May 11, 1996

Fourteen marines were killed and two were injured yesterday when two American helicopters collided during war-game exercises involving American and British troops at Camp Lejeune, N.C. The helicopters plunged into in a densely forested marsh area, which hampered the rescuers trying to reach to the site of the early morning collision, military officials said.

Inflation Worries Eased

A Federal appeals court threw out a landmark $1.3 billion class-action settlement yesterday that would have limited future health claims of hundreds of thousands of workers and their families against 20 major asbestos producers. The 1993 proposal had been attacked by public interest groups, who argued that it stripped away the rights of future litigants. But its advocates had promoted the plan as a model that companies that produced asbestos or other toxic materials could follow to protect themselves against the uncertainty surrounding potential claims by those who have not yet developed any signs of illness.

India's rival political groups clamored for power today after a general election that shattered the traditional base of the Congress Party and gave new leverage to a tumultuous assemblage of groups representing the mosaic of castes, regions and languages in this nation of 930 million people. With results nearly complete, India appeared to have crossed a watershed. The India of nearly 50 years since independence, dominated by the Congress Party except when scandals and other excesses prompted voters to punish it with two brief spells in opposition, seemed to have given way to a new, more fractious period in which the country would wear many political faces, reflecting India's ancient diversities.

Fifty-three cab drivers, nearly all of them born half a world away, became entrepreneurs yesterday as the winning bidders in New York City's first sale of new taxi medallions since the Depression. To the drivers, the prize was nothing short of the essential promise of America: the chance to go into business for themselves after years of working for others. The successful bidders, most from India, Pakistan or Bangladesh, had offered up to $177,000 for the right to work mind-numbing, 70-hour weeks for an income that rarely exceeds $30,000 a year.