April 26, 1995

A young New Jersey woman is going back to Israel, where her sister died in a terrorist bombing April 9. The woman's father, Stephen Flatow, said he was not worried about his 18-year-old daughter, Gail, resuming her studies in the land where 20-year-old Alisa was killed. "The message is, you don't give in to terrorism," he said.

During the five years that William B. Hess arm-wrestled with his wife in court over the dissolution of their marriage, he compiled a list of complaints about how New Jersey's legal system treated divorced fathers. Why, for example, could he be forced to pay his sons' college tuition? If he had stayed married, no one could have compelled him to do so. That is one of Mr. Hess's grievances that may soon be redressed. Last December, the State Assembly passed a bill that would stop judges from ordering divorced fathers to pay child support after their children turn 18. The bill has yet to come to a vote in the State Senate.

The explosion that toppled a factory here, killing four workers, occurred after a mishap in the blending of toxic chemicals was virtually ignored by the company for nearly 12 hours, the authorities said. Page A1.

The Bell Atlantic Corporation called an abrupt halt to its scramble into television yesterday. Saying it wanted to rethink its strategy for upgrading its telephone network, the company asked the Federal Communications Commission to suspend its application to offer video services to as many as three million telephone customers in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, the District of Columbia, northern New Jersey and parts of Virginia. The decision by Bell Atlantic surprised many industry experts, who regard the company as a pathfinder for other regional Bells seeking to expand beyond their core business of local phone service. And it underscores the mounting confusion many telephone executives are feeling as they try to adapt their voice networks to an array of new businesses, like video programming and interactive services.

Despite the Chrysler Corporation's rejection of his $22.8 billion takeover bid, Kirk Kerkorian appears to be far from ending his battle for control of the company. In an angry letter to Chrysler's chairman yesterday, Mr. Kerkorian accused the company of thwarting his efforts to obtain financing for his proposal and challenged it to put his $55-a-share bid to a shareholder vote.