August 6, 1995

In its first direct action on abortion this year, the Senate voted today to bar the use of Government money to pay for most abortions for Federal workers, but it rejected a stricter measure that the House had adopted. Meeting in a rare Saturday session, senators approved by a 50-to-44 vote an amendment to a spending bill that lets Federal health insurance cover abortions only in cases of rape or incest or when the woman's life is in danger.

Carl H. Westcott is a car dealer who is now rich. That is due in part to his decision to start a new business a couple of years ago. But mostly it is because Wall Street has fallen in love with Mr. Westcott's dream and made it into a hot stock. This story is not, as you might expect, about technology. It is not about some clever software or a new design in semiconductors.

Ralph Lemon's career as a modern dance choreographer took off in 1990, a decade after he created his first pieces. He was internationally acknowledged as a leading member of his generation in American dance. He had established a small but highly respected company of dancers attuned to the demands of his bold, complex style of choreography. And he was passionate about his work. "I love the edge of it, the challenge," he told an interviewer the following year. "I love the fight. Not the struggle, but the challenge of solving problems I pick out of the air." Yet Mr. Lemon had started to feel a sense of foreboding about the field in general. "Everything started to get like a roller coaster," he said in a recent interview. "We'd have a good year touring, then the next year work would be cut in half. And I was one of the fortunate ones."

Declaring an end to "a decade of war and two decades of estrangement," Secretary of State Warren Christopher arrived in Hanoi to open formal diplomatic relations with the Communist leaders of Vietnam, and immediately plunged into talks about turning a former enemy into an emerging trading partner.

WHEN he announced the $19 billion acquisition of Capital Cities/ABC last Monday, Michael D. Eisner, chairman of the Walt Disney Company, expressed boundless enthusiasm for his newest, globally popular attraction, an asset that he called "a magic name" comparable as a brand to Coca-Cola and Kodak: ESPN. As he moved from the news conference announcing the stunning acquisition to interviews with newspapers, magazines, CNN's "Larry King Live" and ABC's "Nightline," Mr. Eisner reserved most of his evident delight in the second largest takeover in United States history for the vast possibilities that he foresaw from the combination of "Disney imagineering" with the global brand identity of ESPN, the all-sports cable channel begun by Getty Oil in 1979.