December 27, 1996

Clyde Haberman reports year after mass killings at shoe store in Pelham Parkway section of Bronx, many neighborhood merchants and residents feel uneasy; Michael Vernon is being held in Little Chester Shoes massacre (M) (NYC column)

Tens of thousands of Serb opposition demonstrators pour into streets in central Belgrade, defying Pres Slobodan Milosevic's warnings of police intervention; riot police block entrance to main square; photos; US blames Milosevic for violence that injured 38 people; Milosevic appears to be trying to gain control of situation that is spinning further out of his grasp, even as his isolation increases both internationally and at home (M)

Special report, The Fund Machine, chronicles how Pres Clinton built campaign war chest and allocated spending; Clinton, Vice Pres Gore, Leon Panetta, Harold Ickes and Democratic party leaders, including Donald Fowler, Marvin Rosen and Scott Pastrick, met last spring and made decisions that would shape Clinton's re-election drive; group calculated how much party could realistically raise and how dollars should be spent; Fowler recalls 'median point' between $120 million and $125 million; Clinton decided not to use personal campaign treasury for primary-season commercials, which put more pressure on Democratic committee to raise unprecedented amount of money; result was that small group of fund-raisers and donors amassed questionable contributions, some from Asian sources, and brought on new ethics probes; Clinton and Gore presided over unpublicized small gatherings with biggest donors at Washington hotels, White House and on the golf course; some donors stayed overnight in Lincoln Bedroom; photo of Clinton birthday gala that raised more than $10 million; Clinton was reinforced by strategist Dick Morris, who believed in early television ads and even suggested opting out of public financing; Clinton's wooing of especially large donors recounted (L)

At least ten research projects have been cancelled in New York as result of appeals court finding that state's rules governing psychiatric experiments on children and the mentally ill are unconstitutional because participants cannot give informed consent; December 5 ruling focused on experiments that might pose health risk without direct benefit to patient; ruling may well set precedent elsewhere; researchers say they are otherwise unable to test drugs for severe mental illness or Alzheimer's disease; state has allowed consent by 'surrogates,' not necessarily parent or legal guardian; Federal rules are stricter; Judge David Ross's ruling quoted (M)

New York State Supreme Court Justice Beverly S Cohen rules that a Legal Services Corporation lawyer cannot be forced to withdraw from a class-action suit representing poor people, despite new Federal law barring Legal Services lawyers from such cases; it is first decision of its kind in nation; Cohen rejects Congressional mandate that all lawyers for Legal Services--which uses Federal, state and private money to provide legal aid for poor people in civil cases--withdraw from pending class-action suits and refrain from filing such suits in future; Legal Services lawyers had agreed to give up class-action suits as part of compromise with Republicans in Congress, who had threatened to cut off all or most of organization's Federal financing; Cohen rules that restrictions are unconstitutional (M)