July 4, 1996

Settlement talks between the Federal Trade Commission and Time Warner Inc. about the company's deal to acquire Turner Broadcasting System Inc. are back on track after an impasse two weeks ago, several people close to the negotiations said yesterday. These people said an agreement might be reached within a month, though they cautioned that the negotiations were complex and might still break down.

IT takes a dedicated crew of counselors, coaches, cooks, waterfront supervisors and arts-and-crafts teachers to make a summer camp run smoothly. Add to that a private eye.

THE new house is unassuming, a plain, two-story concrete structure on stilts whose main selling points are on the outside -- Florida Bay just a few steps from the back door, a view of mangrove keys across the water, the privacy provided by palm and gumbo-limbo trees. Inside, Carl Hiaasen has had time to unpack some rattan furniture, his treadmill and some other essentials. He moved in four days earlier from a smaller house a few miles north in the Florida Keys. The walls are bare except for one or two family pictures and a large movie poster of a naked Demi Moore.

A Federal regulatory agency today approved the merger of the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads, a $5.4 billion deal that will create the nation's largest railroad and nearly complete the consolidation of the freight rail system west of the Mississippi. Just two companies would carry 90 percent of the freight in this huge area of the country. The agency, the Surface Transportation Board, voted 3 to 0 to approve the deal, effectively a takeover of the financially weakened Southern Pacific by its stronger partner, subject to numerous conditions intended to minimize the loss of competition.

Across the country, Americans will celebrate the nation's birth in varied fashions. In Meadville, Pa., where Independence Day had once brought little more than picnics, the arrival of 135 Russians has changed all that.