July 29, 1996

Gov. Christine Todd Whitman may not be interested in being Vice President, but there will be no shortage of New Jerseyans on the Presidential ballot this November. Two state residents can be found on independent party petitions that have been filed ahead of today's 4 P.M. deadline. Monica Moorehead of Jersey City is running for President under the Workers World Party banner, and Madelyn Hoffman of Flanders is Ralph Nader's running mate on the Green ticket. Another candidate, Rose Zeidwerg Monyek of Rahway, plans to file today to run on the "Harmonized Tariff 9802.00.80" ticket. Presidential candidates need to collect 800 signatures to get on the ballot in New Jersey, a figure that Joe Britt, the director of the state's Division of Elections, said is one of the lowest in the nation.

Despite the visible reassurance offered by crisply uniformed guards tending metal detectors and airline safety rules that have been strengthened since the explosion of Trans World Airlines Flight 800, security experts say one of the weakest links may be the very people who work in the nation's airports. Dozens of workers -- hired with only the most cursory of background checks -- have access to planes waiting on airport tarmacs and, security experts say, could easily plant a bomb aboard an airliner.

If only they could have been there. Here was Darryl Strawberry, slowing to a trot with his arms held high, with the roar of a New York crowd as his soundtrack to circle the bases by. This wasn't just a game-winning home run in the ninth inning yesterday or a way to punctuate his 300th career homer or a chance to break the tension of his slump.

For the second consecutive summer, the Board of Education is scrambling to cope with a self-inflicted staffing headache: the departure of thousands of the most experienced teachers in New York City's public schools, who are planning to retire early under a buyout program. The loss of nearly 10 percent of the city's 64,000 teachers within 14 months -- one of the largest turnovers since 12,000 teachers were laid off in the fiscal crisis of the 1970's -- has opened a host of vacancies, many in positions that are traditionally difficult to fill, in fields like mathematics, science and bilingual education.

The elaborate tattoos that adorn Bech Chuom's chest are meant to protect him from wayward bullets, and he trusts the precepts he follows as a strict Buddhist to safeguard his soul. But a decade after Mr. Chuom, 72, arrived here as a refugee from Cambodia, he depends entirely for his food and rent on a $551 monthly welfare check. Where he might turn if that aid is taken from legal immigrants under the plans to overhaul welfare now moving through Congress, he says, is a mystery.