August 31, 1995

New Jersey trails only California, New York and Florida in the percentage of foreign-born residents living in the state, the United States Census Bureau reported yesterday. The bureau said that for the first time the total number of immigrants exceeded one million, representing 13.5 percent of the state's population. For New Jersey, the percentage of foreign-born residents was the highest since World War II, The Associated Press reported yesterday. But census figures dating back to 1900 show that the state has consistently had an immigrant population 5 to 10 percentage points larger than the nation's average.

Three incidents of attempted censorship were reported in New Jersey public schools during the last school year, placing the state 36th among the 50 states in a ranking of censorship cases, a liberal advocacy group said yesterday. In all, 458 incidents in 49 states were reported by teachers, librarians, school officials and parents, a study by People for the American Way found. In Palmyra, the school board banned the textbook "Populations" from an eighth-grade science class after parents claimed it contained age-inappropriate and biased information. But efforts by parents in Bloomfield and Montville to remove other textbooks proved unsuccessful, the report said.

First, New Jerseyans were treated to Bradley on the Beach. Today, they get a chance to see Whitman on Wheels. Governor Whitman, an avid cyclist, will cross New Jersey by bicycle, starting at Washington Crossing State Park and winding up at Point Pleasant Beach. Last year, the Governor posted 52 miles in a bike trip that took her from Trenton to Seven Presidents Park in Long Beach, her spokesman, Carl Golden, said. The Governor is undertaking the effort "because she's an outdoor person and loves to talk to people," Mr. Golden said. Senator Bill Bradley walked the state's beaches earlier this week. TERRY PRISTIN

John Carbone has spent a long stretch of rainless days perched in isolation atop a fire tower in the mountains here, peering out from a cramped 7-foot-square cubicle at a stunning vista of New Jersey. The Manhattan skyline is stark, 25 miles off to the southeast. In all other directions, bright green ridges, mountaintops and valleys stretch to the horizon. In his solitude, Mr. Carbone, 23, has scanned it all, over and over and over again, eight hours a day for three weeks, looking for the first signs of the wispy white smoke of forest fires drifting up from the carpet of treetops before him.

Time Warner and Turner Seeking to Please Malone Executives of Time Warner, Turner Broadcasting and Tele-Communications Inc. shuttled between New York hotel suites and conference rooms, as they worked on an $8.5 billion deal in which Time Warner would buy Turner.