January 19, 1998

Mood of hedonism, bred by hopelessness and apathy, sweeps over Serbian capital of Belgrade; social collapse comes as inflation eats away at local currency, as infighting destroys political opposition and as criminal underclass continues its steady growth; effects of social collapse has devastating effect on children, who have been exposed to scenes of graphic sadomasochism on television; domestic violence, often by men who are out of work or have not received small salaries for months, appears widespread, and crime is endemic; photo (M)

Five students from St Mary's College in Maryland are raped while on educational tour of Guatemala after their chartered bus is ambushed by four armed robbers; incident occurs while three staff members and 13 students are traveling outside town of Santa Lucia Cotzumalguapa; Guatemalan Government detains two men as suspects (M)

New promotional campaign for Wildwood, NJ, and surrounding areas highlights large collection of screaming, kitschy 50's and 60's motels along with aluminum diners and flourescent boardwalk buildings; architectural teachers and students from University of Pennsylvania and Yale unveil first half of year-long study for promoting Wildwoods by exploiting candy-colored, flat-roofed, low-rent parking garage-like commercial architecture, especially neon signs, plastic palm trees and kidney shaped pools, which are beginning to acquire an historic cachet; photo; map (M)

Jon Pareles Critic's Notebook on rock icons of 1960's who descended on New York City for sold-out concerts in same week--Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Van Morrison; photo (M)

Financial experts warn that while most other states have used healthy economy of past seven years to get financial house in order, New York remains woefully ill prepared to survive another recession like the one of early 1990's; predict that when next downturn occurs, state may be forced to swallow same bitter medicine it did in past, of deep spending cuts, reneging on promised tax cuts, and even tax increases; some suggest stock market largess has papered over serious problems, some recent, some legacy accumulated over decades; note state still owes $33 billion or far more than any other state and fifth-highest per capita amount, that unemployment insurance fund ranks dead last among states, and that $67.4 billion budget enacted in 1997 included huge new tax cuts and other programs that will cost $6 billion annually by 2002, with no plan to pay for them; Gov George E Pataki and leaders of Legislature have insisted that continued economic growth and management of spending will keep state solvent (M)