July 14, 1997

Article discusses how Cable News Network ratings have fallen in last year; despite intense coverage of Senate hearings on campaign finance abuses, CNN drew only a 0.4 rating, which represents viewers in fewer than 300,000 homes; network is receiving even lower ratings for its coverage of Pathfinder mission to Mars; network's average Nielsen rating in second quarter of 1997 was 0.39, lowest 24-hour rating in CNN's 17-year history; graph (M)

Special report, The Fall of Newark, finds city remains in clutches of poverty, despite millions of dollars in national and state aid since riots of 1967, and that all corporate assistance, as well as jobs, education and housing programs have failed to reverse decline; even though city remains New Jersey's largest, it has shrunk substantially in last 45 years; population fell to about 406,000 from 438,776 between 1950 and 1967, and in 1994 it was about 259,000; more than 60,000 white residents left for suburbs between 1960 and 1967, while blacks from South and Hispanics were moving in; election of first black mayor, success in getting national and state grants and building of kinship within city after riots helped to arrest problems for a while; even so, abandonment of housing continued, along with departure of businesses to suburbs; eventually black middle-class families joined exodus; many residents blame black political establishment, in place by mid-1970's, which they say grew to be as ineffectual, and perhaps as corrupt, as white administrations it supplanted; photos; diagrams; charts; maps (L)

US Sec of State Madeleine K Albright makes emotional visit to Prague, her first since assuming post, where she sees for first time names of her paternal grandparents painted on wall of synagogue, along with those of 77,297 Czech and Slovak Jews who perished in Holocaust; visit is her first since discovery that parents had been born Jewish and that at least two grandparents died in concentration camps; she says experience has added something stronger, sadder and richer to her life; photos (M)

Johannes Sanzin, rising chef at age 25, was ousted by his partners after starting pair of New York City restaurants, Sanzin and 131 Duane Street; he is now dishing out soup at his takeout business, Souperman, in financial district; photos of Sanzin and his former partner Jim Mamary (M)

MURDER CHARGE -- A teen-ager trying to escape from an unleashed pit bull on a Bronx rooftop fell to his death. The dog's owner has been charged with murder. B3. POLITICAL FORTUNES -- Councilman Anthony D. Weiner's race for re-election is being played out against the backdrop of a Congressional campaign that is a year away. B3. DOWN TO EARTH -- The girl from Bridgeport, Conn., who named the Mars rover takes little credit for her inspiration: Sojourner. B7.