July 1, 1998

Hong Kong is marking first anniversary of its return to China with flurry of events on July 1, but many people feel little reason for celebrating with city feeling effects of Asian economic crisis; Britain's exit from Hong Kong has little to do with economic downturn of its former colony, which has been ravaged by rising unemployment, 20 percent drop in stock market and 40 percent decline in property market in last six months; Government has scrapped gaudier elements of last year's celebration because they seem ill-suited to hard times; politically, Hong Kong has scarcely changed in year since it became part of Communist empire; Beijing, defying predictions by experts, has left Hong Kong largely untouched; photo (M)

Oil driller and team of mavericks out to save Earth from asteroid. Director's cut: expensive bombast, expanded.

National Center for Health Statistics report finds that birth rate for unmarried black women has reached its lowest point in 40 years, 74.4 births per 1,000 unmarried black women in 1996; rate is significantly below peak of 90.7 per 1,000 unmarried black women in 1989; health officials say that increase in contraceptive use, sex education and efforts of some community groups to encourage abstention should allow trend to continue; there has been small but notable decrease in overall birth rate among unmarried women, to 44.8 per 1,000 in 1996 from 46.9 per 1,000 in 1994; that stems from drop in birth rate among unmarried white women, which had more than doubled from 1980 to 1994 before it began to drop, hitting 37.6 per 1,000 women in 1996; graph (M)

Article on Dr James Comer, Yale University professor of child psychiatry who stresses developmental needs over methods, and work of his School Development Program, nonprofit project of Child Study Center at Yale Medical School that advises schools on use of his theories; photo (M)

Nineteen nations, including America's closest friends, join forces at conference in Ottawa to protect themselves from what they regard as gravest threats to their collective cultures: free trade and US; discuss ways of distinguishing culture from ordinary commerce, with goal of denying American entertainment industry easy access to their markets; Canada, which organized meeting, set tone of event by not inviting representatives from US to participate, though invitations were extended to 40 countries; apparently sought to prevent US from imposing its view that Canada and many other countries hide behind culture to erect commercial trade barriers; after some embarrassment to Canadians, US is allowed to send observers from embassy in Ottawa (M)