January 18, 2000

Enforcing Guns Laws The White House will ask Congress for $280 million to enforce firearms laws, addressing a complaint of opponents of gun restrictions. PAGE A18 A Study in Racial Politics In holiday celebrations, Hillary Rodham Clinton tied the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy to her own political ambitions. PAGE B1

Glaxo Wellcome PLC to acquire SmithKline Beecham PLC for about $76 billion in stock, creating Glaxo SmithKline, world's largest drug maker; Glaxo's chairman Sir Richard Sykes and SmithKline's chief executive Jan Leschly give up control to Jean-Pierre Garnier, chief operating officer of SmithKline; Sir Richard will become nonexecutive chairman of combined company, to be known as Glaxo SmithKline, and may retire in 2002 when he turns 60, while Leschly will retire in April; company pledges to achieve cost savings of $1.63 billion annually by third year of combined operations; some jobs are likely to be cut from combined company's 107,000 employees, though few of nearly 22,000 jobs in US are at risk; main reason for Glaxo's acquisition is because it wants SmithKline Beecham's drug research pipeline; photo (M)

Ecuador's Pres Jamil Mahuad, by deciding to replace Ecuador's currency with America dollar, has thrust his nation onto center stage of heated, continent-wide debate about monetary policy and economic relations with US; Mahuad's unexpected move, announced on Jan 9 amid political crisis that threatened to topple him, is textbook example of what economists call dollarization, and provides test case long sought by advocates of that policy; Clinton administration and its trading partners for next few months will be watching experiment in Ecuador with much skepticism; graph; photo (M)

Mike Wise Sports of The Times column discusses whether Grant Hill will remain with Detroit Pistons or exercise escape clause in his contract at end of season; photo (M)

Most Foreign Markets Rise; Dollar Slips Against Yen Most major foreign stock markets ended higher while United States markets were closed in observance of Martin Luther King's Birthday. The dollar edged up against the euro, but slipped against the Japanese yen in overseas trading.