May 8, 1995

New York City's public hospitals agency is pushing for broad concessions in its contracts with the medical schools and academic medical centers that provide most of the doctors for the city hospitals. Propelled by serious budget problems and a Mayor who has campaigned against waste at the agency, its officials are demanding greater control, seeking more productivity from doctors and possibly offering the schools less money in exchange.

In any debate about American policy toward Cuba, few figures loom larger than Jorge Mas Canosa, considered by many in both countries to be a principal architect of the hostile, uncompromising approach toward Fidel Castro that guided Washington until the Clinton Administration announced on Tuesday that it had reached an agreement with Havana on immigration. Mr. Mas, a 55-year-old construction entrepreneur, came to Miami 35 years ago as a penniless refugee and has amassed not only a net worth of more than $80 million but also immense political power. Fourteen years after setting up the Cuban American National Foundation at the behest of the Reagan Administration, he is arguably the most influential of the nation's 1.5 million Cuban-Americans.

There is no longer serious doubt about what happened in this squat Chechen farming village early last month. The circumstances are still vague. But the results are not. More than 3,000 Russian soldiers took the town, doused its houses with gasoline and set them on fire, and opened fire on unarmed women, children and elderly people, killing more than 100.

It was shocking, almost unbelievable -- a loss that left the Knicks in a state of despair. In the final 18.7 seconds, the Knicks turned a 6-point lead into a stunning loss. It was the most amazing late-game turnaround that anyone involved had ever witnessed. For the Indiana Pacers, it was a godsend. For the Knicks, it was a disaster.

Jacques Chirac, the conservative Mayor of Paris, won the French Presidency on his third try today with more than 52 percent of the vote in mainland France, according to results from the Interior Ministry.. Lionel Jospin, the former Education Minister who had hoped to succeed Francois Mitterrand, a fellow Socialist who had held the Presidency for 14 years, conceded defeat half an hour after the polls closed at 8 P.M.