July 13, 1995

I WENT for a drive the other day inside a small room at New York University. My guide was William Schiff, a professor of applied psychology, and before I was done I managed to avoid a reckless school bus and make a safe left turn against oncoming traffic -- but I did hit Mr. Schiff's daughter. On the big television screen I was facing, she came out from between two cars in the shade, and I was slow putting my foot on the brake. Her father was understanding.

Bosnian Serb forces seized the last United Nations stronghold in a "safe area" of eastern Bosnia today, along with as many as 40,000 civilian refugees, and swiftly began busing the women, children and elderly toward Bosnian Government territory. In what has been a ritual of previous "ethnic cleansing" campaigns to rid territories of Muslim populations, the Bosnian Serbs separated the military-age men from the refugees and said they would be "screened for war crimes," a United Nations spokesman here said.

NOBODY liked my house. "No hope for it," warned a neighbor when I braked, responding to the empty house's siren call.

A New Jersey parole officer who had been supervising Darnell Collins when he went on a murderous rampage last month in New Jersey and Manhattan was suspended yesterday after officials learned that, hours before the killings began, Mr. Collins had telephoned the parole officer to say that he was "having a problem with drugs." Mario Paparozzi, the assistant chief of New Jersey's Bureau of Parole, said Mr. Collins told the parole officer, John Goodman, on the afternoon of June 16, a Friday, that he expected to be accepted into a drug treatment program the following Monday.

An appellate court decision upholding the right of toll road authorities to award towing contracts without competitive bidding has drawn the wrath of Assemblyman Paul R. Kramer, Republican of Hamilton Township. Mr. Kramer, chairman of the Independent Authorities Committee, recently tabled a bill that would also have authorized no-bid contracts.