February 24, 1996

New Jersey lost a significant number of jobs last month as the state's unemployment rate remained above the national average, suggesting continued sluggishness in the economy, according to new data. Using a new method to estimate unemployment, New Jersey's joblessness rate was 6.5 percent in January. Officials revised the December rate downward, easing concern that a spike in unemployment had signaled a sudden downturn.

Two months after an accident at its prototype reactor, Japan's program to use plutonium to provide a virtually inexhaustible supply of energy is at a crossroads, and could be in danger of collapse. Even the most optimistic officials think it will take three years to restart the fast-breeder reactor, where the leak of dangerous sodium coolant occurred in December. Some other analysts think that the reactor, which is in the city of Tsuruga on the coast of the Sea of Japan, will never be activated again.

Down the Paseo del Prado they marched, wave after wave of dancers and drummers decked out in extravagant, blindingly flashy outfits. "I've never seen anything like this before," Oscar Raul Marrero, 11 years old, exulted as he whirled on the sidewalk and watched -- wide-eyed, loose-limbed and nimble-footed -- the spectacle flowing past him. After an absence of a quarter of a century, pre-Lenten Carnival has returned to Cuba -- albeit one slightly unhinged from the Christian calendar, by which all festivities were to have been completed before Lent began. By Government decree, Cuba's Carnival will run an extra five days, through Sunday.

The economy grew at a meager annual pace of nine-tenths of 1 percent in the final three months of 1995 as consumers kept a tight grip on their wallets, Government spending fell and investment by business slackened, the Commerce Department reported today. For all of 1995, the output of goods and services advanced 2.1 percent over the previous year, the smallest gain since 1991, when the gross domestic product fell 1 percent.

Patrick J. Buchanan compared pro-abortion forces to the "evil empire" of Communism today, pledging to devote his Presidency to ending abortions in the country and to be remembered as the "most pro-life President in history." Mr. Buchanan's remarks, to a breakfast sponsored by Arizona Right-to-Life in Phoenix, signaled that the conservative Presidential candidate would not ease his emphasis on the contentious issue, even as his candidacy gains daily visibility and as he comes under political pressure to expand his appeal beyond the party's right wing.

Two sons-in-law of Saddam Hussein who returned to Iraq this week after defecting to Jordan six months ago have been killed by their relatives, the Iraqi Government said tonight. An Interior Ministry statement broadcast on a Government-controlled television station said the two men, Hussein Kamel al-Majid and his brother Saddam Kamel al-Majid, were killed in a gun battle today when members of their family stormed their residence in the Iraqi capital.

With the state facing its potentially worst fiscal crisis in years, a growing number of labor leaders, municipal officials and Democratic legislators are openly advocating what was once considered politically unthinkable: delaying or scaling back an income-tax cut scheduled to take effect in just five weeks. What has made the groundswell of support for modifying the tax cut particularly surprising is that it involves not just New York City legislators but also more conservative lawmakers from central and western New York. Democrats from those regions are considered the most vulnerable to Republican challenges this year, and therefore least likely to support rolling back the tax cut, which would typically reduce a family's taxes by $19 a month but would cost the state $1.7 billion.

On Jan. 29, with his wife of 20 years by his side, Joseph Rossillo walked into the Westchester County Court House, prepared to be sentenced for the statutory rape of a 16-year-old relative in 1991. But Mr. Rossillo, 59, a telecommunications entrepreneur who pleaded guilty in exchange for five years' probation, was not prepared for a media event. Photographers and reporters, alerted by a news release from the Westchester County District Attorney, thronged to record a court proceeding that might have been ignored had it occurred several days earlier or later.

Cold War Spy Case

Lamar Alexander says he wants to rely on private charities, not government, to help the poor, but many of those charities are alarmed. Article, page 8.

An article yesterday about the testimony of Harold M. Ickes, a senior White House aide, before the Senate Whitewater committee referred incorrectly in some editions to the position held by his father during the New Deal. It was that of Interior Secretary, not Agriculture Secretary.

A chart on Monday with an article about the New York region's slow recovery from the most recent recession misstated the years for a comparison of business starts and failures. The years being compared were 1994 and 1995, not 1984 and 1985.