New Jersey Turnpike Authority awards $488 million contract to bring E-Z Pass electronic toll system to Garden State Parkway and New Jersey Turnpike (New Jersey Daily Briefing) (S)

Electronic Tolls Are Coming

Interview with flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal, who discusses his worldwide sushi search in restaurants for last 40 years; photos (L)

Life-Changing Sushi And Other Revelations

Federal Reserve's move raising short-term interest rates is likely to have much smaller effect on stock and bond markets than did similar 1994 move; causes little immediate market reaction, in part because it was widely expected; reaction could change should Federal Reserve continue to raise rates or if Japan joins in raising rates (M)

Likely Impact: Less Disruption Than Last Time

New York City Trade Waste Commission, in major move to reduce private garbage-removal costs in New York City, imposes mandatory price cuts, saying it will reduce costs for small and medium-sized businesses by total of $300 million a year; agency lowers by up to 35 percent maximum prices that carting companies may charge businesses whose garbage is not collected by city's Sanitation Department (M)

New York Cuts Hauling Rates For Garbage

Five nurses at Roosevelt Care Center in Edison, NJ, are indicted on charges of criminal neglect in death of Ossac Barron (New Jersey Daily Briefing) (S)

Nurses Charged with Neglect

Toyota Motor Corporation, largest Japanese automobile manufacturer, says it will become first company to sell low-polluting hybrid vehicle, with both electric motor and gasoline engine, to mass market; will begin selling compact hybrid car with 1.5 liter engine in Japan in 1997, but has no immediate plans to market it in US; estimates vehicle will get 66 miles per gallon in fuel-economy tests, or twice efficiency of smaller-size Corolla (M)

Toyota to Sell Hybrid-Power Car in Japan

Article on cooking skills and recipes of some of nation's clergy; focuses on Rev Alan Johnson, co-pastor with his wife, Rev Martie McMane, of Saugatuck Congregational Church in Westport, Conn, Rev Kirsten Hamilton, a United Methodist minister in Little Rock, Ark, Rev J Robert Burkhart, who lives in Indianola, Iowa, Methodist Bishop Charles Wesley Jordan of Iowa, Very Rev Stephen W Foote, Dean of St Luke's Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, Me, and Rev Holly W Whitcomb, retreat leader and spiritual director in Milwaukee, Wis; recipes; photos (L)

As Comfortable in the Kitchen As They Are in the Pulpit

 A Warming on Foreign Policy  Senator Jesse Helms pledged hearings on a stalled treaty, as Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright paid a visit to his home state. Page B10.

INSIDE

Ruth Reichl reviews six Los Angeles restaurants: Fenix at the Argyle, Campanile, Obachine, Jozu, Yuca's and Oye! at Xiomara in Pasadena; photos (L)

And for Dinner? How About Fun?

 Fed Moves to Increase A Key Interest Rate  The Federal Reserve voted to raise interest rates for the first time in more than two years, firing a warning shot at an inflationary threat that remains hidden over the horizon.  

BUSINESS DIGEST

Federal Reserve raises Federal funds rate to 5.5 percent from 5.25 percent, first interest rate rise in over two years, to bar too-rapid economic growth; number of economists welcome move to bar resurgence of inflation; other economists, labor unions, business groups and politicians score more, holding economic statistics overstate threats to steady growth; graphs (M)

FIRST RISE SINCE '95

 CRASH LANDING -- A private jet landing at La Guardia Airport smashed into a truck on the runway. B3.    BRAKES ON WORKFARE -- A judge has ordered New York City to stop doling out workfare assignments without assessing the needs and skills of the workers. B3.    A WHITMAN CHALLENGER -- Essex Democrats endorsed State Senator James E. McGreevey in the race for the New Jersey gubernatorial nomination. B6.  

INSIDE METRO

Palisades Park, NJ, Police Sgt Edward Shirley and Officer Michael Anderson are indicted on charges of stealing $125,000 from local homes and businesses from 1991 to 1995 (New Jersey Daily Briefing) (S)

Two Officers Are Indicted

Article discusses increase in number of cellular phone and other antennas that are appearing all over Manhattan as marked growth of wireless communications continues at brisk pace; photo (M)

In Cellular Phone Era, Receivers Are Hidden All Over

Clinton Administration official says Vice Pres Al Gore assured Chinese Prime Min Li Peng that Justice Department probe of whether China used campaign donations to try to influence 1996 elections will not affect ties while inquiry is under way, but said charges are very serious and will be dealt with if proven true; briefing, for reporters covering Gore's China visit, is most unusual in series of briefings amplifying and correcting details of Gore's meetings (M)

CHINESE ASK GORE ABOUT THE INQUIRY ON CAMPAIGN GIFTS

Lobbyists play key role in debate in Congress over which preventitive health services Medicare should cover; their efforts on behalf of competing tests for colorectal cancer show how Congress grapples with such issues, which raise complex questions of science, economics and politics and can affect policies of private insurers as well (M)

Backers of Rival Health Tests Fight to Get Medicare Dollars

Nontoxic chemical explodes at plant owned by Fairmount Chemical Company, Newark, NJ, injuring two employees of nearby trucking company (New Jersey Daily Briefing) (S)

Chemical Blast Injures Two

New Jersey Transit Board votes to ban advertising for tobacco products from its buses and trains (New Jersey Daily Briefing) (S)

Transit Ban on Tobacco Ads

New York State Supreme Court Justice Herman Cahn orders Barneys Inc, upscale clothing retailer that filed for bankruptcy protection in 1996 in dispute with Japanese partner, Isetan Co, to pay Isetan $197 million in loans; rejects arguments by Bob and Gene Pressman, owners and co-chairmen of Barneys, of being tricked into personally guaranteeing loans, which were to be used for expansion and have since accrued $30 million in interest; loans were made by Isetan following payment for most of costs associated with building flagship Barneys stores in New York City and Beverly Hills, Calif; Barneys filed for bankruptcy amid cash squeeze and in dispute with Isetan over nature of company's financing of Barneys, to which it originally lent more than $600 million (M)

Setback Dealt To Owners Of Barney's

Disability insurers are engaged in aggressive but successful drive to boost earnings by rehabilitating and retraining injured workers in face of fall-off in profits over past decade, as companies liberalized policies to attract more customers, and as claims have multiplied; industry, facing long-term drag on earnings, has determined that making money depends on successful management and retraining of injured workers; have established programs with corporations to get disabled employees back to work, particularly those with advanced education and special skills; more and more corporations are demanding good return-to-work programs, arguing that they save money in recruiting and retraining and prevent losses in productivity; disability program run by Hartford Life Insurance Company described; photos; charts; map (M)

Insurers Turn To Retraining Injured Workers

Technology stocks continue protracted slump, even as Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor's 500 continue to reach new highs; little consensus exists among analysts over whether decline represents healthy correction or bad case of nerves; with stocks trailing other indexes for 1996 and first three months of 1997, perhaps only remaining question about bear market is its duration; graphs (M)

Slump in Tech Stocks: Vigorous Correction or Bad Case of Nerves?

Sens Russell D Feingold and John McCain, whose bipartisan campaign finance reform bill is stalled in Congress, open tour, Boston, to spur grass-roots support; plan populist approach, using pep rallies, talk radio and meetings with newspaper editorial boards; McCain notes incumbents are unwilling to change rules that benefit themselves; photo (M)

Senators Hope Their Road Show Revives Campaign Financing Bill

National Transportation Safety Board says engineer of New Jersey Transit train who ran red signal in Secaucus a year ago, causing collision in which he and two other people died, was going blind from diabetes but had kept his condition secret for nine years (New Jersey Daily Briefing) (S)

Color-Blind Train Engineer

Utility companies Long Island Lighting Co and Brooklyn Union Gas put halt to television advertising campaign that, in course of promoting state proposal to reduce Long Island utility rates, highlighted New York Gov George Pataki's role in devising plan; companies acted after Democrats denounced advertisement as 'possible illegal' assault on campaign-finance rules (M)

Utilities Pull TV Ad Praising Pataki for Deal to Reduce Energy Rates

National Transportation Safety Board reports New Jersey Transit train engineer John J DeCurtis, who ran red signal in Secaucus, NJ, in Feb 1996, causing crash that killed him and two others, was hiding his diabetes and growing blindness from disease; finds he passed company physical despite failing color vision test; says railroad has since tested all engineers for color vision; map; diagram; photo (M)

EYE PROBLEM CITED IN '96 TRAIN CRASH

Heaven's Gate was an American new religious movement known primarily for the mass suicides committed by its members in 1997. Commonly designated as a cult, it was founded in 1974 and led by Marshall Applewhite (1931–1997) and Bonnie Nettles (1927–1985), known within the movement as Do and Ti. Nettles and Applewhite first met in 1972 and went on a journey of spiritual discovery, identifying themselves as the two witnesses of the Book of Revelation, attracting a following of several hundred people in the mid-1970s. In 1976, a core group of a few dozen members stopped recruiting and instituted a monastic lifestyle.

Thirty-nine bodies are found in the Heaven's Gate mass suicides.

March 26, 1997

Headlines from March 26, 1997

Electronic Tolls Are Coming

Life-Changing Sushi And Other Revelations

Likely Impact: Less Disruption Than Last Time

New York Cuts Hauling Rates For Garbage

Nurses Charged with Neglect

Billboard 200

The Untouchable

Pop

Unchained Melody/The Early Years

Spice

Pieces Of You

Historical Events

Historical Context for March 26, 1997