October 7, 1997

Federal prosecutors have decided to try as adults Christian Velez and Michael Grullon, two juveniles accused of kidnapping and killing Nelson G Gross (New Jersey Daily Briefing) (S)

Public School 141 in Harlem, which opened last month in former dry-cleaning establishment, is shut down after tests reveal presence of potentially hazardous fumes; 500 students are reassigned to other schools, all of them overcrowded; photo; map; opening had been delayed for year because of concerns about chemical vapors, but officials proceeded after substantial cleanup and renovation; new tests showed levels of solvent perchloroethylene exceeding state guidelines; concrete building at Fifth Avenue and 141st Street was leased in fall of 1995, when severe overcrowding drove Board of Education to pay high rents for properties they had not fully inspected; environmental tests were not conducted until spring 1996, after board agreed to 15-year, $4.5-million lease, with additional $5 million in renovations (M)

Three onetime student radicals at University of Wisconsin are charged today with spying for Communist intelligence services since 1970's; FBI afidavit says analysis of files of former East German intelligence service shows that three have tried, with mixed results, to penetrate upper echelons of US Government since days as self-styled hard-core Communists; accused are Theresa Maria Squillacotte, former Defense Department lawyer, Kurt Alan Stand, her husband and official of international workers' union, and James M Clark, Pentagon paralegal turned private detective; three, arraigned in Virginia, allegedly received tens of thousands of dollars over decades, used Christian missionary expressions to pass messages and traveled to Europe, Mexico and Canada to deliver information; affidavit also says Clark and Squillacote had access to highly classified materials, but that none of their stolen data altered course of cold war at all; backgrounds detailed: Squillacote won award last year from Vice Pres Gore's 'reinventing government' program for work on saving money in military purchasing (M)

Victory for Tribunal Ten Bosnian Croat suspects turned themselves in to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, part of an effort by Croatia to improve its standing with the United States. Page A3. New Foundation Chief Underscoring its global orientation and historical mission of fostering science-based development abroad, the Rockefeller Foundation has chosen a British agricultural ecologist to be its 12th president. Page A14. U.S. to Leave Oilfield In its biggest asset sale ever, the Government will sell its stake in the Naval Petroleum Reserve in California to Occidental Petroleum for $3.65 billion in cash. Page D1.

Multi-million dollar test of so-called chip cards, plastic and silicon substitutes for coins and small bills begins on Upper West Side of Manhattan; equipment at only 225 of 660 participating stores was up and running; experiment, being run by Chase Manhattan Bank, Citibank, Visa USA and Mastercard International, has aroused only faint enthusiasm among merchants and shoppers; photo (M)