November 3, 1995

The police chief of West Orange, under fire since a judge's findings of domestic violence became public, was indicted today by an Essex County grand jury on charges of beating his wife, warning a drug suspect that the police were headed for her doorstep, and failing to investigate the harassment of his predecessor. The indictments mean that the chief, Robert A. Spina, who has been struggling to keep his $75,000-a-year job, will be suspended without pay, his lawyer said. Chief Spina was appointed to head the 100-member police force a year ago by his father, Mayor Sam Spina, and both men have defied protests demanding that he step down.

Water rates will rise 1 to 2 percent, or less than $7 a year for the average residential customer, under a $1.2 billion plan bringing upstate and urban interests together to protect New York City's drinking water. The plan, released yesterday, is intended to avert the need to build a multibillion-dollar filtration plant and promote nonpolluting economic development around the city's 19 upstate reservoirs.

A perverse computer can vaporize hours of work; a bad pair of contacts can strain the eyes. But a flawed car can do untold damage to the body or psyche. And what intricate, vulnerable products they are: aggregates of some 30,000 bits and pieces, racked by thousands of explosions a minute, abused by weather and roads, controlled by one frequently neglectful mind.

Thousands marched up Broadway -- health care workers, hospital executives, union officials and Democratic politicians -- to protest the proposed Republican cuts in spending for Medicare and Medicaid. Hillary Rodham Clinton joined them as they massed in Times Square at the height of rush hour. She promised the crowd -- who shouted and waved banners -- that her husband would veto any budget that cut too deeply into the two vast Federal health care programs. Article, page B3.

SISTER GRACE (Ellen Burstyn) is one dynamite nun, which is fine with her superiors in the Roman Catholic Church as long as she sticks to her duties as the head of the Houston Street Crisis Center in SoHo. Drug pushers, would-be muggers, petty thieves and lapsed Catholics never have the last word when she's around. She has an answer for everything, including a lot of questions the church would prefer that nobody asked. Ever since her association with the Rev. Daniel Berrigan's protests against the Vietnam War, Sister Grace has been speaking out on matters the church considers controversial. Most recently: sex education in parochial schools and the distribution of condoms -- not just any condoms, but inexpensive condoms that have, according to her, thicker latex than the pricier brands.