March 27, 1998

Autos on Friday column on balancing costs and benefits of highway improvements; photo; graphs on accident rates for various types of urban and rural roads, and design changes that make them safer (M)

Andrew S Grove is stepping aside as chief executive of Intel Corp; Grove will remain full-time employee as Intel's chairman; Grove is turning over top job to Craig R Barrett, Intel's president and chief operating officer; photos (L)

House Republican leaders put off vote on McCain-Feingold finance legislation because they lack support they need to kill the bipartisan plan to rewrite nation's fund-raising rules; dozen or more Republican lawmakers have said they would work with Democrats to use parliamentary maneuver to pass measure; many of defectors are long-time proponents of changing campaign finance laws; core group are Northeast Republicans worrying about election-year challenges; Republican disarray signals that majority exists in House to pass bill that would ban political parties from accepting large unregulated donations known as soft money; bill would also curb 'issue ads' by outside groups; bill is fiercely opposed by Republican leaders, whose party generally has fund-raising advantage (M)

George Vecsey, in Sports of The Times column, comments on latest basketall gambling scandal, point-shaving at Northwestern University (M)

Steven A Pagones takes witness stand in Tawana Brawley defamation trail, and confronts his accuses under oath; states repeatedly that he never attacked Brawley, and has never seen her, except on television; expresses bewilderment over why Brawley's former advisers made their accusations, but asserts that one of defendants, Alton Maddox, 'is a liar'; Pagones's testimony reviewed; photo (M)

Mayor Rudolph W Giuliani caustically dismisses most of recommendations of task force he appointed last summer to examine relations between New York City's residents and its Police Dept; says panel failed to recognize department's recent success in reducing crime; Giuliani makes no mention of impetus behind task force--beating and torture of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima in Brooklyn precinct station house; nor does he discuss any of panel's primary recommendations, other than to claim some are 'unrealistic' and some 'make very little sense'; reactions of members of panel--lawyers, clergy members, community leaders--range from hurt to anger; they worked seven months to complete report; Deputy Mayor Randy M Mastro defends Giuliani's sometimes sarcastic dismissal of report, saying Mayor was 'underwhelmed' by it; photo of Giuliani introducing panel in August (M)

One of Russia's most prestigious military institutions, Frunze Naval Academy, is first and only naval academy in country to accept female cadet; Cadet Lyudmila Yolshina says she was not greeted with anything like hostility that drove Shannon Faulkner from The Citadel after only one week; she says she was told to report any problems to superiors, and her fellow cadets fear consequences if they harass her; mostly, she seems surrounded by amused condescension; but cadets and faculty of Frunze draw line at her dream of serving on combat ship; Russian women have extraordinary record of combat bravery in wartime, yet they are relegated to lowly support position in rear during peacetime; Yolchina was accepted at Funze only after writing letter to Pres Boris N Yeltsin and Defense Min Igor D Sergeyev, imploring them to let her continue family tradition of naval service; photos (M)

Officials from as many as six companies are negotiating plea deals in long-running investigation into allegations of bid-rigging and kickbacks in New York's huge office construction business; charges are expected eventually to involve architects, real estate brokers and corporate managers, as well as lighting and furniture suppliers; investigators believe major corporations were overcharged by as much as 20 percent for office construction as result of bid-rigging by construction executives on almost all major corporate renovation and relocation jobs in 1990's; they say contractors paid millions of dollars in payoffs and kickbacks; unlike other corruption investigations in construction business, this one strikes at elite segment whose executives have vast wealth and influence; central figures are Howard Lazar and Robert Bennis, two of most powerful people in industry (M)

Crisis in Asia Contributes To Fall in Corporate Profits The financial turmoil in Asia helped push American companies' after-tax profits down 2.3 percent in the fourth quarter, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $483.7 billion.

Jonesboro, Ark, mostly white, largely blue-collar college town with population of 50,000, will always be known as city where two young boys shot to death four of their classmates and a teacher, wounding nine other children; people of Jonesboro say they will heal, but they will be different; they are angry to hear psychiatrists say on daytime television that Southerners are more prone to violence, or that proliferation of guns, in place where deer hunting is rite of passage. led to slaughter at Westside Middle School; people of Jonesboro say that what happened was born in disturbed minds of one of boys, perhaps both, and had nothing to do with them; photo (M)

Steven A. Pagones, accused of raping Tawana Brawley more than a decade ago and now suing three of her former advisers for defamation of character, addressed his accusers in public for the first time. ''I've never seen Tawana Brawley in my life, except on television,'' he said. Article, page B1.

Venus Williams upsets Martina Hingis in semifinal of Lipton Championship, Key Biscayne, Florida; Williams will face Anna Kournikova in final; photos (M)