May 28, 1997

A total of $1 million in fines was imposed yesterday on a South Hackensack military contractor that admitted in October that it illegally sold plans for an American-made satellite communications system to a Russian company. Electrodyne Systems Corporation had also acknowledged in Federal court that it used Russian and Ukrainian parts to build a missile simulator even though the contract specified that the parts were to be American-made, Noel L. Hillman, an assistant United States attorney, said. Judge Alfred J. Lechner Jr. ordered Electrodyne to pay the fines to the Navy, Air Force and the National Air and Space Administration. In a plea bargain, Electrodyne and Government prosecutors had agreed on a $140,000 fine, but that sum was not binding on Judge Lechner.

FIFTEEN minutes before the opening-night party for the Broadway musical ''Steel Pier'' is to begin, Suzanne Tobak, the woman running it, can't find the manager of Tavern on the Green. It seems that the dinner given by Madison Square Garden to welcome Roseanne and the cast of ''The Wizard of Oz'' in one of the restaurant's smaller rooms is going on longer than expected. And for its party, ''Steel Pier'' has paid for the entire restaurant. When the manager does appear, breathless, it is clear he is dazzled by the celebrity in his midst. It is equally clear that Ms. Tobak is not. ''Roseanne is here,'' he tells her by way of apology.

Representative Susan Molinari, a Staten Island Republican widely viewed as one of her party's most promising young politicians, plans to resign from Congress this summer to join CBS News as a Saturday morning news anchor, network officials and political associates said last night. Ms. Molinari's decision stunned political leaders in New York and Washington. The Congresswoman is so well regarded in Republican Party circles that she was chosen to give the keynote address at the Republican National Convention in San Diego last summer. She has also been mentioned as a possible future mayoral candidate in New York.

In a deal that would reunite Ma Bell with the fastest growing of her progeny, the AT&T Corporation is discussing a merger with SBC Communications Inc., people familiar with the talks said yesterday. The deal, if completed, would be the largest corporate merger in history, with a value of more than $50 billion. And it would create a colossus that dwarfs even the other telecommunications giants created in the wake of deregulation. Together, AT&T and SBC would have 90 million long-distance customers, 30 million local customers and virtual dominion over SBC's two biggest states, California and Texas.

A contract sweetener that the Giuliani administration gave teachers to help encourage them to accept a pay freeze along with other municipal workers is likely to cost the school system at least twice what was originally estimated, about $60 million next year, or the equivalent of about $1,000 a teacher. The benefit was controversial when the contract was negotiated last year, but the city said it would not be burdensomely expensive.

Ruling for the first time that a sitting President can be sued for actions outside the scope of his official duties, the Supreme Court today decisively rejected President Clinton's request to delay proceedings in a sexual harassment suit brought by a former Arkansas state employee, Paula Corbin Jones. The 9-to-0 decision does not mean that the lawsuit, filed in 1994 over an encounter that allegedly took place in 1991, will now go to trial promptly, or even that it will necessarily go to trial at all. President Clinton's lawyers have other legal avenues to pursue beyond the immunity claim the Court rejected today. Settlement of the case also remains an option.

THE key to mastering many cooking techniques is to use higher heat than you think you should. If you need proof of this, just invite a professional chef to your house to cook. It's a pretty sure bet that well before the meal is ready, the smoke alarm will go off. This affinity for high heat is one factor that gives professional chefs an advantage over home cooks. In fact, it is important enough that the old maxim should probably be changed to, ''If you're afraid of high heat, get out of the kitchen.'' This does not hold true for every cooking technique, of course. But it is definitely important for successful grilling, broiling, roasting and perhaps most important, sauteing.

Elderly and disabled people who are willing to share living quarters could benefit from a state bill being unveiled today that would provide low-cost loans to nonprofit groups for developing cooperative housing.

NATALIE POSNER fell in love with Arnold Goldstein without seeing his face. She can't, because she's legally blind. He is too. They met in 1990 after they had both attended guide dog school, and married four years ago. If their home were as big as their hearts, their love story would be a fairy tale. Some day her prince would unpack. But Mr. Goldstein, a 58-year-old retired computer worker, can't fit all his stuff into her three-room brick bungalow in Manhattan Beach. He only keeps a few shirts and pairs of jeans since moving there, along with unopened boxes of clothing and electronics. The rest is in storage.

Opening a new chapter in the post-World War II history of Europe, President Clinton and other NATO leaders joined President Boris N. Yeltsin of Russia today in signing a ''Founding Act'' of mutual cooperation and security between the alliance and its former principal adversary. Hammered out in six months of difficult negotiations, the accord is intended by the allies to reassure Russia that it has nothing to fear from NATO's plan to expand eastward at the end of the century to take in new members from Central and Eastern Europe that once were allied with Moscow in the Warsaw Pact.

Recreational fishermen are reporting that an unusually large number of striped bass -- as many as 20 percent to 30 percent -- are infected with a virus that causes their scales to turn white and lumpy, state officials said yesterday. No one seems to know why the illness is so prevalent this year.

AT a downtown Manhattan restaurant, over the cacophony of the Gipsy Kings, a 20-something woman in an iridescent green outfit seated at the bar is asked, ''What do you think about noise in restaurants?'' ''What?'' she yells back. ''Boys in restaurants? I love them; that's why I'm here!''