COVER

Finally, the Olympic Games

But the preliminaries have been a distraction: a discouraging combination of skulduggery on ice, personal tragedy, mishaps and mayhem

NATION

Famine -- and Feast (The Budget)

Clinton's $1.5 trillion budget restrains defense and domestic spending but lets entitlements roam free

Lost in the Fun House (Scandals)

A Navy judge blasts the Chief of Naval Operations as the last cases in the Tailhook investigations flame out

This Time We Mean It (Policy)

Nato's Pull-Back-Or-We-Bomb Ultimatum to Bosnia's Serbs looks genuine, but will it help end the war?

WORLD

Almost Halfway Home / (Middle East)

Israel and the P.L.O. settle more terms of self-rule, but Palestinians in the territories are unimpressed

Spoiling for a Victory (South Africa)

Mandela launches a campaign to mobilize black voters and win not just big -- but really big

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

BUSINESS

A Very Messy Divorce

John Sculley parts ways with Spectrum, leaving a trail of mutual recrimination

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Albee Is Back (The Arts & Media Theater)

After years of literary exile, an autobiographical stunner

Battle Fatigue (The Arts & Media Music)

Fed up with her temperamental shenanigans, the Metropolitan Opera fires soprano Kathleen Battle

Closing the Last Chapter (The Arts & Media Books)

With unsentimental passion and chilling clarity, a surgeon reflects movingly on life's final mystery: death

Possessed By the Flesh (The Arts & Media Books)

In a claustrophobic novel, the hero -- and the reader -- are captive to an erotic obsession

The Man Behind the Monster (The Arts & Media / SHOW BUSINESS)

Debonair and demonic in Schindler's List, Ralph Fiennes wins Oscar's notice, and everyone else's

The Young and the Restive (The Arts & Media Cinema)

Winona Ryder, an up-and-doing spirit in a down-and-out milieu, brightens the twentysomething angst of Reality Bites

MILESTONES

TO OUR READERS

ESSAY