May 27, 1995

Two men who were with 16-year-old Lawrence Meyers when he was fatally shot by a housing police officer in February have been indicted on drug charges stemming from the episode. Kiante Hall, 19, and Thomas Jackson, 20, were charged with possession of 23 grams of crack cocaine by a Passaic County grand jury on Thursday. The police were trying to arrest the three men on Feb. 21 when Officer Ronald Cohen shot Mr. Meyers. The shooting of the black youth by the white officer set off several days of unrest here.

The Senate Finance Committee approved a momentous shift in social policy today, voting to cancel the Federal guarantee of a subsistence income for poor children while giving states vast new power to design their own welfare programs without Federal standards. By a vote of 12 to 8, the committee approved a sweeping welfare bill generally similar to one passed by the House in March. The committee chairman, Senator Bob Packwood of Oregon, the bill's sponsor, said it would reach the Senate floor next month, and he predicted that more than 60 of the 100 senators would vote for it.

Representative Marge Roukema is worried about Sterling Forest. New Jersey, New York and the Federal Government have long been trying to work out a deal to buy the privately owned 17,500-acre woodland that straddles the border of the two states. Their effort could be derailed by a proposed five-year Federal moratorium on land acquisition, so Ms. Roukema sent a letter yesterday to Representative Ralph Regula of Ohio, head of a key House subcommittee, urging him to oppose the moratorium.

The Bosnian Serbs chained up at least eight United Nations officers today at an ammunition depot and other sites near the Serbian headquarters at Pale, using them as human shields after NATO warplanes bombed the area for a second day. The chaining of the officers and the Serbs' detention of at least 100 other United Nations soldiers underscored the Serbs' determination to resist further NATO attacks and the difficulty of pursuing air raids with peacekeepers vulnerable on the ground.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service yesterday announced new guidelines that formally recognize rape, domestic abuse and other forms of violence against women as potential grounds for political asylum. In the past, sexual violence had been largely viewed by the agency and immigration courts as a private act, even when committed by soldiers or government officials. Rape, for example, was often seen by immigration officials as a street crime rather than a form of torture or punishment.