October 23, 1995

The number of deaths on the region's highways continued to decline in 1994. Yearly traffic fatalities in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have decreased 37 percent since 1980. Experts point to the increased use of seat belts, higher safety standards for vehicles and roads and the decline in drunk driving as reasons for the drop. Strict - and well-funded - anti-D.W.I. programs and laws are largeley creditied for giving the three states some of the lowest fatality rates in the nation. Last month the House joined the Senate in voting to repeal the Federal speed limit of 55 miles per hour for all vehicles, turning over to the states the question of how fast motorists should be able to drive. Critics say the move will lead to more highway deaths.

The arrivals were grand ones, befitting an unprecedented confluence of world leaders. Sedan after sedan glided up to a white-tented entrance at the United Nations, delivering presidents and prime ministers, who stepped inside and strode down a royal red carpet, past an honor guard of white-gloved officers, to receive a firm handshake or prim kiss from Secretary General Boutrous Boutros-Ghali.

Even as popular speculation mounts that Gen. Colin L. Powell will decide to run for President, speculators on the Internet's Colin Powell "futures market" are betting against it. Set up by the University of Iowa's business school on the World Wide Web, the Colin Powell nomination market allows people anywhere in the world to buy and sell bets about the General's decision with their computers. Since June, the price of a bet that he will run has dropped from its initial offering of $1, to about 49 cents today, indicating a growing sense that he will not run.

America's financial markets have changed radically since the Depression -- from ticker tape to computers, from simple stocks and bonds to exotic investments like derivatives. But the rules of the game have remained almost intact for 60 years. Until now. Today, those rules are being reshaped by so many forces that even reform-minded regulators are growing concerned. They fear that the rush to deregulate the securities industry has become a party at which each guest quietly spikes the punch bowl: each intends to add just enough booze to enliven the gathering, but the cumulative effect can be a drunken brawl.

After a restrained day of diplomacy, clad in a dark business suit, President Fidel Castro of Cuba changed back into fatigues last night to spend the evening before an adulatory audience at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Standing at a podium before 1,300 admirers, Mr. Castro held forth as if he were on a balcony overlooking a plaza in Havana, drinking in the cheers and applause that greeted his nearly every remark.

A 16-month-old girl was killed and her mother was critically injured when the mother drove a car into the Delaware River on Saturday night, the police said yesterday. Teresa Kinch, 36, of Florence Township, was pulled out of the water after the police received a call reporting that a car had driven off the Florence Wharf. Ms. Kinch and her baby, also named Teresa, were airlifted to Cooper Trauma Center in Camden, where the child was pronounced dead. The Burlington County prosecutor's office said it did not know why the car had entered the water.

Securities Deregulation: Is It Going Too Far? In the rush to deregulate the securities industry, three separate currents of change are converging in a way that some critics fear will strip away protections investors need.

Nine hundred miles away in the nation's capital, liberals are warning that the Republican plan to eliminate the Federal entitlement to welfare will encourage states to "race to the bottom." Mississippi is already there.

Two approaches to establishing innovative public schools will be debated at the New Jersey School Boards Association's annual conference on Thursday. The chairman of the State Senate Education Committee, John H. Ewing, Republican of Peapack, is the sponsor of a bill that would allow teachers, parents, business representatives, or anyone else with an interest in education, to develop a charter school and start it up, as long as the State Department of Education approved it.

A Test for Giuliani on Labor Mayor Giuliani's relations with labor unions are reaching a critical phase, as expected savings have failed to materialize by deadline and he now faces contract talks with all 83 municipal unions. Page B3. Debate Over Children Democrats are arguing that the country's children will suffer from proposed budget cuts. But Republicans are countering that the young will benefit in the long run. Page A16. Deadly Siege in Queens A Queens man killed his mother, a neighbor and wounded a policeman in Bayside. The standoff ended when officers returned a burst of gunfire, killing the man. Page B1. Kingsley Amis Is Dead The prolific British novelist, poet and critic, a onetime radical who was labeled a reactionary in his later years, was 73. Page B11.

In a step toward blending the personal computer and the Internet with broadcast television, the Intel Corporation and several of the nation's largest personal computer makers and television broadcasters plan to announce on Monday a new technology that will turn personal computers into television receivers and allow broadcasters to deliver computer data along with their television programs. Intercast, which was developed by Intel researchers over the last two years, will allow broadcasters to transmit data in a portion of the television signal known as the vertical blanking interval -- at speeds almost four times as fast as the fastest available modems now used to send personal computer data to the home.

Is PC Magazine the Rockefeller Center of the 1990's? That is what many in the computer industry are wondering since the news emerged last week that the Softbank Corporation of Japan was negotiating to buy Ziff-Davis Publishing, the world's largest producer of computer magazines, including PC Magazine.