May 15, 1997

Challenging decades of housing policy that favored the neediest, the House voted today to change the face of public housing by providing shelter to more of the working poor. The bill, which passed 293 to 132, would repeal a landmark 1937 Depression-era housing law that Republicans say has turned once livable housing projects into miserable ghettos for the unemployed. It would replace the old framework with a system that made way for higher-income tenants and created what the bill's supporters said would be more self-sufficient communities, requiring less Government aid.

Chagrined that their $3 million gift would earn an official acknowledgment only two inches tall, the philanthropists Edith and Henry Everett have withdrawn the donation, which was to pay about half the cost of the new Children's Zoo in Central Park. The Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the zoo, returned the Everetts' first $750,000 installment last month, but officials said yesterday that they foresaw no interruption in the $6 million construction project. The new zoo -- no longer the Everett Children's Zoo -- is to open in September, replacing a 1960's version that delighted several generations with fanciful features like Jonah's Whale and Hansel and Gretel's cottage.

IT looked like a jungle gym for birds: chickadees, cardinals, redwinged blackbirds, nuthatches and woodpeckers diving in and out of a dozen feeders in a backyard garden at the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y. ''Look -- there's a goldfinch in full breeding plumage,'' said Dr. Stephen W. Kress, a research biologist with a soft spot for birds. He nodded toward a little gold bird that had just landed at a thistle-seed feeder hanging about five feet from our window.

TO see them in their small room in the pediatric ward, this much is obvious: they are related. They have the same high cheekbones, long, Roman noses and beige skin. And judging by their ages -- he in his late 40's or so, she in her mid-70's or so -- that would most likely make them mother and son. Then again, they could be an aunt and nephew. Or brother and older sister. Or, as a long shot, grandmother and grandson.

A Busy British Agenda Prime Minister Tony Blair proposed ambitious plans for legislation on issues ranging from school standards to European relations. Page A3. Data Show Inflation at Bay Prices paid to producers fell unexpectedly in April, the Government said. The data showed that inflation continued to be restrained. Page D1. Late Payment for Accident Three decades after an accident left him paralyzed, a former utility lineman learned will get $1.2 million in workers compensation. Page B7.