Former boxer Tony Ayala Jr discusses possible parole after serving 15 years of 35-year sentence in New Jersey for rape, and hopes for taking up career again; interview; photos (M)

A Fighter With A Past Sees the Future; Tony Ayala Jr. Approaches Parole And a Big Welcome

Daylight savings time begins at 2 A.M. tomorrow. Clocks are set ahead one hour.

A Reminder

New York Mets defeat Pittsburgh Pirates, 2-1; photo (S)

Mets Should Credit Ordonez With 9th-Inning Save

Sunbeam Corp warns Wall Street to expect disappointing quarterly results for second time in less than a month; says revenue for first quarter will come in 5 percent below $253 million reported for quarter a year ago and that company will report loss for period; chairman-chief executive Albert J Dunlap says Don Uzzi, executive vice president of consumer products, has been dismissed (L)4

A Warning By Sunbeam Stuns Wall St.

New Jersey politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists and other Trenton personalities anxiously wonder who can be seen on security tapes that were seized in police raid at Baron Athletic Assn, one of their favorite gathering places; tapes are said to show prominent figures playing illegal slot machines and purchasing drinks at unlicensed bar; criminal probe taints millions of dollars that club has donated to charity over the years; Baron and other social clubs in Hamilton Township are transplants from Trenton; photos; map; gambling apparently started at Baron to augment fund-raising from boccie tournaments, and club's political connections gave members feeling of invulnerability (M)

Videotapes of Trenton Club Have Many an Official Fretting

 Dow Briefly Exceeds 9,000 As Stocks End Strong Week  Stocks finished mostly higher yesterday, capping a strong week of gains that briefly pushed the Dow Jones industrial average past the 9,000 level for the first time.   

BUSINESS DIGEST

Some 36,000 jobs were lost from the nation's payrolls last month, the Labor Department said in a surprisingly weak employment report that showed the economy slowing after months of strong growth. The unemployment rate edged up to 4.7 percent from 4.6 percent in February.     Business Day, page D1.            

Job Growth Stumbles

Buoyant in his first day back in the Oval Office after 12 days in Africa, President Clinton gathered his economic advisers in the Rose Garden and lambasted the budget proposal Senate Republicans pushed through on Thursday night. Clearly emboldened by the dismissal of Paula Corbin Jones's sexual misconduct lawsuit against him, the President vowed not to be distracted by such matters.  

Back Home, Clinton Chides Republicans

Communication between blacks and Jews in Crown Heights section of Brooklyn has greatly improved since racial violence of 1991, even though both groups still live fundamentally apart, essentially as strangers; area has remained peaceful following sentencing of Lemrick Nelson Jr to nearly 20 years in prison for fatal stabbing of Hasidic scholar, Yankel Rosenbaum, during violence, and following announcement by city that it will pay $1.1 million to settle lawsuit brought by Hasidic residents who said city failed to protect them during violence; both black and Jewish residents express weariness and frustration with neighborhood's image as war zone torn by racial strife--image they consider media distortion; map; photos (M)

Jews and Blacks Try to Avoid Reprise of '91 in Crown Hts.

 Iraq Inspections Completed  In a test of the accord between the United Nations and Iraq, weapons experts said they had inspected eight presidential compounds but found no prohibited material. Page A4.

INSIDE

Labor Department reports unemployment rate rose to 4.7 percent in March from 4.6 percent in previous month; says economy added no new jobs; reports payrolls edged down by 36,000 jobs; warns that report is somewhat suspect; says dip in jobs may reflect abnormal weather patterns of last few months more than actual change in labor market; reports total hours worked declined 0.7 percent from February; says hourly earnings rose 4 cents last month, to $12.63; graph (L)

Unemployment Rises (With an Asterisk)

Veteran CIA officer Douglas F Groat is arrested for allegedly telling two unidentified foreign governments how US spied on them; was reportedly enraged by his dismissal in October 1996 and by subsequent failure to extort $500,000 from agency in exchange for his loyalty; was $70,000-a-year technician who worked covertly abroad for most of his 16 years penetrating cryptographic systems of foreign governments; has pleaded not guilty to charges; faces death penalty on conviction; CIA Dir George J Tenet says charges are extremely serious and that damage is still being assessed; case is third in four years involving major espionage at CIA; convictions of Aldrich H Ames and Harold J Nicholson for spying for Russians recalled; photos (M)

C.I.A. Charges Dismissed Spy Yielded Secrets

Buzz over new impotence drug, Viagra, prompts researchers to wonder whether it could improve sex lives of women if they also take it, and is focusing attention on sex research in general and women's sexual problems in particular; many doctors want to know whether Viagra works on women, since clitoris is female version of male penis and becomes engorged with blood during sexual arousal, and are questioning how they should measure arousal in women since relatively little is known about sexual function and dysfunction among them (M)

Impotence Pill: Would It Also Help Women?

About New York interview with Moe Foner, 82-year-old veteran union official who pays tribute to Dr Martin Luther King Jr's strong support for organized labor; Foner recalls meeting King in 1959, when his hospital workers union was trying to oranize in hospitals; adds that King was in Memphis to support striking sanitation workers when he was assassinated (S)

About New York; For Workers, The Dream Marches On

Federal grand jury is investigating whether Loral Space and Communications and Hughes Electronics illegally gave China space expertise that significantly advanced Beijing's ballistic missile program; officials say criminal inquiry was dealt serious blow when Pres Clinton recently approved export to China of similar technology from Loral; decision was opposed by Justice Department, which argued that it would be difficult to prosecute companies if Government gave blessings to deal; companies have denied wrongdoing (M)

Companies Are Investigated For Aid to China on Rockets

Sports of The Times column says it is premature to hope that New Jersey Nets are on an ascending path to glory; photo (S)

Sports of The Times; Nets Need Victories, Not Autographs

Comment on New York Yankees observes that, whatever the reason, team has started season on unfortunate 0-2 note (S)

The Yankees Begin 0-2, And Now They'll Wait

Pres Clinton warns Japan in unusually explicit terms that it must change course if it hopes to pull economy out of long-running decline that has worsened in recent weeks; says country's current strategy is clearly not appropriate to times; praises Prime Min Ryutaro Hashimoto as able man, but says there is clearly ongoing struggle with entrenched bureaucracy; comments add to pressure from Treas Sec Robert E Rubin and leaders of several of world's biggest economic powers, who have repeatedly warned that Japan's economic decline and its inability to absorb imports from neighboring countries threaten to hurt Asia's fragile recovery; yen falls to six-and-a-half-year low against dollar in mounting evidence that Japan is heading into one of worst downturns since end of World War II (M)

Clinton Warns Japan: Fire Up Economy to Stem a Decline

Auto sales fell 1.7 percent in March, but decline would have been steeper without rebate-fueled sales drive by General Motors Corp that helped obscure weak results at many other auto makers; GM says sales rose 3.7 percent, comapred with 1997 period; Ford Motor Co says its sales fell 2.6 percent (L)

Rise by G.M. Trims Decline In Auto Sales

Metropolitan Opera withdraws contract for tenor, Robert Alagna, and wife, glamorous soprano Angela Gheorghiu, to sing leading roles in La Traviata for 1998-99 season; action by general manager Joseph Volpe follows their reluctance to sign contract, pending since 1996, because of Met's refusal to give them production approval rights; Volpe says Met has never given any of its singers such privileges, adding that final approval has always rested with production team; says Alagna and Gheorghiu cannot expect to make unreasonable demands on Met and expect to work there, and they should act like grown-ups; photo (M)

Hesitating Celebrity Couple Loses a Met Opera Contract

Stock of Gtech Corp has risen despite adverse ruling by London jury against its co-founder Guy B Snowden; Virgin Group PLC head Richard Branson convinced jury that Snowden tried to bribe him into withdrawing from competition for lucrative contract to operate Britain's lottery; while verdict forced out Snowden, Gtech seems to be doing something else that it has long been known for: dodging the bullet; company--which controls 70 percent of worldwide market, including 29 of 38 state lotteries in US, is benefiting from very size and heft that have drawn such suspicion; analysts say stock has risen because some state lottery systems are less apprehensive about Gtech; they add that rise is also result of solid industry projections; graph; photos (L)

The Game Behind the Gaming; Charges of Gtech Misconduct Fail to Shake Investors

Special report, Democracy to Despotism, examines Nigeria's free fall into despotism since mid-1980's, when it was hailed as model of African democracy and prosperity: nation that had 33d highest per-capita income in world during oil boom of 1970's, had slipped by 1996 to 13th poorest nation under military rule, after generals who seized power with promise to set things straight siphoned off billions of dollars in oil revenue for personal profit; for many Nigerians, rule of Gen Sani Abacha, who seized power in 1993 has been unmitigated disaster by any standard for country accustomed to thinking of itself as Africa's richest and most powerful nation; he has exercised absolute control through reign of terror, in which most Nigerians capable of forming credible opposition--including members of his own Government--have been detained, jailed and on occasion executed; he operates 2,000-man personal security force that inspires deep fear, forcing many prominent Nigerian intellectuals and others into exile; he is poised to become elected President in carefully scripted elections set for August, despite promising to hand over power to civilian government and even setting date to do so; Nigerians, who seethe with resentment, say more people have been arrested in his four years in power than during five decades of British rule; map; diagram; photos (L)

DEMOCRACY TO DESPOTISM: A special report.; Nigeria, in Free Fall, Seethes Under General

Developer says handful of elderly tenants can remain in their little rent-controlled cottages behind storefronts on Manhattan's Upper East Side, and 31-story condominium tower will be built up and over two-story row on Third Avenue, between 77th and 7th Streets; photos; rendering; tenants face din of construction, and brick will will replace tiny lawns, but developer Trevor Davis says he prefers to spend more money on project than to pay tenants 'pension for life' to leave (M)

Cottages Can Stay, but Neighbor Will Loom; Skyscraper to Be Built on Top of a Manhattan Enclave

Dr Malcolm Scoon is found guilty in New York City of second-degree reckless manslaughter in death of his five-month-old daughter, who was shaken so violently she was left brain dead; Scoon and wife had fought court battle two years ago to keep infant from being removed from respirator; his photo (S)

Doctor Guilty In '96 Death Of Daughter

Correction of April 3 obituary of art dealer Richard Bellamyä

April 4, 1998

Headlines from April 4, 1998

A Fighter With A Past Sees the Future; Tony Ayala Jr. Approaches Parole And a Big Welcome

A Reminder

Mets Should Credit Ordonez With 9th-Inning Save

A Warning By Sunbeam Stuns Wall St.

Videotapes of Trenton Club Have Many an Official Fretting

Billboard 200

Titanic

Let's Talk About Love

Life Or Death

Van Halen 3

Ray Of Light

Historical Context for April 4, 1998