Rail Strike

State officials say they will deploy a small fleet of buses, shift passenger train operations and launch a public relations offensive to reduce confusion and frustration today among the 8,000 Maryland Rail Commuter passengers who are expected to lose normal service in a national rail strike."

NEW YORK -- Months into a severe recession and on a day when a rail strike threatened to paralyze one-third of all industrial shipments in the United States, the Dow Jones industrial average registered a soaring confidence in the country's future prosperity by closing above the 3,000 mark yesterday for the first time.The Dow rose 17.58 points, to 3,004.46, to end above a millennium mark briefly breached last July.The Dow's move to new highs comes weeks after records were established by broader indexes of the domestic markets, as well as by the indexes tracking many other major markets worldwide, including those in London, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan and Frankfurt, Germany.

Here is how members of Maryland's delegation on Capitol Hill were recorded on important roll-call votes last week:Y: YES N: NO X: NOT VOTINGHOUSE: THE 1992 BUDGETBy a vote of 261-163, the House approved a fiscal 1992 budget plan drafted by Democrats that anticipates outlays of $1.46 trillion, revenue of $1.16 trillion and a deficit of about $290 billion.Compared with President Bush's 1992 budget, the Democratic plan spends more on Medicare, veterans' benefits and other entitlements, rejects a cut in the capital gains tax rate, and increases education spending at the expense of science and law enforcement.

WASHINGTON -- Samuel Knox Skinner will bring Chicago-bred toughness, but also a practiced talent for conciliation, to the White House when he takes over as chief of staff from the domineering John H. Sununu later this month, friends and associates of both men said yesterday.Where Mr. Sununu was brash, abusive and intellectually driven, they said, Mr. Skinner will be goal-focused, polished and pragmatic -- very much the corporate manager."He'll be good for the White House because he'll know when and how to tell the king he has no clothes," said conservative activist Paul Weyrich, president of the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative public policy think tank.

Cost of elder care rising, poll shows The out-of-pocket cost of caring for an aging parent or spouse averages about $5,500 a year, according to the nation's first in-depth study of such expenses, a sum that is more than double previous estimates and more than the average American household spends annually on health care and entertainment combined. The average cost of providing long-distance care is $8,728 a year. These caregivers spend on average 10 percent of their household income. These findings and others, to be released today, come from a telephone survey of 1,000 adults caring for someone over age 50. The survey was conducted by the National Alliance for Caregiving and Evercare, a division of the UnitedHealth Group.

For local firms that rely on rail service now frozen by a labor dispute, today brings concern. Next week, calamity?Companies that ship bulk items by freight, which can't easily be converted to trucks, face the most pressing worries. Bethlehem Steel Corp., which employs more than 6,000 people at Sparrows Point, is feeling the impact already. On any given day, it has 3,000 rail cars ferrying coal, iron and finished steel around the country. Some of that is now stranded on the rails.General Motors Corp.

TONIGHT'S Academy Awards gala likely will show film clips of sylvan vistas in New Zealand, drawn from the The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Investors have their eyes on the Kiwi forests for a different reason. The Harvard University endowment recently acquired 408,000 acres of timber rights in New Zealand, the biggest commercial forest in the nation. The investment by America's largest university endowment ($20 billion) is helping create an unlikely group of tree-huggers.

Some 8,000 Maryland rail commuters today were caught in a struggle between railway unions and management, each side blaming the other for the first nationwide rail strike in nearly 10 years. The strike hit the CSX and Conrail lines in Baltimore.Meanwhile, Congress today convened hearings to try to put an early end to the strike, which within days could force the layoffs of tens of thousands of workers, including some 3,500 employees at the General Motors plant on Broening Highway.Many commuters here switched over to Penn Station, the terminal for Amtrak, which the strike did not affect throughout the northeast corridor from Washington to Boston.

Forget the euphoria. Remember that, four years ago, Mike Dukakis had the same momentum coming out of the convention. Bill Clinton starts out as a slight underdog.But he starts out with two pieces of -- for him -- good news.* Industrial production fell in June for the first time in five months. This partly reflects the brief rail strike which was not President Bush's fault. Auto sales also had a lot to do with it, and they reflect employment and confidence, both of which are below normal.* Housing starts fell in June.