June 15, 1995

The Senate voted overwhelmingly today for a measure that would impose heavy fines and prison terms on people who distribute sexually explicit or other "filthy" material over computer networks, in the most aggressive step yet by Congress to regulate cyberspace. Voting 84 to 16 in a session rife with lurid talk about child pornography and on-line descriptions of bestiality, advocates of tough regulation easily overwhelmed objections from a handful of lawmakers who said the measure would violate constitutional rights to free speech and threaten the growth of computer networks.

New York Harbor is cleaner than it has been in years, according to the first comprehensive survey of conditions in the 300 square miles of waterways surrounding New York.

IT was a perfectly ordinary spring day in the rolling middle Tennessee hills, which is just the sort of day that George Jones prizes. He had arisen at his customary 6 A.M., and soon thereafter was aboard his tractor cutting the grass, as he does every morning that he is at home. Mr. Jones strongly believes that a man should treat his lawn as he treats himself, and so after the mowing was done, he had submitted his locks to their own daily clipping by his longtime barber, Ray Gregory. Then Mr. Jones had slipped behind the wheel of one of the seven vehicles he owns that sport "NOSHOW" license plates -- today it was the NOSHOW2 BMW sedan -- and zipped into town to purchase the taco that he eats every day for lunch.

Time was that takeover fights could drag on interminably, racking up mind-numbing lists of white knights, counter bids and court rulings. No more. Recently "strategic" corporate buyers have been able to come in with hostile but rich bids and turn their unwilling targets around in as little as a week. Witness the Lotus Development Corporation's capitulation on Sunday to I.B.M.'s sweetened bid of more than $3.5 billion, only six days after having become the target of the unwanted advances of the blue-chip suitor. Or there was the Clark Equipment Company's acceptance of the Ingersoll-Rand Company's sweetened offer of $1.46 billion in April, 12 days after having derided the Ingersoll-Rand bid as an outrageous invasion.

Industry would get a break on red tape, and the state would do better meeting Federal clean air standards. Those are the goals of an agreement, announced yesterday, that is intended to provide businesses with strong financial incentives to think about the environment. For example, if companies cut pollution more than they have to, they can sell the right to pollute to somebody else. Several environmental groups said they will wait and see if the air clears up.