May 7, 1999

House Republican leaders are so united behind Gov George W Bush of Texas for their party's Presidential nomination that they have already begun meeting informally with him to discuss a common agenda for 2000 elections; these meetings are latest demonstration of extraordinary degree to which party apparatus has concluded that Bush's nomination is inevitable, even though there are nearly dozen contenders; Bush has yet to make a formal announcement of his candidacy, and first primary votes will not be cast for nine months; Bush photo (M)

RUSSIA IN ACCORD ON NEED FOR FORCE TO PATROL KOSOVO** News analysis of Clinton Administration's enlisting Russia to its side in Kosovo conflict; in so doing, United States and allies, calculating that isolating Pres Slobodan Milosevic is critical to setting stage for negotiations, finesse several of their key demands and make it clear that there is room to maneuver on composition of international security force; today's statement in Germany is intended to set stage for what is known as United Nations Chapter 7 resolution, which authorizes military operations in a country without its consent (M)

AT&T Corp, in series of deals over last year that culminate in its agreement this week to acquire Mediaone Group Inc, commits itself to spending more than $90 billion on technological vision that is largely untested and that may not exist anywhere but on AT&T's drawing boards; promise is great: a system that could allow AT&T to provide competition against Baby Bells in local phone markets through cable connections--even while delivering interactive television, which could allow viewers to select their own camera angles or replays, and lightning-quick Internet access; but technical and organizational challenges standing between that vision and AT&T's present are so great one AT&T executive likens AT&T's ambitions to launching a space station; it is one of most grand technical voyages in communications; interview with AT&T's chairman, C Michael Armstrong; photo; chart (L)

''The Mummy,'' directed by Stephen Sommers, bills itself as ''a full-scale reimagining'' of the 1932 horror classic in which Boris Karloff plays a resuscitated mummy stalking a pretty English girl he believes to be the reincarnation of his long-lost sweetheart. In this remake, Arnold Vosloo, above, plays the mummy, and the woman is Rachel Weisz, playing a plucky English librarian who along with her brother and an American adventurer (Brendan Fraser) has stumbled upon his burial site.

Utica, NY, factory town built on sweat of Italian, Irish and Polish immigrants, is staking its future on newly arrived refugees from Bosnia, Belarus and Vietnam; city's population, after decadeslong drain of jobs and people, is down to 64,000 from 125,000 in 1960; officials and local business leaders believe refugees, many of whom were skilled professionals in their native lands, are Utica's best chance for prosperity; 6,500 refugees have settled in Utica, giving city 1-in-10 refugee population, one of highest ratios in US; map; photos (M)