May 2, 1996

Despite rising gasoline prices, two of the biggest auto makers reported strong April sales today that exceeded analysts' expectations, providing another sign that consumers' confidence is growing. The General Motors Corporation said its sales rose 7.7 percent last month, compared with April 1995, despite a recent strike that crimped the production of some of its hottest sellers.

WHEN Scarlett's white kitten died the other day not entirely unexpected given the degree of his burns -- another avalanche of calls tumbled in to the North Shore Animal League. Scarlett and her brood being international celebrities and all, the world press has been as relentless as the public. Marge Stein, manager of public relations, is constantly reminded that Europe and the United States are in different time zones. "Now I know how my son, the doctor, must feel," she said. "I'm on 24-hour call!"

A dramatic increase in domestic violence cases over the last five years has placed a "staggering" burden on New Jersey's court system, according to a report released yesterday by a committee that has been examining the state's judicial system for the last year. The Committee on Efficiency, appointed by Chief Justice Robert N. Wilentz, cited the "enormity and complexity" of the domestic violence issues before the courts, which recorded 63,465 cases during fiscal year 1995, compared with 55,639 the year before and 36,054 in 1990.

A mayoral advisory panel has recommended that New York City fundamentally change the way it pays for health care for the indigent, proposing that the government subsidize insurance for the uninsured rather than maintain the current system of subsidizing hospitals that treat the poor. The seven-member panel, whose report is scheduled for release today, said its proposals were intended to "promote and encourage the use of primary and preventive care and minimize overreliance on an expensive hospital system."

Dorothy Kraft was born in Brooklyn in 1908 and died in New York last August, but that did not stop her from leaving much of her fortune to Ridgewood, where she grew up. Miss Kraft, whose father invented the valve that traps air in inflatable inner tubes, bequeathed $500,000 directly to the Village of Ridgewood. That sum will be turned over to the local public library, said the library's director, Nancy K. Greene.