November 15, 1995

The Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company said today that it would lop off some of its best-known but least-profitable businesses, cut 5,000 jobs from its work force of 85,000 and take a $600 million charge against profits in the fourth quarter. The scope and timing of the moves startled Wall Street, but also pleased it. The company's shares jumped $2.625, to $61.625, on the New York Stock Exchange, for a gain on the day of 4.4 percent.

Gretchen Smyth, a retired supervisor in the State Department of Labor who rigged computer files to generate as much as $800,000 in false unemployment benefits from 1989 to 1993, was sentenced yesterday to two and one-half years in prison for mail fraud and bribery. Mrs. Smyth, 64, of Elizabeth, was helped in the scheme by two men who worked out of a bodega in Elizabeth. Both of them have also been convicted in the case.

New Jersey's Democratic mayors got a pep talk yesterday from the state Democratic Party Chairman, Tom Byrne, who called on them to change political attitudes on government grant programs that perpetuate the cycle of poverty and fail to "attract the assets needed to rebuild our cities and our school systems." Mr. Byrne said he would try to rally Democratic mayors this week at the three-day League of Municipalities convention in Atlantic City. About 10,000 municipal officials are to attend the convention.

IN the weeks since the O. J. Simpson verdict and the Million Man March, Bebe Moore Campbell has been busy. Her most recent novel, which takes a candid look at race through the prism of Los Angeles after the 1992 riots, has turned Ms. Campbell, a former elementary-school teacher, into a sought-after commentator on race. In addition to her occasional broadcasts on "Morning Edition" on National Public Radio, Ms. Campbell has, since the verdict, appeared on such forums as "Nightline" and the Cable News Network, and has been quoted in countless publications. The appearances have coincided with a 12-city tour she just completed to promote the paperback release of the novel, "Brothers and Sisters" (Berkeley Books).

We have to deal with it emotionally, and then we have to deal with it technically," Mayor Allie McGaheran said yesterday. She was referring to the death over the weekend of the Commissioner-elect, Thomas P. Donohue, the town's third elected official to die in just over a year. Mr. Donohue, 33, died from head injuries after falling down his basement steps. Six weeks ago, Commissioner Robert Simpson died after heart surgery. In September 1994, Commissioner Michael Salvatore died of a heart attack. The town, which has 2,000 residents and a six-member council, will consider a replacement for Mr. Donohue at its Nov. 28 Council meeting.