A prep course for the month-long World Cup soccer tournament, a worldwide pheno

he end of next year . The merger talks are said to taken on a new urgency after 

Fox 's unprecedented raid on CBS affiliates . Fox last week snatched away 12 aff

iliates from the major networks , up to eight of them from CBS , in a bold bid t

o gain parity with ABC , CBS and NBC . The move has set off a domino effect amon

g affiliates , as the networks scramble to find new outlets . While most industr

y executives think it would be wiser for Paramount and Warner Bros. to combine t

heir competing networks rather than waging a war of attrition , implementing suc

h a strategy may be all but impossible . In order to win valuable airspace in th

e biggest cities , both Paramount and Warner Bros. took on as partners some of t

he largest independent station groups in the country . Paramount 's network is 5

0 percent owned by Chris-Craft Industries , which through its majority-owned sub

sidiary BHC Communications , controls eight TV stations . The WB network , which

 is being guided by Kellner and Garth Ancier , is launching a `` hybrid '' netwo

rk in conjunction with the cable superstation WGN-TV and other independent TV st

ations owned by Tribune Broadcasting . One major obstacle to combining the two n

etworks is a non-compete agreement between Paramount and partner Chris-Craft . U

nder that agreement , Paramount may not invest in another network for a three-ye

ar period . In addition , the Tribune TV stations have long-term program contrac

ts with Warner Bros. , making it difficult for the studoo to sever its ties . ( 

Optional add end ) But Fox 's historc raid on established affiliates has left bo

th Paramount and Warner Bros. shaken . As the major networks begin to hunt for n

ew affiliates to replace the ones they are losing to Fox , stations that have co

mmitted to either of the fifth networks are targets . Neither Paramount or Warne

r Bros. can afford to lose affiliates since it would make it harder to achieve t

he 70 percent level of U.S. TV households needed to attract national advertisers

 . It was in part to get around the shortage of available TV outlets , in fact ,

 that Warner Bros. partnered with WGN-TV to increase its coverage area . Executi

ves familiar with the talks said if either studio were to effect a merger it wou

ld have to win the approval of its respective partners . And right now , the exe

cutives said , neither Chris-Craft or Tribune appears willing to do so .

 I had assumed Paula Jones ' quest for whatever it is she really wants was alrea

dy fully funded by various forces on the right who had lavishly assisted her in 

her historic legal assault on a sitting president . Apparently not . A Virginia 

pesto sauce manufacturer who has been a Republican fund raiser has launched a $ 

500,000 campaign to pay the costs of presenting Jones ' case against the preside

nt . I 'm not saying that a $ 40,000 contribution will get you a choice ambassad

orship if the Republicans evict President Clinton from the White House in 1996 .

 But anybody with the mission of making the president 's life more miserable tha

n it already is now has a viable new option besides simply funneling money to th

e Republican National Committee , to the right political action committees or to

 the campaigns of Clinton 's chief tormentors in Congress . The Jones campaign h

as even got operators standing by at an 800 number to take your pledges , and fo

r all I know you can put it on your VISA card . Do you suppose the Republicans a

re getting ready to run her for the Senate somewhere ? At the rate things are go

ing , legal expenses related to Whitewater and dealing with Jones could either d

rive the Clintons into personal bankruptcy or force them to the unseemly expedie

nt of finding their own pesto sauce manufacturer with an 800 number . We have to

 ask ourselves where this trend in campaign finance is taking us . First Ross Pe

rot proves that a loquacious Texan with more money than God and the nerve to ask

 millions of Americans to send him a few dollars can buy his way onto the nation

al political scene without ever having stood for alderman , even dog catcher . T

hen a lieutenant colonel named Oliver North proves you can lie like a rug to Con

gress and parley this patently offensive act into a life of personal riches and 

a well financed campaign for a seat in the very Senate of that Congress from a o

nce proud state that used to be so boastful of its politicians as to call itself

 `` the mother of presidents . '' And now Jones is showing how the Republicans c

an in effect commingle funds for the 1996 presidential campaign with the expense

s involved in a sexual harassment case without leaving a single fingerprint that

 will get them hauled in for election law violations . This proves , I guess , t

he utter futility of ever imagining that there is such a thing as believable cam

paign finance reform in America . Limit every congressional and presidential can

didate to $ 5 contributions , abolish PACs , force the holders of broadcast lice

nses to give free air time , publicly finance candidates ' travel expenses , eve

n grant them free postage . There is still something about money that will , and

 legally , buy what it wants in politics . This is what we must tell ourselves w

hen we imagine that Congress is infested with people who ran for office purely t

o enrich themselves with subsidized haircuts , expensive Capitol subways and din

ners with lobbyists . This , for God 's sake , is the small change , the chicken

 feed of federal politics . Look at the millions of dollars that gush to protect

 the various health care lobbies , the timber and grazing interests , the right 

of every American , no matter how deranged , to run around with a gun , the rest

oration of capital gains preference , and you 'll see why you feel owned .

 WASHINGTON Charles Evans Hughes , chief justice of the United States in the 193

0s , once said , `` How I dislike writing opinions ! I prefer arguments and let 

someone else have the responsibility of decision . '' He must have loathed the e

nd of the Supreme Court term . June has become the do-or-die month . The month w

hen , in an effort to resolve all of the outstanding cases , the difficult gets 

done , the stubborn compromise and procrastinators face the music . Of an estima

ted 84 cases to be decided this term , 36 remain . `` It is truly a sweatshop at

 the Supreme Court in June , '' said Paul Cappuccio , a former clerk to Justices

 Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy. `` Everyone at the court dreads the inev

itable memo that comes around from Chief Justice ( William H. ) Rehnquist saying

 it 's time to stop dillydallying and get these opinions to the printer . '' `` 

June was the month that I worked hardest , '' retired Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr

. said yesterday . It is when the justices must finish their opinions , write di

ssents to other justices ' opinions and anticipate drafts that have yet to be ci

rculated . June rulings often show the strains of deadline and forced consensus 

. Tuesday 's case involving public employee speech rights produced four differen

t opinions , none signed by a majority of justices . The ruling , requiring publ

ic employers to investigate before they fire someone for allegedly insubordinate

 remarks , emerged from a patchwork of the justices ' separate statements . June

 opinions , sometimes characterized by hasty reasoning , are most likely to conf

ound lower court judges . The joke among lawyers is that if an opinion is especi

ally difficult to follow , it must be a June . Testiness increases at the end of

 the term too . Justice Scalia mocked Justice Sandra Day O' Connor 's opinion in

 Tuesday 's case of Waters vs. Churchill. Scalia , whose vitriolic pen often is 

aimed at O' Connor , wrote , among other things , `` Justice O' Connor makes no 

attempt to justify ( her opinion ) on historical grounds ( it is quite unheard o

f ) . '' O' Connor , using milder rhetoric , dismissed Scalia 's complaint . ( T

hree other justices sided with her , two sided with him , and two went their own

 way . ) Powell , who was on the court from 1971-1986 , noted that in the mid-19

80s the court heard almost twice the number of cases it will decide this term . 

But no matter . The justices , like other mortals , leave their toughest work to

 the end . `` Sometimes a justice would work fairly slowly to circulate ( a prop

osed majority opinion ) in which I would want to write a dissent , '' Powell sai

d , talking about how the process would be prolonged . `` I would have to see th

e opinion before I would begin writing a dissent ... . I was sometimes guilty of

 doing just that ( working slowly on a majority opinion ) myself . '' The court 

's most controversial disputes of the term await decision , including a case tes

ting black and Hispanic voting rights in Florida , which was heard on the first 

Monday of October . Also pending is whether Congress may require cable TV system

s to set aside up to one-third of their channels for local broadcasters and whet

her the New York legislature 's creation of a special school for Hasidic Jews vi

olated the constitutional separation of church and state . Other high profile ca

ses concern the speech rights of disruptive abortion clinic protesters , whether

 judges must have authority to limit juries ' punitive damages awards , and the 

constitutionality of state procedures in numerous death penalty cases . Rehnquis

t tries to evenly distribute the opinion writing . So sometimes one can deduce w

hich justices are most likely to be writing opinions from outstanding cases . O'

 Connor has delivered the most opinions so far , nine . Behind her , with six ea

ch , are Rehnquist , Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg . John Paul Stevens

 , Scalia and Kennedy have written five majority opinions each . Justices Harry 

A . Blackmun and David H. Souter have written three opinions each . On May 26 , 

Blackmun sponsored a music recital at the court with a renowned pianist , violin

ist , cellist and bass baritone . The biannual event has become a tradition for 

the court 's most senior justice . Before Blackmun , who will retire at the end 

of the term , introduced the performers , he told the audience that he hoped the

 afternoon 's music would boost the justices ' spirits as they headed into a dif

ficult month .

 CHICAGO The Cabrini-Green projects tower over the northern edge of downtown lik

e a high-rise graveyard , a monument to the futility of three decades of public 

housing policy and the hopelessness of all who live there . Vincent Lane , the m

an who runs these skyline eyesores of mottled cinder-block and security fencing 

, comes here often on a mission that many Cabrini tenants regard as a fool 's er

rand . Lane , the chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority , imagines garden ap

artments where tenants see exhausted dormitories , some sealed with plywood . He

 sees ceiling fans and wrought-iron gates where residents endure crippled elevat

ors that force them to slog up to 19 flights of stairs to get home . He sees cou

rtyards filled with children at play where they spy huddled gang members , pisto

ls bulging under their shirttails . A real-estate millionaire who administers Ch

icago 's 155 high-rise projects , Lane intends to resurrect Cabrini , a symbol o

f `` all that 's bad in public housing , '' to prove that the nation 's largest 

and most infamous system of public housing can be redeemed . `` You can raise fa

milies in high rises , '' he preaches to wealthy architects at wine-and-cheese r

eceptions and to rows of murmuring Cabrini residents jammed inside drafty common

s meeting rooms . Lane puts his faith in `` income mixing '' the experimental re

placing of many low-income project residents with working and middle-class famil

ies . Lured by low rents and the higher safety and maintenance standards , the n

ew tenants are expected to provide a human safety net for their poor neighbors ,

 acting as role models and helping them find jobs . A natural-born salesman in I

talian-tailored suits , Lane has spent the last year trying to sell the dream th

at Cabrini , a 70-acre cement moonscape bordered by freeway ramps and railroad s

purs , might someday become a functioning , livable community . Despite $ 50 mil

lion in federal seed money , Lane 's $ 350 million project is still in its infan

cy , months away from breaking ground . Before tenants can be moved and building

s razed , Lane must secure financial commitments from developers and business le

aders , loans and legislative support from politicians and government-mandated a

pprovals from Cabrini 's tenants . A blunt , genial Mississippi native , Lane , 

51 , commutes between Washington and Chicago to nudge his dream along . Even in 

its earliest stages , the Cabrini plan is generating excitement among housing pl

anners as one of the most ambitious efforts to transform high-rise projects sinc

e their creation in the 1950s . If it succeeds , Cabrini could become a model fo

r change in massive projects throughout America . `` It 's a concept that 's lon

g overdue and really brings us back to what public housing was supposed to do in

 the first place , '' said Margery Austin Turner , a housing analyst with the Ur

ban Institute in Washington . `` These big high-rise projects not only segregate

 the poor from the rest of the world , they also have a destabilizing influence 

on the neighborhoods around them . '' More than 30 city housing agencies recentl

y embraced income-mixing in applications for grants to the U.S. Department of Ho

using and Urban Development though only Lane 's bases the future of an entire co

mplex on it . Income mixing was common once in the nation 's projects , before s

tringent federal rent rules made it economically ruinous for working families to

 remain there . Lane recalls growing up in the 1950s omically ruinous for workin

g families to remain there . Lane recalls growing up in the 1950s near Wentworth

 Gardens , a South Side Chicago project , amid `` green lawns and working famili

es with both parents living at home . '' That world is gone , but Lane insists `

` we can fine-tune it to fit a new era . '' His fledgling Cabrini project which 

would tear down seven high-rises would be the first phase of a metamorphosis tha

t could run into the billions and last a decade or more . Those left out would b

e resettled `` willingly , '' Lane insists in subsidized rental units and new go

vernment homes built elsewhere in Chicago and its suburbs . Cabrini 's populatio

n is now overwhelmingly poor and without resources . More than 70 percent of its

 households pay less than $ 100 a month in rent . At least 63 percent are female

 and 43 percent are school-age children . All but 2 percent are African-American

 . And 90 percent are on public assistance . It is Cabrini 's own poor who are m

ost suspicious of Lane 's intentions , and not without reason . They worry that 

they will be displaced into perhaps worse housing at higher rents . And they bri

dle at the prospect of having to leave apartments where some families have lived

 for three generations . `` We 've been getting the shaft for years and we want 

to be damn sure we 're not going to get it again , '' said Josephine Trotter , w

ho has lived at Cabrini 15 years and is on the project 's Resident Advisory Coun

cil , the tenants ' negotiating group . Lane , an African American , has run Chi

cago 's housing since 1988 as an appointee of the mayor and City Council . He ju

ggles his post at a salary of $ 1 a year with private interests in subsidized ho

using units scattered outside Chicago through the Midwest and East . Lane became

 one of the nation 's most visible housing directors when he tamed the rampant a

dministrative chaos that almost led HUD to seize control of Chicago 's housing s

ystem in 1987 . He was hailed by former Republican HUD Secretary Jack Kemp for t

he crime sweeps he repeatedly ordered in Chicago projects . His name was bandied

 about as Kemp 's replacement until President Clinton chose former San Antonio m

ayor Henry Cisneros . In April , Clinton hoisted Lane 's profile even higher by 

ordering federal officials to find legal underpinnings to back his warrantless w

eapons searches in the Robert Taylor Homes , a 28-block stretch of high-rises li

ning the Dan Ryan Expressway on the city 's South Side . Crime control will be e

ssential at Cabrini , Lane says , because `` I willn't be able to persuade worki

ng families to move in unless they feel safe . '' James Rosenbaum , a professor 

at Northwestern University 's Center for Urban Affairs , believes poor residents

 will benefit from living among higher-income residents . For 10 years , Rosenba

um monitored Chicago 's Gautreaux Program , a federal court-mandated effort that

 assisted 5,000 poor families in finding integrated housing . Although Gautreaux

 's poor moved into more affluent areas the reverse of the process Lane seeks at

 Cabrini the results , Rosenbaum says , may well be identical . At least 46 perc

ent of those who had no jobs when they lived in public housing and tenement unit

s found work after moving to the suburbs , Rosenbaum found . That number compare

d to 30 percent who moved to other city housing . And those who moved to the sub

urbs also won better pay and benefits . ( Optional add end ) Lane can point as a

 precedent to Lake Parc Place , whose twin red-brick towers loom over Lake Michi

gan on the South Side . Until the 1980s they could have been any dispirited city

 high-rise . Closing the buildings in 1986 , Lane used a $ 14 million HUD grant 

to erect a black , wrought-iron fence and install wading pools and shrub-trimmed

 play areas . He spent $ 60,000 per apartment on pastel-colored paints , oak cab

inets and mini-blinds , among other refurbishments . Then he welcomed back tenan

ts with a rigid screening policy , weeding out troublemakers and addicts . Half 

of Lake Parc 's 282 units were earmarked for working families a ratio that the b

uildings have maintained since they opened in August 1991 . Georgia Caldwell was

 transfixed by the sound of early morning showers . `` When I first got here it 

took me a while to figure out what that was , '' she said . `` All these people 

were getting ready for work . I never used to hear that sound . ''

 WASHINGTON Twelve blocks from the Immigration and Naturalization Service headqu

arters , a foreigner with an extensive criminal record can deceive the owners of

 a fingerprint shop , get a fake set of prints and then use them at the INS to b

ecome a U.S. citizen . The INS requires all immigrants who apply for naturalizat

ion to submit fingerprints so the FBI can run a background check . But agency pe

rsonnel stopped taking fingerprints 10 years ago for budgetary reasons , instruc

ting applicants to have them taken by private companies instead . In many cases 

, they do so without providing proof of their identities , according to a report

 issued by the Justice Department 's inspector general . The INS has failed to r

egulate private companies , and has no means of preventing immigrants intent on 

hiding their arrest records from enlisting someone with a clean history to submi

t their prints instead , the report said . Evidence of the problem lays just acr

oss town from the headquarters . Adrianne Lucke , manager of ASL Business Servic

es , which started offering fingerprinting services four years ago , said she wa

s never instructed by the INS to check applicants ' identification . `` No one e

ver instructed me that that 's what I have to do , '' said Lucke , who fingerpri

nts about 10 people each month . Others have more established procedures . At Au

thorized Fingerprinting and Passport Photos in Los Angeles , owner Thomas Kitrel

l says he is leery of customers without identification who seek fingerprinting .

 He said he writes down the driver 's license number of every person who has pri

nts taken . `` It is a problem and is something I 've always felt is a big hole 

in the system , '' Kitrell said . `` We 're letting the world 's criminals into 

our country . '' Last year , the FBI turned up 9,000 arrest records among the 86

6,000 applications for U.S. immigration benefits that included fingerprints . Bu

t `` an unlimited number '' of immigrants with criminal histories could still sl

ip by federal law enforcers if the INS doesn't close loopholes in its applicatio

n procedures , said Sen. Joseph I . Lieberman , D-Conn. , who released a study o

f the problem Wednesday . `` We have enough problems with criminals born right h

ere in the United Staters , '' Lieberman said . `` We don't need to invite troub

le by making it easier for criminal aliens to become criminal citizens . '' Lieb

erman suggested that the INS begin charging fees to immigrants applying for bene

fits to pay for in-house fingerprinting , or start licensing private companies t

o take fingerprints . He said local law enforcement offices also could offer the

 service . Lieberman threatened to introduce legislation to change INS policy if

 the agency does not act soon on its own . Agency officials acknowledged Wednesd

ay that their procedure is flawed , but they resisted the idea of imposing new f

ees on immigrants who already have to pay $ 90 simply to file a naturalization a

pplication . ( Optional add end ) `` We 'd have to charge more in a system that 

is already fee-based , '' said Rick Kenney , an INS spokesman . A task force cre

ated to develop better application procedures is due to issue its recommendation

s later this month , but Kenney cautioned that changes in agency rules may not t

ake effect until August . Applications for naturalization , asylum or other bene

fits may be denied depending on the seriousness of an applicant 's crimes . In m

ost cases , felony convictions of drug trafficking , prostitution or other vice-

related offenses would be grounds for rejection , according to INS policy .

 WASHINGTON A beaming President Clinton , flanked by young people , is shown str

iding across the White House South Lawn . Everyone is clapping . `` AmeriCorps C