News Digest August 22-28

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Yugoslavia's national bank announced it would issue a 1 billion-dinar note in an effort to keep pace with the country's inflation, estimated at roughly 20% a day. The new note is worth about $3.

BUSINESS

Health-Care Fraud

Showing a new zeal for cracking down on health-care fraud, government agents raided the offices of National Medical Enterprises, one of the U.S.'s largest operators of hospitals, and subpoenaed Medicare and Medicaid billing records of at least half a dozen of the country's largest blood-testing-laboratory owners.

New, Improved Nintendo

Nintendo and Silicon Graphics unveiled plans to market a virtual-reality game that would allow players to enter and manipulate a 3-D world. The companies hope to sell the product, called Project Reality, first to arcades in malls, then to consumers at a price under $250. Atari, one of Nintendo's competitors, has a similar game it plans to introduce later this year.

Cable Companies' Defeat

Telephone companies may send TV programming over their lines, says a federal court in Virginia in response to a lawsuit brought by Bell Atlantic. The decision overturns a U.S. law on constitutional grounds and opens up the possibility of an all-out war between local phone and cable companies as the Baby Bells move to start their own cable-TV systems.

Cable Companies' Victory

The four broadcast TV networks failed yet again to show cable who's boss when they backed down from their demand that cable systems pay the networks to carry their programs. A new federal law gave networks the right to demand compensation, but the cable companies refused to pay cash, threatening to drop the network shows entirely. Instead the four networks got the cable companies to agree to carry the new cable channels they each propose to launch.

Financial Markets in Paradise

Mortgage rates reached their lowest levels since 1968, and 30-year Treasury bonds fell to 6.08%. The Dow Jones industrial average continued to make record highs.

SCIENCE

NASA Loses Another One

The billion-dollar Mars Observer was supposed to map the Red Planet's surface from space and study its climate as it prepared the way for a series of future landings, including at some point a human mission. But just as the space probe was about to go into Mars orbit, nasa lost communication with it, rendering the satellite useless. Engineers suspect faulty transistors on Observer are to blame.

Ozone Optimism

Thanks to rapid international action, the amount of ozone-eating chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere is dropping faster than anyone expected; the chemicals should peak around the year 2000, then decline. On the other hand, unfortunately, the chemicals are currently destroying ozone faster than anyone expected.

MEDIA & THE ARTS

More Blues for NYPD Blue

Sixteen abc affiliates have declared Steven Bochco's latest prime-time series, NYPD Blue, too blue for their airwaves, and are refusing to carry it. The police show has attracted attention because of its violent and sexually explicit content.

Cold Country, Hot Film

Jurassic Park is heating up screens in Iceland's capital, Reykjavik. It drew 31,964 people in 10 days. That's 32% of the city's population and 12% of all Icelanders.