April 12, 1996

New Jersey has too many school districts, and the state ought to be more aggressively promoting mergers, officials of the Public Affairs Research Institute of New Jersey said yesterday. Researchers found that in other states, intervention by the state government was a key factor in getting districts to avoid unnecessary duplication by merging. The report suggests, for example, that state subsidies for school busing be given only to regional systems.

The State Board of Public Utilities has made its first settlement with a repeat violator of a law that requires excavators to phone a hotline in advance. While re-curbing and re-paving streets in Middlesex County, Assuncao Brothers of Metuchen hit or damaged water and gas lines five times in 1995, Jim Giuliano, director of the board's Division of Service Evaluation, said yesterday. The company was fined $5,000 for neglecting to notify officials in advance before excavating and failing to dig by hand near underground lines.

Charging that Party of God guerrillas in Lebanon had gone too far in their shelling of northern Israel, Israel today sent planes, helicopters and gunships deep into Lebanon to strike at the group. The raids included the first attack on Beirut since the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. In the most audacious attack, four Israeli Apache helicopters invaded Beirut under overcast skies at 10:30 A.M. and fired on the Party of God headquarters in the ground floor of a high-rise building in the city's southern slums.

Another Trial for Andreotti

The Ford Motor Company agreed today to invest nearly $500 million in the Mazda Motor Corporation in a deal that makes Ford the first American company to take effective control of a Japanese car maker. Ford, which has held a 25 percent stake in Mazda since 1979, will raise its interest to 33.4 percent, the two companies said today. Ford will buy 52 billion yen, or about $480 million, worth of newly issued Mazda stock.