January 4, 1999

Article discusses speculation concerning auction of baseball hit by St Louis Cardinals outfielder Mark McGwire for his record 70th home run of season; ball owned by Philip Ozersky is expected to get price exceeding $1 million at Guernsey's auction house in Manhattan; photo (M)

New York State lawmakers return to Albany for beginning of 1999 legislative session that experts say is likely to yield same sort of partisanship and acrimony that have become synonymous with Albany; major issue facing legislators will be adoption of state budget (M)

Prostitutes in Calcutta, India, have become leading crusaders in city's fight against AIDS, traveling like missionaries from brothel to brothel in Sonagachi red-light district to preach to madams, pimps and other prostitutes about importance of using condoms, most effective shield against HIV infection; has organized more than half of prostitutes in red-light enclave into force with influence to challenge any pimp or madam who would insist on customer's right to sex without condom, operating as kind of labor union for world's oldest profession; Indian Govt will use Sonagachi project as model in large-scale battle against AIDS, hoping that by acting swiftly while overall infection rate is relatively low it can avoid horrific burden of death that afflicts Africa; India has four million people estimated to be infected with virus; photos; map; chart (L)

Major medical centers in New York, where cancer care is becoming essential part of hospitals' business, is vying with prestigious and powerful Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for patients and trying to aggressively nibble away at its market share; experts say even though concentration on cancer patients is nationwide phenomenon, it is particularly fevered in New York where there are already more centers that have official designation of National Cancer Institute, and its financing, than in most other regions; hospitals are building new centers devoted to disease, and poaching some of nation's biggest names in cancer care to run and staff them; are investing in expensive technology, adding variety of consumer-friendly fringe benefits to cancer wards and pouring money into advertising campaigns that hawk cancer treatments in way once reserved for gentle innovations; new focus attributed to fact that cancer care has become big business that may soon overtake cardiovascular disease as No. 1 killer in America as population ages and as cardio-care becomes more advanced; cancer care offers more financial incentives beyond sheer flow of cases since disease is still fairly immune from managed-care penny-pinching and treatment advances have helped to streamline care; photos (L)

PBS's Great Performances will offer reprise of partnership of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart called The Rodgers and Hart Story: Thou Swell, Thou Witty; photo; National Cathedral in Washington will be site of concert by Folger Consort offering Monteverdi's 1610 Vespers; new year of Altogether Different dance series begins at Joyce Theater; New York Library for the Performing Arts will celebrate 100th anniversary of birth of Francis Poulenc with program at Great Hall at Cooper Union; photo (M)

John Tierney The Big City column discusses book by Virginia Postrel, entitled The Future and its Enemies, concerning her prediction of bleak future for New York City (M)

Article discusses efforts by Stephen M Flatow, whose daughter Alisa was killed in terrorist bombing while studying in Israel in April 1995, to make governments that sponsor terrorism pay; Flatow has won landmark $247.5 million judgment against Government of Iran for supporting Islamic Holy War, terrorist group that claimed responsibility for blast which killed Alisa and seven Israeli soldiers; photo (M)

New York metropolitan region is battered by first major storm of winter, with deluge of lashing sleet and record-setting rains that disrupt air travel, flood roads and entire neighborhoods and cause hundreds of traffic accidents; widespread flooding damage reported in homes, notably in Springfield Gardens, Queens, where some residents are evacuated to shelters; photos (M)

Pres Clinton will announce $6 billion package of tax and budget proposals to help provide long-term care for people with chronic illnesses and disabilities in most ambitious effort to deal with long-term care needs of elderly since collapse of Administration's plan to guarantee health insurance for all Americans in 1994; core of initiative is to give tax credit of $1,000 annually to people who need long-term care, at home or in institution, and in some cases to those who care for relatives with serious physical ailments; White House says tax credit, if approved by Congress, will help two million people, at cost of $5.5 billion, from 2000 to 2004; Republican House Ways and Means Committee member Repr Ari Fleischer says initiative is good idea with potential to be enacted into law, describing it as part of House Republican manifesto, or so-called Contract With America, expounded in 1994 and 1995; notes Republicans and Democrats alike have in past resisted some of Clinton's proposals for business-tax increases, adding that long-term care changes will have better chance of approval if not linked to such increases (M)

Critic's Notebook comment by Allan Kozinn criticizes musicians who sing or play familiar music from a score rather risk the high-wire act of performing from memory; photo (M)

Article discusses play this season of New York Rangers hockey player Wayne Gretzky; he discusses speculation that this could be his last year; photo (M)

Jennifer Dunning reviews year in dance; says it was filled with enough indelible images to make dance-going in 1998 contradict naysayers who bemoan premature death of the art; photo (M)