January 9, 1996

Lockheed Martin Reaches $10 Billion Deal With Loral

The deepest snowfall that most commuters have ever seen crippled mass transit throughout the New York metropolitan region yesterday, leaving towns and neighborhoods without service and stranding thousands of brave souls who tried to get to work. Transit officials said they hoped today would see some improvement.

Michael Plaut answered the telephone in his home in Scarsdale, N.Y., hungry for information that he and his wife, Stephanie, needed if they were to get on with their lives. The call confirmed his worst fear: the pregnancy test was negative. The Plauts sobbed, held each other and then had a glass of Scotch.

Francois Mitterrand, who revived France's Socialist Party into a modern political force and whose election as President ended decades of Gaullist rule, died this morning in his official residence here of prostate cancer. He was 79. "It is a great figure who has left us, and I salute him with emotion and with respect," said President Jacques Chirac, a conservative Gaullist and longtime political adversary of Mr. Mitterrand, who succeeded him last May.

The historic Blizzard of '96 broke off its ghostly assault on the citadels and hamlets of the Northeast yesterday, leaving behind a New York metropolitan region and 10 states, home to more than 63 million people, buried and paralyzed under 18 inches to three or more feet of snow. It was not the worst snowstorm on record in New York City, where a 1947 blow left 26.4 inches in Central Park, though it ranked third, with 20.2 inches in the park. It dropped 27.5 inches on Staten Island, the hardest-hit borough. But the storm's ranking seemed only a technicality on a day filled with superlatives for its awesome power.