June 13, 2000

Golfer Phil Mickelson discusses his preparations for US Open golf championship; photo (M)

US Supreme Court rules unanimously that financial incentives that health maintenance organizations give doctors to hold down costs do not make them liable to federal suits for violating duty to put patients first; dismisses suit by Cynthia Herdrich, whose appendix burst after health maintenance organization in Urbana, Ill, forced her to wait eight days for tests to diagnose abdominal pain; leaves such lawsuits in province of state courts while handing back to Congress issue of patients rights as matter of federal policy (M)

New York Times/CBS News Poll finds despite change of opponent, steady diet of television advertising and vigorous schedule of trips around New York State, Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign for US Senate appears largely stuck in place; finds Clinton locked in close race with Republican Repr Rick Lazio, opponent so unknown that most New Yorkers are unable to offer any opinion of him; finds his replacement for Mayor Rudolph Giuliani as Republican candidate has scrambled dynamics of race; Clinton is swamping Lazio in New York City as notable number of Giuliani supporters have switched, reverting to historical party voting habits; conversely, Lazio who is more conventional statewide Republican candidate than Giuliani, seems to be blunting Clinton's usually competitive position in upstate New York, which usually favors Republicans by large numbers; findings of poll detailed; charts (M)

New York Mets and New York Yankees are considering playing day-night doubleheader on July 8 with first game at Shea Stadium in afternoon and second game at Yankee Stadium at night; photo (M)

Computer drives holding nuclear weapons data and other sensitive information disappear from vault at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico; were reported missing on May 31 by officials inspecting facilities after forest fire in Los Alamos area; investigators say while containers remained in vault, computer hard drives were gone; say drives contained data used by government's Nuclear Emergency Search Team, unit that responds to nuclear accidents and nuclear-related threats from terrorists; data include all information on American nuclear weapons that team needs to render nuclear devices safe in emergencies; among missing material is intelligence information concerning Russian nuclear weapons program; officials are uncertain whether data was misplaced or stolen, or whether loss will have any effect on team's ability to do job; disappearance is major embarrassment for laboratory that has spent year under scrutiny for security lapses; FBI begins joint investigation of disappearance with Energy Department (M)