March 18, 1996

Danny Coronel, a bartender from Elmhurst, Queens, lost his telephone when a former friend used it for calls to Hong Kong -- $1,900 worth. Jose Ramos, a livery-cab driver, and his wife, Jackie, never had a phone, even though they moved to Washington Heights in Manhattan from the Dominican Republic more than two years ago. "We didn't have anything in our name in this country," Mr. Ramos said. "It was just too hard." They are by no means alone in New York, where the percentage of homes without phones is higher than in any other metropolitan area in the country. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers, most of them recent immigrants, go for long periods without a home phone, an appliance as common in American households as a refrigerator or a front door. The experts cite a variety of reasons -- credit problems, language barriers, lack of identification or simple fear of the system. Some people get phones only to lose them quickly to homesickness as unpaid bills for international calls mount.

Tobacco Industry Inquiries Have Quietly Broadened The Justice Department has expanded an array of criminal and civil inquiries into the tobacco industry, lawyers say. While department officials had cautioned earlier that indictments were unlikely, the tobacco companies' aura of invincibility in court has been weakened by industry whistle-blowers, disclosures of internal company documents and an agreement by the Liggett Group to settle its part of a class-action suit against the major tobacco companies. [Page A1.] Progress in G.M. Talks After a weekend of negotiations, representatives of General Motors and the United Auto Workers seemed optimistic about settling a 12-day strike at two brake plants that has forced the closure of 24 assembly plants and idled tens of thousands of workers. [A10.]

The Palisades Park Board of Education is scheduled to vote tonight on whether to name an acting schools superintendent to replace James M. Nichols. Earlier this month, a group of 200 families calling themselves the Palisades Park Homeowners Association sued Mr. Nichols, who is on medical leave and has announced he wants to retire, for $2.7 million and tried to prevent him from receiving a $138,000 severance package. The homeowners blame Mr. Nichols for what they contend is fiscal mismanagement resulting in repeated deficits in the last few years and a $400,000 budget gap this year, said Richard A. Brovarone, the group's lawyer. Mr. Nichols, however, has the support of the board president, Angela Bollhardt. "I don't feel there was any wrongdoing," Ms. Bollhardt said.

At a time when this city is struggling to revive its fortunes, blowing up a building has become an occasion for celebration. Hundreds of people gathered this morning to watch a blast that destroyed a 73-year-old power plant that had once provided the electricity for more than a dozen factories. But the factories have long since closed, and in three seconds, at about 8:50 A.M., the United Illuminating Company's 16-story Steel Point Generating Station collapsed with a muffled boom, disappearing in a black cloud of dust.

A 35-year-old Newark man was shot in the shoulder yesterday by a man who carjacked the limousine he had been riding in, police said. The wounded man, Mohammed Hassan Sayed, remained in guarded condition last night at University Hospital, a nursing supervisor said. The police said the carjacker, whom they identified as Bernard Stephenson Jr., also of Newark, robbed two people in an apartment building elevator at gunpoint of jewelry and a few dollars and then, fleeing the building, jumped into the limousine just as Mr. Sayed and his brother arrived home. Mr. Stephenson escaped from the car after the shooting but was arrested in Maplewood later in the day, said Detective Dan Collins, a Newark police spokesman. He was carrying a .22-caliber semiautomatic handgun, Detective Collins said. No one else was injured.