March 29, 1996

To Montana's Freemen, the rural complex of machine sheds, wheat silos and ranch houses here is a new Federal Reserve Bank. To Federal prosecutors, the Freemen's compound is a school for crime.

Three part-time toll collectors on the New Jersey Turnpike were suspended last weekend for wearing latex gloves on the job, and yesterday a spokesman for their union contended that managers were cracking down on minor infractions as part of a "reign of terror." The spokesman, Frank Forst of Local 194 of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, said many toll collectors wear gloves as protection against viruses. Edward Gross, acting executive director of the turnpike authority, said the ban was instituted two years ago because wearing latex gloves sent a message to the public that "many other patrons using our road had communicable diseases." Mr. Gross said the glove policy was under review.

Researchers at Princeton University have uncovered a security flaw in the programming language used in the popular Netscape Internet browser system. Because of the flaw, a site could be rigged so that the personal Internet files of someone visiting that site could be deleted or made public, Edward Felten, an assistant professor of computer science, said yesterday. Sun Microsystems, the company that developed part of the Java software, where the flaw was found, has issued a warning to users. TERRY PRISTIN

The Federal Aviation Administration, acknowledging that its procurement regulations are so cumbersome that new equipment is often obsolete by the time it is installed, said today that it would toss out almost all the old rules, beginning on Monday. The changes, to be applied to more and more purchases over the next several years, will replace an 11-foot-high pile of procurement regulations with 100 pages of rules intended to cut acquisition time by half or even more.

The last two decades make a humbling prelude to the rebirth of the Chase Manhattan Corporation. On Monday, its merger will be complete with the Chemical Banking Corporation, which itself merged with the Manufacturers Hanover Corporation in 1992. And while Chase will become the largest banking company in the nation, its three predecessors have a record of muddled management, misplaced loans and mediocre performance.