August 15, 2000

Rescue officials evacuate about 300 more families from Byram Township and many other towns in northern New Jersey ravaged by floods from more than 14 inches of rain; Gov Christine Todd Whitman places Morris and Sussex counties under state of emergency; state asks for affected areas to be declared federal disaster areas; Whitman says designation is important because state's disaster fund has been depleted since last tropical storm in fall 1999; photo; map (M)

Article discusses play of New York Giants rookie Ron Dixon during practice training camp; photo (M)

Russian nuclear submarine Kursk plunges to seabed in Barents Sea during naval exercises, possibly after explosion on board, trapping more than 100 crew members 450 feet below surface; officials say vessel is badly damaged; are unsure how many of crew are alive or how long they can survive; Russian navy begins desperate rescue attempt; says odds of saving crew are slim; says submarine carried no nuclear weapons and that nuclear reactors were turned off, calming fears of possible radioactive contamination; Pres Clinton is briefed about accident and offers US help; American experts say vessel, unlike most Russian submarines, was probably not equipped with pressurized escape chambers that could have carried crew to surface; Russia's loss of at least four nuclear submarines from 1960's through 1989, and crippling of others by reactor malfunctions, fires or other problems recalled; photo; maps (M)

White House touches off furor in rarified world of archaeology by naming Shelby White, wealthy New York collector, to Cultural Property Advisory Cormittee, government panel that helps fight illicit trade in antiquities; White and husband, financier Leon Levy, have one of world's finest private collections, but critics liken appointment to putting fox in charge of chicken coop; Nancy Wilkie of Archaeological Institute and Prof Malcolm Bell voice strong opposition; office of Sen Daniel Moynihan, who backs White, say senator's original legislation envisioned passionate disagreement on committee; White's controversial acquisitions noted; photo (M)

Article reviews myriad delays and confusion surrounding Berlin's plans to commemorate Holocaust and Germany's lost Jews; Jewish Museum, with new project director from New Zealand, Ken Gorbey, has still not opened, Topography of Terror site at former SS headquarters has no building, and numbingly debated Holocaust Memorial is still just an embarrassingly vacant lot; photos; map; at stake are big issues of how German should recall cataclysm, and whether projects are for Germans or Jews or both; Julius Schoeps, leading German Jew, charges museum building is 'Holocaust sculpture' that Gorbey may turn into multimedia Disneyland; Gorbey and W Michael Blumenthal, museum's American head, and his former deputy Tom Freudenheim comment; Berlin administration's objections to costs of other two projects also noted (M)