December 3, 1997

Long after the Rangers lost by 3-2 in overtime to the Washington Capitals last night, Coach Clin Campbell stood in a hallway at Madison Square Garden, between large photographs of the 1940 Stanley Cup winners and the champions of 1994. His 1997-98 Blue Shirts - who have lost four and tied two in their last six - might not contend for the cup. Four games below .500, they might not make the playoffs if their ennui continues. And who can say who will play for them or even coach them come playoff time?

Anthony J. F. O'Reilly, the silver-haired paragon of Celtic charm who led the H. J. Heinz Company for the last 18 years, is stepping down as chief executive, the company announced yesterday. Mr. O'Reilly, 61, will be succeeded by William R. Johnson, the president of Heinz, when the company's fiscal year ends in April. Mr. O'Reilly will remain as chairman until September 2000.

This time, a floating casino wins in an ongoing saga. PAGE B3 Giuliani gets a reprieve on a magazine's ads. PAGE B7

On Monday, a seemingly ordinary 14-year-old opened fire on a group of fellow high school students who had just ended a prayer meeting at the school in West Paducah, Ky., where the most recent claim to fame was as Quilt City, U.S.A. Yesterday, the police were no closer to discovering a motive in the shooting, which killed three other students and wounded five.

In her first public appearance in New York since her story of rape, abduction and hatred opened deep racial divisions a decade ago, a confident and defiant Tawana Brawley told a roaring audience of supporters last night the same thing she did then: that she had told the truth. Her repeated insistence that ''I am not a liar'' came despite a 1988 grand jury report that determined that Ms. Brawley had concocted the story that a group of white men in Dutchess County, including a man with a badge, had kidnapped and raped her and scrawled racial epithets on her naked body. The case, and later the grand jury findings, polarized New York and the country along racial lines.