December 14, 1995

President Clinton has emerged from the Federal budget standoff with his highest public ratings in nearly two years, while House Republicans, particularly Speaker Newt Gingrich, have lost much of the good will they enjoyed after their sweep of Congress last year, the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll shows. Virtually every finding showed striking evidence of renewed political strength for the President: Mr. Clinton's job approval level has broken 50 percent for the first time in The Times's polling since February 1994. Americans have begun to give him more credit for a healthier economy. And they perceive Mr. Clinton as far more earnest than the Republicans in trying to find a solution to the budget impasse.

A provision in the telecommunications bill nearing completion in Congress could make it tougher for upstart companies to challenge entrenched cable monopolies in New York and other big cities, although it could lead to lower cable prices for some apartment dwellers. The provision has jolted Liberty Cable, a small Manhattan-based company that is Time Warner Inc.'s only real competitor in the New York cable market.

Adhering to the mouthparts of a lobster like a suction-cup toy and sweeping up the lobster's errant food particles like a living napkin is a tiny animal whose anatomy and life cycle are unlike anything seen before, scientists have reported. The creature is so unique in its style and appearance that the biologists who discovered it have given it not just its own species name, or its own genus or family, but have moved way up the classification scale and declared that it is an entirely new phylum. The name of the new phylum is Cycliophora, Greek for "carrying a small wheel." The description refers to the creature's very striking circular mouth, which is surrounded by a ring of fine hairlike cilia and which bears a vague resemblance to the upholstery attachment for a vacuum cleaner.

After 40 years of trying, researchers have found a treatment for stroke that can prevent irreversible brain damage in some patients. The treatment did not lessen death rates in the stroke victims studied, but it could allow tens of thousands of the half-million Americans who suffer strokes each year to stay out of nursing homes and resume normal lives.

A former Essex County official who ran a Federally subsidized housing project was fined $50,000 yesterday for taking kickbacks for hiring guards from companies owned by a Newark businessman. Judge Alfred M. Wolin of Federal District Court ordered the former official, Larrie West Stalks, to spend six months under detention at her South Orange home. She must also pay $67,271 in restitution to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Assistant United States Attorney Bryan Blaney said.