March 21, 1996

A scheme that defrauded eight prominent international financial institutions out of hundreds of millions of dollars for more than two years might have continued but for the efforts of an executive at the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan, according to an affidavit submitted by an F.B.I. agent in charge of the case. The affidavit provides the first extensive details of the unusual case, in which a former employee of the Philip Morris Companies is accused of posing as an officer of a fictional Philip Morris subsidiary to obtain more than $300 million in loans from the Signet Banking Corporation, the Nationsbank Corporation, the Long-Term Credit Bank and others.

Prosecutor Defies Pataki

The Supreme Court today upheld the validity of the 1990 census, ruling unanimously that the Federal Government had no constitutional obligation to adjust the results to correct an acknowledged undercount in big cities and among minorities. While the decision, written by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, ends a long-running lawsuit, it almost certainly will not resolve a continuing policy debate over the best way to count the nation's population. New York City and a coalition of other big cities brought the lawsuit in 1988 to challenge the Bush Administration's refusal to use statistical sampling methods to adjust the 1990 census figures.

THE time was 10 years ago, and New York City was in a hot, angry fever. People shouted and argued and prayed at City Hall. Lawmakers bickered and wept. Rabbis cited the Talmud, priests quoted from the Bible, Joseph Papp invoked Michelangelo, and Mayor Edward I. Koch -- sounding like an upside-down Chicken Little -- intoned: "The sky is not going to fall, the sky is not going to fall." The cause of the upheaval was the impending passage of the city's gay-rights bill. It took 15 years of agitating, but finally it would pass, and New York City would extend basic civil rights protections to homosexuals in legislation that banned discrimination based on sexual preference in housing, employment and public accommodations. The City Council approved it 21 to 14, and many predicted that disaster would follow.

Product Liability Bill Clears Hurdle, Heads for Passage The Senate took an important step toward limiting damages available to people who were are hurt by faulty products. By a vote of 60 to 40, the minimum necessary, the Senate cut off debate on the bill. A dozen Democrats voted with the majority, in a repudiation of President Clinton, who has promised a veto.