January 8, 1996

First the Republicans did what the President wanted and agreed to open some of the Government. Then the President did what the Republicans had been demanding and put a really, truly balanced budget proposal on the negotiating table. With this instant political harmony, it might seem that any day now the two sides will agree on how to get it all done.

Bias in Legal Profession

A monstrous, crippling blizzard that experts said would make history attacked the New York metropolitan region and much of the East yesterday with blinding snow that was expected to become more than two feet deep before ending today. It disrupted travel, commerce and life for millions. The classic Northeaster -- from satellites, a great swirling comma hundreds of miles across -- barreled up the Atlantic Seaboard and like enemy bombers targeted coastal cities. By today, it was expected to leave New York, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Haven, Boston and other areas snowbound and virtually paralyzed.

Dana O., a 33-year-old nurse with three children of her own, may be genetically related to one, two or perhaps three other children. She will probably never know. That is because Dana donated her eggs anonymously through IVF America-Boston, a fertility clinic here, and through another clinic nearby. Each time, she was paid $1,500 for undergoing extensive screening, three weeks of hormone injections and outpatient surgery to retrieve her eggs. They were then mixed with sperm in a petri dish and implanted in the uterus of an infertile woman.

Children were falling asleep atop their parents' luggage carts at La Guardia Airport last night as hundreds of snow-stranded passengers hunkered down for the night in the terminal. Students and teachers in New York City schools knew before they went to bed that they would be staying home today, the first time since 1978 that a snow day had been declared the night before.