June 20, 1997

Internet has become virtual do-it-yourself guide to drug use at time when adolescents' experimenting with drugs is on rise; drug messages on Internet come from sources like High Times, magazine that has celebrated marijuana culture for over two decades and has created popular site on World Wide Web; critics like Barry R McCaffrey, director of White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, detect campaign on Internet to undercut Government's anti-drug policies by generating appearance of rising grass-roots sentiment for modifying or scrapping drug laws; drawings (M)

Justice Rodger Bell, after longest trial in British history, awards McDonald' $96,000 in libel suit brought against Helen Steel and Dave Morris, who helped distribute pamphlet denouncing company's practices; agrees with claim of two anti-McDonald's activists that company is cruel to animals, that it exploits children in its advertising and that its low wages in Britain tend to depress salaries in fast-food industry; finds, however, that preponderance of their assertions were false; case dates to late 1980's, and trial began in June 1994 (M)

Orange County, Calif, District Attorney Michael R Capizzi announces that Merrill Lynch & Co has agreed to pay $30 million to settle criminal investigation into company's role in underwriting county's bond offerings before Orange County filed for bankruptcy in 1994; Merrill Lynch denies any wrongdoing or liability in settlement. which removes threat of criminal charges against firm; Merrill Lynch, however, still faces probe by Securities and Exchange Commission as well as civil suit by county, which seeks $2 billion in damages; county officials have criticized Merrill and other Wall Street firms, saying they encouraged Robert L Citron, former Orange County Treasurer, to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of county and to invest in highly volatile securities; county's problems stemming from its borrowing activities recalled (M)

Governor Whitman nominated Republicans, Frederick J Theemling and David Millard, to replace Democrats as prosecutors in Hudson and Ocean Counties respectively (New Jersey Daily Briefing) (S)

New York State Legislature approves set of laws to keep system of rent regulations in place for six years while allowing landlords much larger increases for vacant apartments; provisions of old and new legislation compared (M)