August 11, 1997

Geraldine Laybourne is credited with building Nickelodeon into $300-million-a-year money-maker by being plugged into what children really want to see on television; she brings that expertise to her new job, president of Disney/ABC Cable Networks, which includes broadcast network's children's programming; Laybourne will oversee Disney Channel's new president, Anne Sweeney, who is working to give channel sharper identity and bit more spice while still keeping family entertainment mandate; cable television has attracted so many children that advertisers spent almost as much on cable last year as they did on four broadcast networks; chart; drawing (M)

Dana Quigley, after winning Northville Long Island Classic golf tournament, learns that his father, Wallace, had died during afternoon; photo (M)

Economists and health care experts say announcement in July that New York State had negotiated $1.25 billion Federal aid package to help its hospitals and clinics make adjustment to managed care does not tell story of marriage, but of breakup; say it reveals cracks in industry that is being forced to give up its decades-long dependence on planned, predictable, government-coordinated growth; say transition money, intended as bridge into new era of health care, will also hasten that transition, undermining old stability even as it clears way for innovation (M)

Elizabeth Kolbert column contends that members of We the People Congress meet in Albany every month to plot New York State's constitutional future; maintains that group's mission is to press for constitutional convention and to sketch out new and improved constitution; quotes Bob Schulz, group's chairman pro tem (M)

Pres Clinton will exercise line-item veto authority for first time by deleting at least one narrow tax break and one spending measure from balanced-budget and tax-cut legislation; decision is announced by Treas Sec Robert Rubin and Presidential adviser Rahm Emanuel, who decline to say which items Clinton will strike (M)