Peter H Lewis (State of the Art) column evaluates next generation of faster Web search engines, including Gurunet (www.gurunet.com), which he calls remarkable but still unfinished instant information utility, and Google (www.google.com), which he describes as very fast and which uses clever intuitive techniques to rank search results by relevancy (M)

Searching For Less, Not More

A prominent Manhattan art dealer  was arrested at her Fifth Avenue gallery last night over a show that included a vase full of live 9-millimeter cartridges for visitors to take home as souvenirs, the police said.  

Art Dealer Arrested Over Bullets at Show

Geographers, cartographers, computer scientists and others are starting to produce cyberspace maps of Web information; maps hold the potential to change relationship of average person in cyberspace by giving users ability to define and control new fields; Martin Dodge, researcher at Center for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College, London, has largest collection of such maps at his Web site (cybergeography.com); maps of cyberspace fall into two categories: those depicting physical structure and information traffic patterns of global networks, and those addressing the content and social spaces of the electronic world; list of some other Web sites that feature high-tech data visualization; photos; maps (M)

Beyond Geography: Mapping Unknowns Of Cyberspace

Article previews 1999-2000 National Hockey League season; photo (M)

Overtime Is Now Five Minutes in Hockey Heaven

Dave Anderson Sports of The Times column discusses how New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine is dealing with team's current losing streak; photo (M)

Sports of The Times; A Fan Offers Scoresheet Inspirations

 Smithsonian's Largest Gift  A man who came penniless to this country after the 1956 Hungarian uprising will give the Smithsonian Institution $60 million. The gift will support a new museum dedicated to airplanes.  PAGE A22

INSIDE

Paul Griffiths reviews Metropolitan Opera's production of Schoenberg's Moses und Aron, conducted by James Levine (M)

Wrestling With the Idea of God; Then, Orgy and Impasse

Article discusses debate over huge new spending plan for subways, buses and commuter trains that is being kicked around in Albany; major issues involve proposed connection of Long Island Railroad to Grand Central Station, linking N subway train to La Guardia Airport and proposed Second Avenue subway on East Side of Manhattan; photo (M)

New 5-Year Transit Plan Must Serve Many Masters

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt reviews book Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan, by Edmund Morris; photo (M)

The Guy Who Wasn't There Meets the Guy Who Was

Analysis of Bell Atlantic Corp's petition to Federal Communications Commission to sell long-distance communications services to consumers and businesses in New York State; focuses on New York Public Service Commission chairwoman Maureen O Helmer's support for Bell Atlantic's application (M)

Now Found in Bell Atlantic's Corner: New York Regulators

Concept called electronic government is spreading to cities across United States, giving people access to wide range of municipal information and services through the Internet; by using such sites, people will be able to get all of their services without having to go to government offices; by relying more on computers and less on workers, cities hope to save money as well; some city Web sites are already offering number of services, such as Indianapolis site, Indygov (www.indygov.org) which provides such information as polling places, parks and zoning issues; some other sites noted; photo of Allan H Dorbin, New York City commissioner involved with on-line city services (M)

For the People, by the Computer

Capitalism is very much in evidence in Warsaw decade after fall of Communism, but beneath impressive veneer, all is not well with Polish success story; low wages, rising unemployment, series of Government scandals and crisis on farms have enabled Andrej Lepper, leader of nationalist movement called Self-Defense, to gain prominence; he figured prominently in recent anti-Government demonstration by 50,000 people in central Warsaw (M)

Poland's Glossy Capitalism Displays a Darker Underside

Acquistion of Asarco Inc and Cyprus Amax Minerals Co by Phelps Dodge has turned into 1980's-style corporate brawl among three companies and Grupo Mexico to emerge as dominant copper producer in industry; industry's bleak prospects proved to be catalyst that prompted Asarco's chief executive Francis McAllister to talk to Cyprus Amax chief Milton Ward in first place last May; copper prices have risen 33 percent since then, and Asarco and Cyprus Amax, instead of being left alone to merge with each other out of desperation, have, in effect, become much more valuable prizes on auction block; Asarco and Cyprus Amax have sought bid from Group Mexico, which has offered $1.03 billion in cash for Asarco, barely edging out Phelps Dodge's $1.01 billion stock and cash offer; graph; photos (M)

A Corporate Chess Game; Copper Industry Rivals in Nasty, Convoluted Negotiations

New York Mets defeat Atlanta Braves, 9-2; photo (M)

Oblivion Can Wait: Olerud Halts Mets' Slide

Toyota Motor Corp introduces subcompact car that will be imported from Japan and will be priced well below comparable models made by Detroit auto makers; American auto executives are silent; new subcompact, the Echo, starts at $9,995, first Toyota in five years to be priced for less than $10,000 in US; Echo costs thousands less than competitors; photo (M)

Detroit Silent As a Toyota Hits Market

 Amazon Plans to Expand To an On-Line Warehouse  Amazon.com plans to become an Internet shopping bazaar by opening its Web site to a variety of merchants for $9.95 a month.  

BUSINESS DIGEST

Four top interior designers tackle some real-life scenarios, actual living spaces of three anonymous New York City apartment-dwellers; 'before' and 'after' photos and diagrams; designers are Clodagh, Charles Riley, Todd Klein and Roderick N Shade (M)

A Home-Beauty Makeover: If You Can't Leave It, Love It

Matt Roloff, a dwarf, has turned his farm in Helvetia, Ore, into 34-acre fantasy for his children, built to accomodate his size of 4 feet 2 inches tall; it includes pirate ship, mine shaft and western village, and treehouse; he has plans to create waterfall and build Tower of Terror; Roloff and his wife are dwarfs, as is one of their four children; photos (M)

A Dream Lives in a Grand Design

Giuliani administration, broadening its legal case to try to take over Brooklyn Museum of Art, accuses museum of violating its lease and state law by conspiring with Christie's auction house to inflate value of private art collection in controversial exhibition; allegation is latest effort by city to show that museum's board is misusing public building and public funds; City Hall officials vow to use charge as part of lawsuit in which they will seek to foreclose on museum and take control of its board; controversial artworks are owned by British advertising exec Charles Saatchi; photo (M)

BROOKLYN MUSEUM ACCUSED OF TRYING TO SPUR ART VALUE

Vice Pres Al Gore, acknowledging that his flagging Presidential campaign needs jolt, says that he is moving his headquarters from Washington, DC, to his home state of Tennessee; move is designed to pare down top-heavy operation and to symbolize break from Clinton Administration; moving to Nashville is part of broad revamping forced on Gore campaign by rise in polls and in public imagination of former Sen Bill Bradley, sole Democrat who dared to challenge Gore and his vast institutional apparatus for Presidential nomination; Gore backers have been dispirited by national polls that show Gov George W Bush, Republican front-runner, sustaining strong lead over Gore; photo (M)

GORE HEADS HOME IN MOVE TO REVAMP LAGGING CAMPAIGN

Amazon.com announces that it will transform itself into Internet shopping bazaar, opening its popular Web site to merchants for minimal fee; company, which started as on-line bookstore, says it will gather valuable information on buying habits of consumers; says initiative, called zShops, will begin on Sept 30, with 500,000 new products; Forrester Research says consumer sales over Internet will jump to $108 billion by 2003 from $3.9 billion last year, and most major merchants are trying to develop selling strategy to master emerging marketplace; graph; Amazon chief exec Jeff Bezos photo (M)

Amazon.com Plans A Transformation To Internet Bazaar

Prominent Manhattan art dealer Mary Boone is arrested at her Fifth Avenue gallery, where an exhibition included vase full of live 9-millimeter cartridges for visitors to take home as souvenirs; she is charged with unlawful distribution of ammunition, possession of unlawful weapons and resisting arrest (M)

Art Dealer Is Arrested for Exhibition of Live Ammunition

Some teachers say that while substantial majority of students passed revamped English Regents test, New York State set such low threshold for passing--55 percent--and teachers graded essay portions so leniently, that there is little evidence that student achievement has been raised; say it will do little to restore confidence of colleges and employers in value of high school diploma, especially in New York City, where lax promotion and graduation standards have been under attack; state officials say they intentially set low passing score, to be fair to students who have come through system governed by decades of debased standards; say passing score will be raised to 65 in 2004 (M)

A SCORING DEBATE FOR REGENTS EXAM

Average US diversified equity fund appears poised to top Standard & Poor's 500-stock index for second consecutive quarter; with Standard & Poor's index down 7.3 percent since June 30 and with return up only 4.2 percent for year, investors' impatience is showing; Investment Company Institute says investors put $9.2 billion into stock funds in August, down 25.7 percent from July sales of $12.4 billion; Trimtabs.com estimates total September stock fund sales of $11 billion; Lipper Inc says large-cap growth funds lost average of 4.2 percent this quarter through Sept 23, compared with 8.3 percent drop for large-cap value funds; mid-cap growth funds broke even, but mid-cap value funds fell 9.3 percent; performance of some of biggest funds noted (Market Place column) (M)

THE MARKETS: Market Place; Actively Managed Funds Outpace the S.& P. Index Again

Baseball came easy last night for a Mets team that had made it look difficult the past 10 days. The ball took the right bounces and found holes in the defense. John Olerud, above, crushed a grand slam, one of eight straight hits in the fourth inning off the Atlanta ace Greg Maddux. The Mets' 9-2 victory ended a seven-game losing streak and kept them in the National League wild-card race. They trail Houston and Cincinnati by a game and a half.  Article, page D1.  

Mets Still Breathing


The Tokaimura nuclear accidents refer to two nuclear related incidents near the village of Tōkai, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. The first accident occurred on 11 March 1997, producing an explosion after an experimental batch of solidified nuclear waste caught fire at the Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (PNC) radioactive waste bituminisation facility. Over twenty people were exposed to radiation.

The Tokaimura nuclear accident causes the deaths of two technicians in Japan's second-worst nuclear accident.

September 30, 1999

Headlines from September 30, 1999

Searching For Less, Not More

Art Dealer Arrested Over Bullets at Show

Beyond Geography: Mapping Unknowns Of Cyberspace

Overtime Is Now Five Minutes in Hockey Heaven

Sports of The Times; A Fan Offers Scoresheet Inspirations

Billboard 200

Let There Be... EVE--Ruff Ryders' First Lady

Millennium

Christina Aguilera

Fly

Supernatural

Historical Events

Historical Context for September 30, 1999