About New York column on New York University's Speaking Freely program, series of 12 different language courses that are offered free and not-for-credit; aim is to encourage students to study abroad at one of university's overseas campuses, and also to explore New York's cultural offerings as part of complete urban education; NYU president L Jay Oliva discusses program, which he devised; photo of students sharing French conversation at Cafe Lure in Greenwich Village (M)

About New York; At N.Y.U., Languages Si, Elitism Non

New Jersey officials will begin posting community alerts about paroled sex offenders, using guidelines drafted by state judges to implement three-year-old Megan's Law; offenders will be informed of right to hearing, and prosecutors will have to prove that offenders are public safety risks; state high court issues rules day after US Supreme Court Justice David Souter refuses to extend ban on community notifications (S)

After 3 Years, 'Megan's Law' Is Set to Start In New Jersey

 COOKIE SEASON   3  Sifting through a heap of equipment and recipes.    THE MINIMALIST   3  Blue cheese takes the boredom out of gratins.     THE CHEF   5  Vongerichten's condiments take the starring role.    SUPERMARKET   5  You may need a map to navigate in this store.    RESTAURANTS   13  Ruth Reichl looks at the den behind Bouley Bakery.  

INSIDE

MTA acknowledges uncertainty about how new system of monthly, weekly and daily passes will work on New York City's subways and buses; estimated cost of $236 million a year is at least 40 percent lower than one made in April for slightly less ambitious hypothetical program; much less radical change, free bus-to-subway transfers, was so unexpectedly popular that 200 buses had to be added (S)

Officials Unsure About Cost and Effect of New Transit Fares

Latrell Sprewell publicly apologizes to Golden State Warriors Coach P J Carlesimo for assaulting him; Sprewell says his career should not be ruined by one mistake and that he has not been given due process by National Basketball Association, which suspended him for a year after Warriors terminated remaining $24 million of his $32 million contract; photo (L)

Sprewell Apologizes but Criticizes the N.B.A.

Residents and business owners near 540 Madison Avenue in midtown Manhattan describe extreme disruption in their lives since bricks rained down onto street, forcing evacuations and closing street; rug shop owner Parviz Nemati, wine merchant Peter J Morrell and other retailers report big losses in midst of Christmas season; photos (S)

On Madison, a Crumbling Wall Is Scrambling Lives

Ben Brantley reviews Roundabout Theater Co's production of play Cyrano de Bergerac, starring Frank Langella; photo (L)9

A Bare-Bones Approach To the Long-Nosed Hero

Tricon Global Restaurants, fast-food business spun off by Pepsico two months ago, announces sweeping changes for its Pizza Hut restaurants; it will shut down more than 700 of worst-performing outlets and sell off hundreds of franchises at cost to company of $425 million after taxes (L)

Pizza Hut Sets a Revamping at a $425 Million Cost to New Owner

Five of eight food experts interviewed admit that they do not follow Federal food safety guidelines to the letter; but officially they take narrower view, because few Americans are as well informed as they are about the risks; officials maintain that they carefully weigh choices when they engage in what one calls 'slightly risky behavior' (L)

Eating Well; Official Advice: Eat as I Say, Not As I Do

Marilu Henner, star of Broadway musical Chicago, and Brent Spiner, who portrays John Adams in musical 1776, will flip switch to light annual Broadway Holiday Tree, next to TKTS booth in Duffy Square on Broadway; Milwaukee Art Museum to break ground on $50 million expansion that will nearly double its size; Guillermo Cabrera Infante, exiled Cuban writer, is named winner of Cervante Prize, considered Spanish-speaking world's equivalent of Nobel Prize for literature; Manhattan Theater Club, Lincoln Center, Vineyard Theater, La Mama and 40 other New York theater organizations and schools will be named recipients of grants and scholarships when American Theater Wing holds its annual Grant and Scholarship Awards luncheon; officials of Louvre hold talks with striking trade unions in Paris in effort to settle dispute over jobs and bonuses and avoid shutdown of the museum; photos (L)

Footlights

Article on how and why Asian currencies tumbled so quickly; says Japanese officials, concerned about decline of yen, hinted that they might raise interest rates in early May; threat never materialized, but it proved to be first sign of Asian flu that six months later is still spreading and has already prompted around $100 billion in international pledges of foreign aid; holds Japanese threat shifted decisions of global investors, who immediately began to sell Southeast Asian currencies, setting off tumble not only in currencies but in local stock markets as well; says leapfrogging from Thailand, to Indonesia to Hong Kong, financial shivers eventually shook Wall Street, sending Dow Jones industrial average down record 554 points on Oct 27; economic and currency problems of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea and Hong Kong detailed; graph; photos (L)

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS: Many Players, Many Losers; How and Why Asian Currencies Tumbled So Quickly

FBI Dir Louis J Freeh tells House Government Reform and Oversight Committee that he might be willing to provide more details to Republican lawmakers about his internal memorandum urging Atty Gen Janet Reno to seek independent prosecutor in campaign finance case; his offer is one of few concessions made by Freeh and Reno in appearances before committee; they refuse to answer specific questions about substance of their disagreement or disclose details of their deliberations in days leading up to Reno's decision to reject outside investigation into fund-raising telephone calls from White House by Pres Clinton and Vice Pres Al Gore; photo (M)

Reno and Freeh Tell Little of Dispute on Inquiry

Chicago Bulls defeat New York Knicks, 100-82, United Center; photo (L)

Knicks Have No Fight, Foundering Against Bulls

Rafael Munoz Talavera, in open letter to Pres Ernesto Zedillo in Ciudad Juarez newspaper, denies that he is head of Mexico's largest narcotics cartel; portrays himself as target of unidentified traffickers who control cartel and hope to focus law enforcement efforts on him; US authorities once accused Munoz of heading border cartel responsible for smuggling 21 tons of cocaine that were discovered in Los Angeles warehouse in 1989; photo (M)

After 40 Slayings, Question Lingers: Who's Mexican Cartel's Boss?

Ann Powers reviews performance by Bob Dylan at Irving Plaza (M)U

Dylan, Poet of the Soul And National Treasure

Africans on trial after 1839 slave ship rebellion. Worthy but diffuse.

Pain of Captivity Made Starkly Real

Lawyers for Terry L Nichols, charged with murder and conspiracy in April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people, are attempting to bring John Doe No 2, bombing figure who has never been identified and may not even exist, and people who say they saw him to center stage in effort to cast doubt on prosecution's case; lawyers say Timothy J McVeigh, who was convicted on charges identical to those against Nichols and sentenced to death, was helped by John Doe No 2, but not by Nichols (M)

BOMB TRIAL FOCUS ON JOHN DOE NO. 2

Seiji Ozawa, music director of Boston Symphony Orchestra, hoping to staunch flow of faculty resignations and public rancor, releases six-page statement spelling out his vision for 57-year-old Tanglewood Music Center and explaining what he thinks caused recent srife there; Ozawa says internationally renowned summer training program for young musicians and conductors needs to become more closely tied to Boston orchestra and its musicians (L)

Ozawa Acts To Calm Tanglewood Faculty Friction

American museums have been hawking merchandise ever since Metropolitan Museum of Art began selling etchings in 1871, but increasingly, objects you would never expect to find in museums are being sold alongside art books and reproduction sculptures; trend horrifies art purists; museum stores bring in as much as quarter of money museums earn, outstripping admissions, membership and other revenue-producing activities; photo (M)

Art(?) to Go: Museum Shops Broaden Wares, at a Profit

South Korea, with investor confidence again starting to erode despite international rescue of its economy, calls on US and Japan to provide some money that they had pledged only as last resort; Clinton Administration rejects South Korea's request; Japanese Finance Ministry says its funds will only be available as backup; Korean request reflects growing signs that International Monetary Fund bailout has not restored confidence in South Korea's shaky financial system; graph; photo (M)

KOREANS PRESSING U.S. AND JAPANESE FOR SPEEDIER AID

Article on restaurants in New York City where lone diners can eat at the bar, where bartenders look out for them and it is easy to strike up conversation with other customers; photos (L)

Why Dine Alone? There's Room at the Bar

 Sterling Forest is a big winner as the Doris Duke foundation awards grants.   PAGE B2

THE land is as flat as a flight deck here in the Redlands. You can still see the scars of Hurricane Andrew, whose 200-mile-an-hour winds lashed this fertile countryside in August 1992: boughless pine trunks rising forlornly above clumps of young vegetation, coconut palms amputated 10 feet from the ground, boarded-up buildings, fields waiting to be replanted.    But as Michael Hunt, the lean, sunburned vice president for agricultural operations of Brooks Tropicals, one of the country's leading shippers of exotic fruits, tooled his white pickup along the back roads, what struck me was the lushness of the comeback crops growing in the rich red laterite soil that gave the area its name -- vegetables like pole beans and tomatoes, herbs of every description, guava and avocado and mango trees, flowering shrubs and annuals.  

National Origins: South Florida; In Sour Splendor, The Real Key Lime Still Rules

Sports of The Times column by Harvey Araton on NBA Commissioner David Stern's suspension of Golden State Warriors player Latrell Sprewell in assault against coach P J Carlesimo; says shorter suspension by league would have preserved message that Warriors had rightly sent (L)

Sports of The Times; Stern Makes Sprewell The Victim

Oxford Health Plans, a managed care company, acknowledges that it sorely underestimated cost of its health care; under pressure from New York State Department of Insurance, Oxford confirmed fears that it misjudged its costs, with announcement that it will take substantial charge to fourth-quarter earnings and show loss for the year; full size of charge is not disclosed, but at least $164 million of it will go just to bolster reserves for medical claims submitted on behalf of New York policyholders, core of its business (L)

Oxford Says It Misjudged Cost of Care

Viktoriia Savtsova is a Ukrainian Paralympic swimmer.

December 10, 1997

Headlines from December 10, 1997

About New York; At N.Y.U., Languages Si, Elitism Non

After 3 Years, 'Megan's Law' Is Set to Start In New Jersey

INSIDE

Officials Unsure About Cost and Effect of New Transit Fares

Sprewell Apologizes but Criticizes the N.B.A.

Billboard 200

Sevens

R U Still Down? [Remember Me]

Let's Talk About Love

Higher Ground

ReLoad

Notable Births

Historical Context for December 10, 1997