The Giuliani administration's choice for executive director of Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx dropped from the running yesterday after disclosures that he had previously mismanaged the same hospital and had once written a character reference for a reputed organized crime figure.   

Jacobi Choice Gets a Nudge And Bows Out

THE recent proliferation of electronic toys, from talking telephones to CD-ROM's, is giving many parents pause about the wisdom of heaping technologies  on their children. 

     And the choices are growing quickly: the market for hand-held and tabletop electronic toys and learning aids grew from $375 million to $500 million last year alone, said Jodi Levin, a spokesperson for the Toy Manufacturers of America, a trade group.

PARENT & CHILD;Should Your Toddler Be a Techie?

Harrah's Casino officials said yesterday that they plan a $24.7 million expansion.         The money will be used to build 10,000 square feet of new gambling space and  add a restaurant, the casino's president, Hector Mon, said.   

NEW JERSEY DAILY BRIEFING;Casino Expansion Is Planned

President Clinton has chosen the head of a board that will control the finances of the District of Columbia. Page B12.   

Financial Curbs for Capital

    Giuliani's Choice to Run Bronx Hospital Bows Out   

INSIDE

Faced with the nuts and bolts of dismantling much of their bankrupt government, the residents of Orange County are finding themselves divided, angry about the options they face, but unable to turn back from a course that many conservatives had encouraged even before the county's financial debacle.         As deadlines approach and tough decisions are made, Orange County's bitter struggle to reverse years of government growth is providing an accidental laboratory of sorts in the new less-is-more civics of the 1990's.   

Orange County: Reluctant Fiscal Test Case

In 1974, 4-year-old Brenda Probasco was found dead 16 miles from her home here in Gloucester County. Now, a former neighbor has been charged with her murder.          Though Edwin C. Blood, 51, was an early suspect, the authorities said they did not have enough evidence to charge him until he confessed to New Jersey State Police detectives while being questioned recently at a New Hampshire prison. Mr. Blood was nearing the end of 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to molesting another girl.   

NEW JERSEY DAILY BRIEFING;Man Confesses to 1974 Killing

President Clinton said today that the United States should be prepared to help the United Nations not only in withdrawing its forces from Bosnia if that became necessary, but in moving and strengthening those forces if needed.         "We have obligations to our NATO allies," the President told this year's graduating class at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo, "and I do not believe we can leave them in the lurch. So I must carefully review any request involving a temporary use of our ground forces." [Excerpts from the speech, page A10.]   

CONFLICT IN THE BALKANS: THE OVERVIEW;Clinton Talks of Ground Role in Bosnia

If products bear the label "Made in New Jersey," the home shopping network QVC would like Gov. Christine Todd Whitman to go on the air to sell them. The network is trying to find goods made in every state that appeal to a national audience. It has already featured 18 states and 10 governors. Governor Whitman is considering the proposal, an aide said.   

NEW JERSEY DAILY BRIEFING;QVC Seeks Whitman as Host

    Surprise Intervention Halts Decline in Dollar The Clinton Administration and a dozen foreign countries bought billions of dollars in a surprise currency intervention that appeared to halt yet another slump in the dollar. The dollar surged, though not to the levels that traders said would signal a new stability.   

BUSINESS DIGEST

Don't tell Frantz Conde that bip-bip-bip and dum-diddy-dum are nonsense syllables. The group harmonies of doo-wop music make some serious sense to him and the members of his a cappella quartet, Khulaje.         "It's really about this admixture that makes things beautiful," said Mr. Conde, a 20-year-old Brooklynite who likens his art to a musical collage. "There's no other expression like vocal expression. You can play a trumpet or sax, but when you blend with others, it's something else."   

Old Sounds Were Smooth And the Young Hopes High

The Clinton Administration and a dozen foreign countries took the currency markets by surprise today, buying billions of dollars in an intervention that appeared to have stopped yet another slump in the dollar.         After several days of sliding slowly down toward its record lows of mid-April, the dollar bounced back sharply today against the Japanese yen and the German mark. But when trading ended, the dollar had not quite reached the levels that traders said would signal a new stability.   

CURRENCY MARKETS;US. LEADS NATIONS IN SURPRISE BUYING TO PROP UP DOLLAR

After 102 years, Upsala College has closed its doors forever, crushed by $12.5 million in debt. The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools held off withdrawing Upsala's accreditation until yesterday so that about 200 seniors could graduate.   

NEW JERSEY DAILY BRIEFING;Upsala College Closes Doors

HI there!" Ellie Covan calls down cheerily, waiting for her visitor to climb the long, steep flight of stairs to the second-floor loft on the Bowery where she lives and works. Five nights a week, strangers fill the stairway, on their way up to living-room performances of madcap music and dance with names like "Opera Vindaloo" or "Brand New Dance," or readings of "homotexts" or science fiction.         A little more than a decade ago, Ms. Covan was a wandering young American who had settled momentarily in Paris, reading a short story of hers called "My First Real Boyfriend" to a dozen new friends gathered for an impromptu salon in a borrowed apartment. Now, she runs a small theater -- capacity, 57; yearly budget, $150,000 -- that is one of the few surviving performance-art clubs in New York and the only one of its kind to be found in a home.   

AT HOME WITH: Ellie Covan;Enter, Living Room Left

Last October, anticipating a new round of military base closings, Air Force analysts used a computer to estimate how much the Defense Department would save  if it closed its high-tech military laboratory in Rome, N.Y., and merged it with a lab elsewhere.         Their October cost-benefit analysis found that moving the lab would be so expensive -- $133.8 million -- that it would far outweigh the $1.5 million in annual savings from closing it. Indeed, the computer determined it would take more than 100 years to recoup the price of the move. So the Air Force ranked the Rome laboratory among the last installations it would consider closing.   

Lab's Fate Is in Air Force Numbers;New York Officials Say Pentagon Tailors Its Data to Politics

Condemning affirmative action programs as "unfair" and "unjust," Gov. Pete Wilson of California said yesterday that he intended to sharply curtail them throughout the state's government wherever the law allowed.         In an open letter to the people of California, Mr. Wilson said that merit --  not race or sex -- would be the basis for state employment, promotion, contracting and school admission policies. He said his policy would apply except in cases where laws and court decisions have mandated affirmative action policies.   

Californian Assails Affirmative Action

The Garden State and gridlock: inevitable together?         It is no surprise that the main objective of a 20-year, $27 billion transportation plan for 13 counties is making commuting easier. The plan unveiled yesterday by the Northern New Jersey Transportation Planning Authority  outlines 287 solutions, including a rail station in Secaucus where passengers could make connections between the state's major rail lines and trains into Manhattan.   

NEW JERSEY DAILY BRIEFING;A Plan to Ease Commuting

In his quest to gather support from conservative Republicans for his Presidential bid, Senator Bob Dole made a withering attack tonight on the entertainment industry for what he said was a barrage of movies and recordings that are slashing the social fabric of the nation.         "We have reached the point where our popular culture threatens to undermine our character as a nation," said Mr. Dole, whose speech propelled him into the forefront of Republican candidates denouncing Hollywood for producing what he called "nightmares of depravity" involving sex and violence.   

Films and Recordings Threaten Nation's Character, Dole Says

AS if virtual-reality videos and virtual-reality murder-mystery games were not enough, now there is a virtual-reality massage lounger, a chair that is supposed to relax bodies and minds stressed out by life in the high-tech 90's.         If only that throbbing that's been killing me all morning were a virtual-reality backache.   

Virtual Relaxation

The stock market, after falling in recent sessions, vaulted yesterday to all-time highs, dumbfounding analysts as the Dow Jones industrial average soared to its biggest one-day percentage gain in a year and its biggest point gain in more than three.         No single explanation seemed to suffice. The Government reported more data that reinforced Wall Street's view that the economy is slowing enough to contain inflation but without choking corporate profits. The dollar rose in value after the world's leading central banks took concerted action to buy it. And the market seemed to chase the usual rumors, including a breakthrough in trade talks with Japan that proved unfounded.   

Stunning Surge On Wall Street: Dow Up 86.46

Because people are angry at three school board members here, this Monmouth County borough will be the first community to test a new state law allowing recall of elected officials.          Opponents of the board members blame them for the dismissal of a popular vice principal and for late-night decisions made at meetings after the public had left. The board members will have the chance to include their side of the story on the recall petitions.   

NEW JERSEY DAILY BRIEFING;A Bid to Recall Board Members

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has decided not to build a 22-mile railway from Manhattan to Kennedy International and La Guardia Airports  in Queens because of rising costs, dealing a major setback to a decades-old search for an affordable and convenient way to transport travelers between the airports and the city's center.         The rail line would have been the largest new public-works venture in the region in years, an undertaking that recalled the mammoth projects of earlier eras: the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the subways, the Hudson River tunnels. But its demise reflects the pressures of today, when public spending is a political  concern and a new generation of Republicans wants to shrink government and rein  in its aspirations.   

Citing Rising Costs, Port Authority Kills Airport Rail Plan

Kirk Kerkorian withdrew his hostile bid of $55 a share for the Chrysler Corporation today, but at the same time announced he had hired an investment bank to advise him on options, including another takeover attempt.         The only step Mr. Kerkorian's representatives ruled out today was selling his 36 million Chrysler shares, roughly 10 percent of the company.   

Kerkorian Bid for Chrysler Is Ended, at Least for Now

Apparently convinced that they can talk their way out of their current isolation, the Bosnian Serbs offered today to hold international talks on the release of over 320 United Nations soldiers taken hostage after NATO bombing raids last week.         "We are calling for immediate discussions," said Miroslav Toholj, who serves  as information minister of the Bosnian Serbs. He added that the talks should focus on the release of the hostages and future "security guarantees" for the Serbs.   

CONFLICT IN THE BALKANS: THE SERBS;Bosnian Serbs Call for Talks; U.N. Refuses, Seeing a Ploy

Wandering into the Polo Lounge of the soon-to-reopen Beverly Hills Hotel, Kermit Beriker, the general manager, happily greeted several workers who were applying final touches to the lush forest green pillars.         "Nothing has changed here -- it's exactly as it was," Mr. Beriker said, walking into the lobby. "We're back!"   

June 1, 1995

Headlines from June 1, 1995

Jacobi Choice Gets a Nudge And Bows Out

PARENT & CHILD;Should Your Toddler Be a Techie?

NEW JERSEY DAILY BRIEFING;Casino Expansion Is Planned

Financial Curbs for Capital

INSIDE

Billboard 200

Cracked Rear View

Throwing Copper

Friday

Forrest Gump

John Michael Montgomery

Historical Context for June 1, 1995