Federal Communications Commission essentially shuts down small long-distance operator called Fletcher Companies and fines it $5.7 million for illegal practice of slamming--communications industry jargon for switching customer's long-distance provider without explicit permission; it is largest fine commission has levied for slamming; eight long-distance companies involved, operated by Daniel Fletcher, are CCN Inc, Church Discount Group, Discount Calling Card, Donation Long Distance, Long Distance Services, Monthly Discounts, Monthly Phone Services and Phone Calls Inc; FCC Chairman William E Kennard comments (L)

Phone-Carrier Fraud Brings Big U.S. Fine

Neil Strauss reviews Terrastock festival in San Francisco, three-day marathon of underground psychedelic folk, pop, rock and experimental music at Custer Avenue Stages; photo (M)

Happy Just to Listen, The Crowd Just Says No

New rule at New York Stock Exchange, approved on April 8, by Securities and Exchange Commission, allows companies to add new stock option plan if it meets two key tests for what constitutes 'broad-based' plan: it must make at least 20 percent of employees eligible for options, and at least half of those must be below level of company officer; institutional investors say they expect many of 3,046 companies on Big Board to take path of least resistance and roll their executive option plans into broader plan, thus avoiding shareholder vote; Patrick S McGurn, director of corporate programs for Institutional Shareholder Services, says it is such a large loophole that it essentially renders meaningless any restrictions that still exist; New York Stock Exchange says concerns by institutional investors are unwarranted; graph (Market Place column) (L)

THE MARKETS: Market Place; New Rules on Stock Options By Big Board Irk Investors

Interview with saxophonist-composer Wayne Shorter, who is appearing with members of Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra; photo (M)

With This Composer, The Work Is Never Done

Article discusses outlook for first round NBA playoff series between New York Knickerbockers and Miami Heat; photo (M)

N.B.A. PLAYOFFS: Gentlemen, Sharpen Your Elbows; The Knicks, the Heat and the Fine Art of Hating

Doctors fears that managed care would reduce their earnings or drive them out of medicine are proving to be unfounded; doctors' incomes have rebounded from nearly 4 percent dip four years ago; survey shows doctors' average earnings rose to nearly $200,000 for first time in 1996, up $18,000 from 1994 and up $70,000 from 1987, when managed care was just beginning to spread; doctors are no longer realizing 10 percent annual income gains they saw in old days of fee-for-service medicine, when they could essentially bill insurance companies whatever they wished; income changes have often been volatile in some specialities; graphs; table (L)

Doctors' Pay Regains Ground Despite the Effects of H.M.O.'s

Article on New Jersey Devils preparing for first round playoff series with Ottawa Senators; photo (M)

Winning, The Dull Way

Interview with Tod Michael Volpe, former Manhattan art and antiques dealer who is serving 28-month prison term for his role in fraud scheme that bilked his clients of $1.9 million, often from sale of their artworks; his clients included the rich and famous, people such as Jack Nicholson and and Barbra Streisand; photo (M)

A Dreamer's Rough Awakening; Art Dealer to the Hollywood Elite Has a New Role, Inmate

Ruth Reichl describes disappointing vacation she had renting old stone house outside Avignon, Provence, in south of France, last August, noting that her experiences both eating and shopping in food markets fell far short of fantasy she had apparently been carrying around with her; reports that her marketing experiences were rude awakening: green beans were tired, with not a ripe tomato to be seen; says none of potatos were grown in France, peaches were hard as rocks, cheeses came from factories, bread was wrapped in plastic, and meat was disaster; says this year, she will try Italy (L)

Critic's Notebook; My Year in Provence Last August

New York State Insurance Supt Neil D Levin denies huge rate increases sought by Oxford Health Plans and Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield for people who buy own health insurance; says NY will instead pay $110 million collected during last several years from insurers to Oxford, Empire and other insurers to offset future increases for individual premiums; advocates for sick and poor laud plan; some insurers and Democrats score Gov Pataki for holding back money until election year, holding it should have been paid out to insurers long ago; critics cite need for long-term solution (M)

ALBANY WILL PAY HEALTH INSURERS TO FREEZE RATES

New York City Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew to propose to Board of Education plan that would have failing fourth and seventh graders held back a class beginning in spring of 2000; several teachers say that while they endorsed variety of factors that would go into decision process, they have reservations about remedy; nearly all say that current policy, under which hundreds of thousands of students have advanced without mastering basic skills, needs to be examined; photo (M)

Doing the Math: In the Schools, Promotion Plan Starts to Sink In

 Stocks Hit Records As I.B.M. Pulls Dow Up  Major stock measures hit new highs on the strength of technology, drug, banking and energy shares. The Standard & Poor's 500 and Nasdaq composite finished at record levels for the third consecutive trading day.    The Dow Jones industrial average hit a new high, too, rising 43.10 points, to 9,184.94; much of the gain reflected a surge in I.B.M., which rose nearly 8 percent as investors gave a positive appraisal to the company's earnings. [Page D10.]

BUSINESS DIGEST

R W Apple article on wine scene in South Africa profiles Jabulani Ntshangase, 49-year-old Zulu who is a pioneer--first black to enter all-white wine growing business; Ntshangase, with three white friends--two of country's leading winemakers and its leading wine writer--is a partner in five-month-old Spice Route Wine Company; company owns 125-acre vineyard and a brand-new winery in hot, dusty countryside near Malmesbury, 35 miles north of Cape Town; photos (L)

A South African Black On a Road Never Traveled

New study by city planners, in yet another sign that Mayor Giuliani administration sees Manhattan as future home of New York Yankees, suggests that new stadium on West Side would have an economic impact worth at least $1 billion a year, more than 10 times impact of renovated or new stadium in Bronx (M)

City Study Sees Big Revenues If Yankees Play in Manhattan

New York Yankees defeat Toronto Blue Jays, 5-3; photo (M)

Jays Find Wrong Side Of Williams In the 10th

Internal battle over future of Russian Government bursts into open as fight for control of economic policy between small group of big business owners who have amassed huge fortunes and Government economic reformers; newspaper owned by Boris Berezovsky, Russia's richest and most ruthless tycoon, announces that pitched battle over Pres Boris Yeltsin's nomination of Sergei N Kiriyenko as Prime Minister can only be avoided if Yeltsin abandons market reformers trying to better regulate sale of state property; Berezovsky is believed to be acting with other leading tycoons and has forged key alliances; ex-Prime Min Viktor S Chernomyrdin echoes his call that reformer Anatoly B Chubais be denied post as head of electrical power monopoly; photos (M)

BEHIND THE BATTLE FOR RUSSIAN POST, ECONOMIC CONTROL

Growing number of American companies are preparing for day when they can do business with Cuba; in spite of 36-year-old US embargo that prohibits all but narrow range of commercial activity, and in spite of discouragement by State Department, American executives are finding ways to enter Cuban market; American executives who have visited Cuba recently estimate market for basic goods and services at $2 billion to $4 billion annually; Radisson Hotels president Peter Blyth predicts Americans will flood Cuba in unlikely event that travel restrictions are eased--driving up number of annual foreign visitors to 10 million from current mostly European crop of 1.2 million; chart shows how Cuba compares with some of its Latin American neighbors in estimated 1996 per capita gross domestic product and trade as share of gross domestic product in 1996; photos (L)

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS: Wish You Were Here; Marxist Cuba Beckons, And U.S. Capitalists Champ at the Bit

Iranian soccer team's qualification for World Cup has revived secular passion for sport in fundamentalist nation; has imbued Iranians with pride and nationalism, giving Iran chance to continue emerging from international isolation; team's success is woven into Iran's politics, with soccer widely seen as kind of slightly more secular, slightly more Western pastime tolerated by Pres Mohammad Khatami, who draws ardent support from some soccer fans; photos (L)

A Renewed Secular Passion Is Gripping Iranians: Soccer

Angelina Zwane, baby killed when white farmer opened fire on three black children crossing his field, is buried, Benoni, South Africa; speakers question police failure to immediately arrest man, Nicholas Steyn, who was later charged with murder and jailed; photos (M)

Baby Is Shot, and Raw Doubts Haunt South Africa

David Gonzalez About New York column on Anthony Garcia mourning death of his dog Tray, pit bull who died Jan 6 when shot by fire marshals in Bronx after chasing one of them onto car in parking lot; photo (M)

About New York; A Memorial to a Misunderstood Dog

Small, independent, artisanal cheese makers are proliferating across the country; there are now some 200 such producers, compared with just handful in 1980's; typical of them are Cindy and David Major, who produce an aged sheep's milk cheese at their farm near Putney, Vt, that is described as 'spectacular, an American treasure,' in Cheese Primer, guide to world's cheeses; photos; list of sources of some great farmhouse cheeses (L)

America's New Golden Harvest

w New York Stock Exchange tells city officials that it is prepared to leave its historic headquarters on Wall Street and move to new building in Battery Park City; exchange wants to acquire three buildings across Broad Street from exchange's existing trading floors but city officials have said that legal and financial barriers to acquiring properties could take to long to resolve at time when exchange is desperate to expand (M)

Stock Exchange Weighs Move to Battery Park City

Bernard Holland Critic's Notebook column on correspondences between music and law, which will be subject of a conclave of scholars, musicians and various legal people at Benjamin N Cardozo School of Law; observes that classicism in music was about form and proportion, qualities that tempered the imperfect actions of people--and that pure law is the same; photo of Heinrich Schenker, leading music theorist of 20th century, who may have been influenced by his Viennese legal training (L)

Mining Music and Law For Original Meanings

Dimon DeBartolo Group, nation's largest shopping mall developer, has created unusual alliance with Olsten Corp, temporary employment concern, to create employment centers in Simon malls; move reflects retail industry's extreme difficulty in finding workers; Olsten will run Simon's customer service centers, for a fee, through which it will provide retail stores with centralized employment agency; Olsten will also provide training programs for new employees, with goal of higher retention; Olsten will use mall traffic to recruit potential workers for other industries it serves (L)

New Venture Aims at Woes Of Retailers

Ira Berkow Sports of The Times column discusses career of former world boxing champion Muhammad Ali as he receives Givat Haviva Educational Foundation award for world peace along with writer Thomas Hauser; photo (M)

April 22, 1998

Headlines from April 22, 1998

Phone-Carrier Fraud Brings Big U.S. Fine

Happy Just to Listen, The Crowd Just Says No

THE MARKETS: Market Place; New Rules on Stock Options By Big Board Irk Investors

With This Composer, The Work Is Never Done

N.B.A. PLAYOFFS: Gentlemen, Sharpen Your Elbows; The Knicks, the Heat and the Fine Art of Hating

Billboard 200

Titanic

Let's Talk About Love

I Got The Hook-Up!

Backstreet Boys

Savage Garden

Historical Context for April 22, 1998