October 2, 1995

New Jersey and Connecticut are both greatly dependent on nuclear power to generate electricity. Changing economics, especially high maintenance and capital costs for nuclear power plants and decreasing oil and natural gas prices, have made the electricity produced by nuclear energy more expensive than power from other sources. One plant, Shoreham, closed before it began producing electricity. No new reactors have been ordered for 20 years in the United States. Some nuclear plants in the region are also notoriously unreliable. Many have capacity factors, the measure of a plant's reliability, well below the national average.

This was the kind of day it was for the Giants. They faced first-and-goal at the San Francisco 3-yard line, their best field position of the day. They trailed by 20-3 in the third quarter. It looked like a certain touchdown that would make the game close. Then came a pitch to Rodney Hampton, who is usually sure-handed. Only he had a broken hand and didn't even know it. He fumbled. Fourteen-yard loss. Field goal instead of a touchdown. To make matters worse, Hampton left the game immediately after the series, learned that his hand was broken and later was told that he isn't likely to play again for a month.

Funny things happened around this city last year when a half dozen health care plans battled to enroll a quarter of a million poor people. The plans that signed up the most people could get tens of millions of dollars under TennCare, a new state health system. So, some promised new members free life insurance and secured credit cards. One offered holiday turkeys to members who enrolled friends. Homeless people recall being besieged by sales representatives and signing up with any number of them.

A 52-year-old New York man became the 14th person to drown at the Jersey Shore since the beginning of the summer season, the A.P. reported. An off-duty lifeguard, a surfer and a Belmar police officer tried unsuccessfully to rescue the man, Byron Myroniuk, on Saturday after he got caught in heavy surf, Petty Officer Jeffrey Wertz of the Coast Guard said.

After a subway construction accident left a Chinatown building tottering and one of the city's busiest subway lines shut down, transit officials scrambled last night to avert rush hour chaos today. Officials said they were confident that the affected trains -- the Nos. 4, 5 and 6 on the Lexington Avenue I.R.T. between Grand Central Terminal and Fulton Street -- would be running by rush hour, though at speeds slightly slower than usual. But the No. 6 line, they said, would not stop at Canal Street.