August 10, 1999

Stamps on the Internet Starting its first new way of delivering stamps since the advent of the postage meter in 1920, the United States Postal Service announced that postage could be bought nationwide over the Internet. PAGE A15 Clinton Honors Carters Former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian award, and high praise from President Clinton yesterday in Atlanta. PAGE A13

Dave Checketts, president of Madison Square Garden, has reportedly met with Scott Layden, vice president for basketball operations of Utah Jazz, to discuss hiring him to assume same title with Knicks; photo (M)

Sharp rise in long-term rates batters Internet and technology stocks again, pushing Nasdaq composite index down for seventh time in eight sessions; Nasdaq index falls 28.99 points, or 1.1 percent, to 2,518.98; Nasdaq is off 12 percent from its peak on July 16; Street.com's Internet index falls 18.36 points, or 2.7 percent, to 480.03; Dow Jones industrial average drops 6.33 points, to 10,707.70; graph; chart (M)

Mikhail Baryshnikov and his White Oak Dance Project make New Victory Theater debut, beginning two-week season; photo; Keith Lockhart and Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra begin United States summer tour at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Interlochen, Mich; Shakespeare in Central Park to open second production this season, Moliere's Tartuffe, with Mark Brokaw directing; New York Grand Opera, under direction of Vincent La Selva, will end its 26th successive season of free opera in Central Park with performance of Verdi's Aroldo; Decca Records teams up with magazine PC World to offer 15-track recording, The Y2K Album: A doomsday Collection for the Coming Crash (M)

State Securities Regulators Urge Day-Trading Changes Many day-trading firms use deceptive marketing practices to lure customers into a stock trading strategy that will probably cause them to lose money, and then they help to keep them trading by arranging what could be illegal loans, according to the North American Securities Administrators Association, a group of state regulators. In a report, the regulators urged the firms to do a better job of screening potential customers and to disclose more fully the risks. The group also asked national regulators to step up their enforcement of trading rules and to ban some of the day-trading industry's most common lending practices. [Page A1.]