April 17, 1995

Euranda Burns attends the 11th grade, goes roller skating and dancing on weekends and wears blue nail polish. At 16 years old, she also has a 22-month-old daughter and gets a welfare check. The $181 welfare payment she receives each month from Aid to Families with Dependent Children, she said, covers her rent and utilities in the house she shares with a roommate in this rural town, which is just south of the Georgia border and one of Florida's poorest. Her mother, other relatives and the child's father help with the rest of her living costs.

For a quarter of a century, a relatively simple treaty of fewer than 50 paragraphs has served as the touchstone of all international efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons and to prevent peaceful nuclear projects from being used in destructive ways. Now the 1968 accord, the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, is up for renewal, 25 years after it took effect, in 1970.

American chip makers have never been cockier -- and that could make a downfall all the harder. Since reclaiming the lead in the global semiconductor market two years ago from Japan, the United States chip industry has been on a roll, led by the Intel Corporation, whose stock has surged lately on expectations of an exceptionally strong earnings report this week.

Some municipalities want to raise taxes. Not Dover. It wants to cut its 6 percent sales tax in half. "We have asked the state to declare us an urban enterprise zone and let our retailers charge only 3 percent tax," said Mayor Stephen Shukailo. "We would attract more customers. And instead of sending the sales tax we collect to the state, we would spend it to upgrade the exteriors of our businesses." Mr. Shukailo said Dover suffers from an image problem. The town's per capita income is the lowest in Morris County, and its unemployment rate is 10.4 percent. DAVID STOUT

When Rangers Coach Colin Campbell went inside to address his team between the second and third periods at Nassau Coliseum this afternoon, he found that the locker-room door had already been shut. The man who had closed the door was Mark Messier. The captain was in the process of holding an impromptu team meeting to perhaps prevent the door from being shut tight on the Rangers' season.