June 7, 1996

A Bronx judge set bail yesterday at $10,000 for a man charged in the death of a police officer last month, rejecting a request by prosecutors that the suspect be held without bail. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who has assailed prosecutors for not seeking murder charges in the case, said that he was not surprised by the judge's bail decision.

The woman in the ninth-floor intensive care unit has one nurse devoted to her at all times, but that doesn't keep others from drifting into the room so that they can simply hold her hand for a few seconds or give her hair a few strokes with a wide-toothed comb. Nearby, at the bedside of a cancer patient in the unit, lies a stuffed frog -- a quirky symbol of endearment he shares with his fiancee -- but there are no such amulets for this young woman, no one to carry them to her.

In what he described as an effort to promote civility, Senator Bob Dole called tonight for a "declaration of tolerance" in the Republican Party platform on abortion and other issues that threaten to split the Republicans at their August convention and in the fall campaign. Mr. Dole, who has consistently voted against abortion in his more than three decades in Congress, said he would keep the language of the party's 1992 platform, opposing all abortion and calling for a constitutional amendment to outlaw it.

Look out, Japanese beetles. Beware, root weevils. The Rutgers nematode is on its way. Researchers at Rutgers University have bred a parasitic worm that attacks the larvae of several destructive soil-dwelling crop and garden pests. And under a licensing agreement with an Italian biotechnology firm signed on Wednesday, the nematode should be on the market within a year. The nematode will help make the world safer for roses, onions, carrots and citrus trees, among other plants, Randy Gaugler, the entomology professor who developed it, said yesterday. The microscopic creature is a hybrid of 10 kinds of nematode gathered from all over the state. TERRY PRISTIN

Big Bend National Park in Texas is often covered in a haze traced to Mexican power plants, clearly exposing a limitation in the environmental provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Article, page A12.