  It used to be that visitors could wander the halls outside the Governor's office in Albany. No longer. Gov. George E. Pataki has restriced access, and aides say it's because security was woefully inadequate. Others say it reflects the Governor's "us-and-them" mentality.   Article, page B6.

Albany's Fort Pataki

  With this section, The New York Times introduces expanded coverage on Monday of the information industries in all their forms, with a special emphasis on technology and how it is leading to a convergence of those industries.    The walls distinguishing businesses are coming down, changing how and where people work and find entertainment; the ramifications are enormous for consumers, for employees, for investors. This section will expand on the Media Business and Information Technology coverage it has been known for, as well as covering other business news that develops over the weekend. The Closed-End Funds table that has appeared on Mondays will appear in the Money and Business section on Sunday.

To Our Readers

  The rats were everywhere. In the half-light of the street lamps, they seemed to boil up out of the sidewalk, as if some strange urban geyser was flowing underneath Selwyn Avenue in the Bronx.   It was around midnight: feeding time in Morrisania. Rats as big as cats crisscrossed the pavement, darted in and out of piled garbage bags, scuttled among the street's shadows.

Rat City; New York's Worst Rodent Infestation Plagues the Bronx

  As flooding goes, this year's high water on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers won't get close to being as bad as the famous floods of 1993, which left that telltale high-water smudge above the door of Dave Loveless's farm shed.   But considering that Mr. Loveless is going to lose a lot of his wheat and long sections of newly rebuilt dikes just two years after he nearly lost everything, any time the rivers get up and walk, as his son Matthew puts it, is a time too often.

In Flood Zone, Not as Bad as '93 Is Bad Enough

  Almost everybody agrees that New Jersey should take care of its roads. The question is how much money the state should devote to that cause. Today, the State Assembly will take up the issue when it considers whether to spend $3.5 billion for future transportation projects.

NEW JERSEY DAILY BRIEFING;

  Opening the Door to Taiwan Officials said President Clinton has decided to grant a visa to the President of Taiwan for a visit to Cornell University, a move that would risk retaliation by China. Page A6. Huge Recall for Seat Belts    Federal officials and car makers plan to announce what could be the largest auto recall in history to repair defective seat belts. Page A12. What Next for Microsoft?    Microsoft's decision to abandon the largest software deal ever will not end Government scrutiny of the company. News analysis, page D1.  A2 Arts  NEW ON MONDAYS The Informations Industries Starting today, Business Day will concentrate each Monday on informations technology and media business. New columns and features incluse Most Wanted, a roundup of performance scorecards for media enterprises, from movies to software. SECTION D

INSIDE

  Les Aspin, a Democratic representative from Wisconsin for 22 years and Secretary of Defense in the first 11 months of the Clinton Administration, died tonight at Georgetown University Medical Center.   He was 56 and suffered a stroke on Saturday.

Les Aspin, 56, Dies; Member of Congress And Defense Chief

  The budget that Gov. George E. Pataki proposed in February rested on the three philosophical pillars of his campaign: to cut state income taxes, to put welfare recipients to work and to reduce state spending. Nearly four months later, the budget negotiations that Mr. Pataki seems close to completing would largely achieve those three goals.   But in each case, Mr. Pataki will fall short of the specific goals he set in his original budget proposal, and perhaps nowhere more than with welfare. Although public opinion polls suggest that welfare may be the strongest issue in Mr. Pataki's favor, the Republican Governor bargained away several of his most significant welfare initiatives to secure agreement from the Democratic Assembly Speaker, Sheldon Silver, on a tax cut package.

Pataki Yielding a Bit on Welfare Plan

  When Patrick Ewing missed his last-second layup attempt, it was over for the Knicks. The game was over. Their season was over. Perhaps their last chance to win a championship in the Ewing era was over. And Pat Riley's career as the Knicks' coach may have been over, too.   In a shocking end to their season, the Knicks were beaten yesterday by the Indiana Pacers, 97-95, in Game 7 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series at Madison Square Garden. The Pacers will advance to the conference championship series against the Magic, beginning tomorrow at Orlando.

The Knicks' Quest for Glory Bounces Off the Back of the Rim

  NBC, relying on daring programming moves and a commitment to urban, young adult viewers, has emerged from half a decade of slumping ratings, declining revenue and industry ridicule to be the best-positioned network in the business.  Competitors and friends alike say it is now seen as the network with the best new programs and the best new strategy to claim a big share of the expanding dollars that advertisers are spending for network commercials.   With total sales of the four big networks for the fall season expected to perhaps surpass $5 billion, a record high, NBC is in a position that could not have been seen as recently as two years ago.

A Peacock on Phoenix Wings; New Ideas and a Little Luck Help NBC's Turnaround

  The glory days of the Federal science establishment may be over, science leaders fear, as cuts proposed by Republicans to wipe out the budget deficit fall hard on civilian research.   Under the cuts, annual appropriations for nonmilitary research might drop to about $25 billion by 2000 from the current level of $32 billion. The reductions over that period would total $24 billion or more.

SCIENCE RESEARCH WOULD BE HIT HARD IN BUDGET CUTTING

  Millions of Vehicles Face Recall for Seat Belts     Federal safety officials and auto makers plan tomorrow to announce one of the biggest recalls of vehicles, intended to fix defective front seat belts in about eight million cars, mini-vans and sport utility vehicles.

BUSINESS DIGEST

  Once they were New York City's sturdy castles of learning, immense neighborhood high schools with as many as 5,000 students each that dependably churned out graduates to sustain the city and, sometimes, transform the world. Colin L. Powell went to Morris High School in the Bronx, Barbra Streisand and Bobby Fischer to Erasmus Hall in Brooklyn, Lewis Mumford to Stuyvesant in Manhattan.   But many of the city's 125 high schools are aging behemoths, seemingly incapable, as the dinosaurs, of adapting to a changing world. With teachers no longer commanding the authority they once did and with some parents unable to correct unruly or drifting children, too many large schools have become academically barren and violent places.

New Schools Seeking Small Miracles

  The ball was in the right hands. That's all a team can ask, particularly a team that lived and died doing things the hard way. The New York Knicks got the ball to Patrick Ewing with the game, the season -- and maybe even this era -- on the line.    It wasn't a simple layup, it wasn't a crashing dunk, it was a trifle more complicated than that: a lunge to the basket, an outstretched arm and elongated fingers by Ewing, nobody even crashing into him, but the ball bumped off the back of the rim, and the Knickerbockers were eliminated from the playoffs by the Indiana Pacers, 97-95, yesterday afternoon.

Sports of The Times; Knicks and Ewing Gave It Their Last and Best Shot

  With the weather making it already feel as if it were mid-June, getting to the beaches is becoming a bit easier. New Jersey Transit has begun its special summer service, increasing service to shore points in anticipation of ridership demands. Among the major changes are an extra Friday express train serving shore points, eight additional shuttle trains between Long Beach and Bay Head, and express train service between New York City and Hoboken and shore points on Saturday, Sundays and holidays. GERRY MULLANY

Beachcombers' Express

  NEW SCHOOLS SEEK SMALL MIRACLES   Many of New York City's 125 high schools have become aging behemoths, seemingly incapable of adapting to a changing world, and too many have become academically barren and violent places. Two years ago, the city school system came up with a remedy that some say is its most radical change since its decentralization in 1969: the development of 48 experimental small schools, 46 of them high schools with enrollments of 110 to 600 students, with more scaled-down schools on the drawing boards. The idea behind the new schools is disarmingly simple: smaller is better. The big question, of course, is do these schools work? The answer is distinctly uncertain.  [ Page A1. ] HOW A SMALL SCHOOL MAKES A DIFFERENCE   For Migna B. Taveras, the school day begins not much differently than for thousands of other New York City high school students. She leaves her Lower East Side apartment, rushes downstairs to a corner bodega and buys bagels and coffee, which she consumes on her walk to school. But once at Vanguard High, a small school that opened in 1993, her routine differs markedly from that of most of the city's 265,000 secondary students.  [ B5. ] PATAKI GIVES UP A BIT ON WELFARE   The budget that Governor Pataki proposed in February rested on the three pillars of his campaign: cutting income taxes, putting welfare recipients to work and reducing spending. But with budget negotiations seemingly close to completion, Mr. Pataki will fall short of the specific goals he set in his original budget proposal, and perhaps nowhere more than with welfare. Although opinion polls suggest that welfare may be the strongest issue in his favor, the Republican Governor bargained away several of his most significant welfare initiatives in order to secure agreement from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, on a tax cut package.  [ A1. ] NEW YORK CITY  TALES OF SUCCESS FROM 257 STUDENTS   Among the success stories from the New York City schools are 257 graduating seniors who won $4,000 college scholarships from the United Federation of Teachers, the city's teachers union. The 24-year-old scholarship program benefits low-income students who meet financial and academic criteria. The winners come from all five boroughs, and all kinds of high schools. They are black and white and Asian. They speak English with accents and without. They were born in China and India, in Santo Domingo and Queens. And while they sometimes sound more like survivors than celebrants, as they talk of overcrowded classes and metal detectors and rowdy classmates, they are going on to colleges and careers. Just as New York City public school students did in less troubled days.  [ Metro Matters, B3. ] IF THIS IS GRIDLOCK, IT MUST BE SUMMER   Ah, summer weekends in New York. Marching for causes, grazing at street fairs and pitying the poor souls who think the best way around town involves internal combustion. Forget the calendar that says summer begins at the solstice or the tradition that says the start is Memorial Day. Summer begins with the first full-fledged day of weekend-event-induced gridlock, and that was yesterday.  [ B3. ] MOURNING A SLAIN STORE OWNER   People remember Nelson Arias as a friendly store owner -- the kind who let you buy on credit because he recognized your face, the kind who always had a few special words for your granddaughter when you brought her into his store. But yesterday, those shoppers whose days were made more pleasant by Mr. Arias's greeting were met instead with horrible news: the grocer had been shot and killed the night before, apparently in a robbery.  [ B2. ] REGION  UNIVERSITIES AWARD DEGREES   Yale University, Long Island University's Southampton Center and Manhattan College were among the schools across the region holding commencement ceremonies yesterday. At Yale's Class Day ceremony, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke of Baltimore called American cities as vital to the nation as the Sun is to Earth. At Southampton College, Bennett R. Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, of ice cream fame, called on students to look beyond private profit in their dealings with the world.  [ B6. ] Chronicle B2

METRO DIGEST

  The problems E. coli bacteria can cause when restaurants undercook meat are well known, but many people do not realize that the same problems can result from barbecued meats that are undercooked. Today, Representative Robert G. Torricelli of Englewood and Senator Bill Bradley, both Democrats, will visit the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, where they will urge outdoor chefs to cook their burgers and chicken breasts all the way through.

Staying Well With Well Done

  The pilot of a single-engine plane was killed after it plunged into the bay surrounding an airfield here on Saturday.

Pilot Dies in Small-Plane Crash

  New Jersey's Governor has been touted as a possible member of the Republican presidential ticket, but this weekend the state had more than its fair share of declared hopefuls for the White House. The Republican aspirants were in Atlantic City for the Northeast Republican Leadership Conference, a three-day meeting of party regulars from 11 northeastern states.

Whitman on the 'Farm Team'

  A California woman has come forward as a witness in what police officials describe as possibly an important break in their investigation of the wild, drunken spree by dozens of New York City officers last weekend in Washington.   Progress has been slow in the investigation, in large part because not a single police officer has come forward to identify officers who are said to have pranced around hotel lobbies nude, groped at women, pulled fire alarms and sprayed fire extinguishers in two hotels, and robbed a Federal Government employee of $200.

Progress Seen In Inquiry Of Officers

  If the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs proceeds according to the script of the first round, the Rangers can be encouraged by their defeat here today.   They lost by 5-4 to the Philadelphia Flyers, the same score by which Quebec beat them in Game 1 of the first round, a series the Rangers eventually won in six games. John LeClair scored three goals for the Flyers, just as Joe Sakic did for the Nordiques in the series opener a little more than two weeks ago.

Rangers Give Up Lead, Drop Opener in Overtime

  Upsala College is still alive, at least for another week. The college held its final commencement on May 14, but 38 students who are shy of some credits for graduation are still taking classes at the college, which has been forced to shut down after 102 years because of its crushing debt.

Upsala's Last Gasp

  In a bizarre tale of industrial espionage, an Argentine engineer says he stole a wide range of technical secrets from two leading computer chip makers in the United States and provided the information to China, Cuba and Iran.   The technical information, he said, included computer chip designs and step-by-step instructions on how to manufacture the 386, 486 and Pentium chips that power most of the personal computers in use today.

Engineer Says He Stole Secrets Of Chip Makers

  For much of this school year, Cindy Huang had eyed her fellow brainy classmates at Brooklyn Technical High School with even more anxiety than usual. Last week in particular, when the neck-and-neck race for valedictorian came down to the wire, when mere decimal points separated the five top students, Cindy felt unbearably curious about how the other four were doing.   She found herself this semester snooping around the college placement office for news, chatting up the guidance counselor. As she smiled and gabbed with her good friend Jackie Wong, she wondered all the while whether Jackie, also a candidate, was aceing Advanced Placement calculus -- or maybe slipping behind. Cindy didn't want to care so intensely; it was "too much stress." So she tried to be wise about it.

Pomp, Circumstance and Suspense: 5 Vie for Valedictorian

  Fettuccine Alfredo has come and gone as a trendy dish, yet some pastas are more durable: Spaghetti-O's, for instance. Thirty years ago tomorrow, the Camden-based Campbell Soup Company first released the circular-shaped pasta, and to this day the company still sells tens of millions of cans of it annually.

May 22, 1995

Headlines from May 22, 1995

Albany's Fort Pataki

To Our Readers

Rat City; New York's Worst Rodent Infestation Plagues the Bronx

In Flood Zone, Not as Bad as '93 Is Bad Enough

NEW JERSEY DAILY BRIEFING;

Billboard 200

Friday

Cracked Rear View

Throwing Copper

Forrest Gump

Me Against The World

Historical Context for May 22, 1995