderous rampage after his release from a Pennsylvania prison last year, maintained that he was not guilty of any murders. In the next moment, he said his "undoing" was caused by the very friends who helped him get his sentence for murder commuted in Pennsylvania and then abandoned him once he was released.

For four more days, Chasen's will still be the classiest restaurant in town. Alfred Hitchcock routinely fell asleep there at his favorite booth. Howard Hughes often showed up with his own utensils and always ordered the same dinner -- steak, mashed potatoes and ice cream. Errol Flynn and Humphrey Bogart would drop in for a steak. Ronald Reagan sat at booth No. 2 and would order boiled beef. Elizabeth Taylor enjoyed the chili so much that she had it flown over to Rome often while making "Cleopatra." It once had even had its own sauna and barber.