May 1, 1995

Kean College must raise its tuition cost $203 per student to cover an estimated $350,000 budget gap caused by declining enrollment and low state aid, college officials said over the weekend. The 9.73 percent increase is far higher than Gov. Christine Todd Whitman's recommended 3.5 percent cap on tuition increases at state colleges. Kean officials said one reason they had to raise tuition so much was that Kean received the least aid of the nine state colleges.

What do crack vials, shotgun shell casings, bottle caps and a wallet-sized photograph of a dead Communist dictator have in common? All were picked up Saturday by several of the 5,000 volunteers scouring 52 beaches in Clean Ocean Action's 10th annual Beach Sweeps. Volunteers worked from Keansburg to Cape May, said Meg McQuarrie, a spokeswoman for the group. They found cigarette butts, plastic straws, food wrappers, a truck tire, a car fender and (oh, yes) a photograph of Mao Zedong. DAVID STOUT

Everyone has his own idea of heaven. For Nikolai Gereshenko, it's a place driven by a Pentium computer chip. "This is the fastest thing I have ever seen," said the wide-eyed, sallow-skinned salesman, as he sat mesmerized last week before a 21-inch monitor set up at Comtek, Russia's enormous annual computer show. "I really want one of these. They are expensive, but how can we live without them? I'd even trade my car for one."

President Clinton said yesterday that he would cut off all United States trade and investment with Iran, including purchases by American companies that account for more than 20 percent of that country's oil exports, in a further effort to isolate it as an "inspiration and paymaster to terrorists". "This is not a step I take lightly,"

No grave marks the destruction of the family Obremska, some 60 all told, who still seem strangely absent to Stella Kolin during holiday dinners. Her only family memorial is a flickering flame from a candle, her cemetery the Paramount Theater at Madison Square Garden, which drew thousands of elderly Holocaust survivors yesterday to mark the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps with songs, tears, candlelight and the words of President Clinton.