NATION

Political Soap Opera

Virginia's Demolition Derby In a row over a secret tape, Robb and Wilder cloud their own futures and anger fellow Democrats

WORLD

India: Mahatma vs. Rama

How a mild-mannered politician named L.K. Advani is leading a movement that threatens to tear the country apart

Soviet Union: Boris Looks Westward

As Yeltsin arrives in the U.S., his landslide win creates a dilemma: How to deal with him and other leaders who want to bypass Gorbachev?

SCIENCE

Just Too Beastly for Words (Nature)

Zoos are becoming an endangered species, beset by financial crises and targeted by animal-rights activists

What Makes Them Blow

Advance warnings of volcanic blasts in the Philippines and Japan show how researchers are getting the knack of predicting eruptions

HEALTH & MEDICINE

Life In The Age Of Lyme (Health)

As the disease spreads, many scared Americans have declared war on ticks. Summer may never be the same.

Returning Fire Against AIDS (Medicine)

Could giving a vaccine to people after they are infected keep the virus from destroying the immune system?

SOCIETY

The Thing That Screams Wolf (Living)

What thief has ever been deterred by those unendurable car alarms? They're a crime in themselves.

RELIGION

SPORT

TECHNOLOGY

Peddling Big Brother

Foreign governments are snapping up surveillance systems that are produced -- but proscribed -- in the West

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

BUSINESS

Labor Revving Up For a Cleanup?

Prodded by racket busters, America's most notorious union is trucking toward democracy. But will the status quo win the day?

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Gender Bender Over Thelma & Louise (Cinema / Cover Stories)

A white-hot debate rages over whether Thelma & Louise celebrates liberated females, male bashers -- or outlaws

SPECIAL SECTION

Defining Womyn (and Others) (Language)

Random House's new dictionary is gender neutral, politically correct -- and an English-lover's disappointment

TO OUR READERS

ESSAY