May 25, 1996

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's ambitious quest to save the city hundreds of millions of dollars by shepherding most of New York's 1.2 million Medicaid recipients into managed-care plans has not met the administration's forecasts. The Mayor and his aides took over City Hall in 1994 with bold predictions: by May 1996, they said, more than half the city's Medicaid recipients would be transferred to managed care, a move that would also improve primary care for people who too often depended on emergency rooms for basic medical attention.

Not one for chasing after the "floating vote" with dovish posturing, Ariel Sharon has published a hard-line article in the Israeli press just as the conservative Likud Party candidate, Benjamin Netanyahu, is trying to soften his image before elections next week. Mr. Sharon, a scarred veteran of wars both military and political, declared, "The time has come to dispel the confusion and explain the national camp's position in simple language, without verbal preening."

Pressure Builds in Siege

After 53 public hearings, 264 depositions and $1.3 million in costs, the Senate's intensive year of Whitewater inquiry is wending to an anticlimactic close with Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato still presiding, but with his poll ratings on the wane and his humility noticeably on the rise. "Oh, they're very good, very successful at this," Mr. D'Amato said of the Democrats' defense of President Clinton, whose own poll standing has resurged despite the inquiry.

Martin H. Luster, a four-term Democratic Assemblyman from Ithaca, had a sudden political conversion more than a year ago when his constituents voted overwhelmingly in favor of placing George E. Pataki, a Republican, in the Governor's mansion. Days after the election, Mr. Luster telephoned the state's most powerful Democrat, Speaker Sheldon Silver of the Assembly, and urged him not to "obstruct" the new Governor's policies. Then, several months later, Mr. Luster voted for an income tax cut supported by Mr. Pataki -- a proposal similar to one that Mr. Luster and other Democratic legislators had blocked for the last five years.