The Record from Hackensack, New Jersey • 88

EH End of the game for Herman's? Herman's, the Carteret-based retailer, on Thursday confirmed widespread speculation, announcing plans to liquidate its chain of nearly 120 stores. Herman's, which filed for bankruptcy protection last week but had refused to comment on its future, on Thursday faxed reporters the court papers confirming the liquidation plans. "Due to adverse circumstances, including a depressed retail market, intense competition, and pressure from vendors," Herman's has no choice but to shut itself down, the retailer said in papers filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Trenton. Arena.

Rangers defenseman Bruce Driver has been there and done that. Less than a year ago, in fact. "I think Pittsburgh is a better team now," said Driver, who was a big part of the Devils team that ousted the Penguins in five games last spring. "Offensively, anyway, they're better. Defensively, though, I dont think they're as good.

They gave up a lot Not only defensemen, but defensively." Driver, whose Rangers open the best-of-seven series tonight, was referring specifically to the three top-flight defense-men the Penguins unloaded since last May Ulf Samuelsson (now with the Rangers), Kjell Samuelsson and Larry Murphy. Panthers shut down Flyers, 2-0 John Vanbiesbroiick and the Florida Panthers put the clamps on Philadelphia to win Game 1 of their series in Philadelphia Vanbiesbrouk held the Flyers scoreless on 18 shots on goal. Stu Barnes and Dave Lowry scored for the Panthers, who managed just 15 shots. Game 2 of the series is Saturday night. lo 2 Harvey Electronics in the red The Harvey Group which operates five Harvey Electronics retail stores in New York and New Jersey, has filed a bankruptcy reorganization plan that calls for giving control of the Secaucus-based company to an investor group.

Separately, the company said Franklin Karp, former vice president of merchandising, has been named company president. The Harvey Group also said it will consider relocating its main store on West 45th Street in New York to larger quarters. $3) Cone returns to form David Cone returned from the first missed start of his career to pitch a five-hitter and Ruben Sierra homered twice Thursday night, leading the New York Yankees over the Chicago White Sox 5-1 for their fourth straight win. Jim Leyritz and Paul O'Neill also homered as New York made quick work of the White Sox, winning in 2 hours, 1 1 minutes at the Stadium. New York's last two games, including Wednesday's 15-inning affair in Baltimore, took a total of 9:55.

Cone (4-1) pitched for the first time since April 22 after being sidelined by a circulation problem in his right index finger. Cone allowed only five singles and an unearned run, striking out eight and walking one in his first complete game of the year. He also remained perfect at Yankee Stadium since New York got him last July in a trade with Toronto, raising his record to 9-0 in that span. Strawberry joins minor leagues Darryl Strawberry needs a job and can't find one in the majors. Mike Veeck is willing to overlook a player's troubled past to improve the reputation of his league.

It seems to be a perfect match, and Strawberry will sign with Veeck's St. Paul (Minn.) Saints on Friday as he tries to play his way back into the big leagues. The Saints called a 1 p.m. news conference today to announce the signing. Strawberry, who owes nearly $500,000 in child and spousal support payments, will play for $2,000 a month.

That's a standard salary in the Northern League, a Double-A caliber league with no major league affiliations. Call him Dr. Berra Yogi Berra is about to take his place as a scholar among men. The Hall of Fame catcher, whose humorous sayings have become legendary, will receive an honorary doctoral degree from Montclair State University during a May 16 ceremony. Berra, 70, has been a very popular figure in Montclair since he moved from St.

Louis in 1951. He has often raised money for local charities by appearing at golf outings. shutdowns, and a major auto strike. The White House, hoping for a strong economy in an election year, was ecstatic, but financial markets tumbled, fearing the stronger-than-expected growth will force the Federal Reserve to start raising interest rates. According to preliminary calculations, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 76.95 to 5,498.27.

Private analysts agreed that the surprisingly strong increase in the gross domestic product the nation's total output of goods and services depicted a sizable rebound from a barely discernible 0.5 percent GDP gain in the fourth quarter of 1995; Arch Deluxe (bacon optional) in a bid to widen appeal to adults, McDonald's Corp. plans next week to unveil a bacon, lettuce, and tomato hamburger called the Arch Deluxe. The quarter-pound hamburger will make its debut nationwide May 9 with a North American media blitz featuring print and television ads and events in New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto. The seasoned-beef will come in a potato-flour bun, with lettuce, tomato, cheese, onion, and a sauce of Dijon and stone-ground mustards and mayonnaise. Bacon will be optional.

Mortgage rates keep climbing Thirty-year, fixed rate mortgages averaged 7.99 percent this week, up from 7.92 percent last week, according to a national survey released Thursday by the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. It was the highest since April 1 1 when rates averaged 8.05 percent. After falling to 6.94 percent on Feb. 14, rates began to rise gradually. On one-year adjustable rate mortgages, lenders were asking an average initial rate of 5.76 percent, up from 5.74 percent last week.

Coldwell joins Century 21, ERA HFS Inc. announced it is acquiring Coldwell Banker one of the nation's largest residential real-estate brokerages, for $740 million. The purchase boosts HFS' already powerful real-estate franchising business, which includes Century 21 Real Estate Corp. and Electronic Realty Associates. HFS will buy Coldwell Banker from the privately held Fremont Group of San Francisco for $640 million in cash, plus the assumption of approximately $100 million in debt.

Lucas has the numbers Trainer D. Wayne Lukas is disappointed about his Kentucky Derby team running Saturday at Churchill Downs. "We had nine possibles and we thought we could run six or seven starters," said Lukas. For various reasons, however, Lukas will have to settle for a Derby-record five starters as he bids to stretch his winning streak in Triple Crown races to six. His entries are Editor's Note, Grindstone, Honour and Glory, Victory Speech, and Prince of Thieves.

SPORTS Today's sports report begins on page S-1 customers due refund Orange and Rockland Utilities on Thursday was ordered by regulators to refund customers $8.5 million in the wake of a scandal involving senior company executives. The New York State Public Service Commission also approved a plan to reduce annual electric rates by 2.3 percent and then freeze them through April 1999. The utility has about 370,000 electric and gas customers in Orange, Sullivan, and Rockland counties. BUSINESS Today's business report begins on page B-1 I 2 Pacers force Game 7 The Indiana Pacers held Atlanta scoreless for more than seven minutes in the fourth quarter to stay alive in the first round of the NBA playoffs, beating the Hawks 83-75 in Game 4 Thursday night. The Pacers evened the series at two games apiece even without Reggie Miller, who continued to be sidelined with an injured eye socket.

The deciding game in the best-of-5 series is Sunday at Indianapolis. Rik Smits led the Pacers with 17 points. Wall Street cool to hot economy The economy is surging back to life, gratifying the White House but jolting Wall Street. Powered by a heavy spending for business computers and consumer goods, growth accelerated to 2.8 percent in the first three months of the year in spite of blizzards, government Driver gears up for Penguins Pittsburgh Penguins. Eastern Conference semifinals: Game 1, Civic Compiled from Record staff, AP, and other news service reports Compiled from Record staff, AP, and other news service reports 4 'Sisters' signs off In April 1991, "Sisters" started with a controversial steam room scene in which the sibs were talking about sex, but it goes out this weekend on a quietly thoughtful and spiritual note.

In the two-hour finale (9 p.m. Saturday, NBC), Alex (Swoosie Kurtz) and Charley (Sheila Kelley) are in a huff because Georgie (Patricia Kalember) has written a highly personal and revelatory graduate thesis about their sibling rela- tionship. Teddy (Sela Ward) has other worries. Another family crisis overshadows everything: Their mother, Bea (Elizabeth Hoffman), has a stroke so serious that Frankie (Julianne Phillips, who left "Sisters" in the 1994-95 season) returns from Japan. At times, the dialogue and devices in "Sisters" can get corny, but overall, this grand finale is classy.

IfU Newark cited in water study Six cities, including Newark, are taking little action to prevent waterborne Cryptosporidium from sickening residents, concludes an AIDS group that surveyed -how the nation's biggest water departments fight the parasite. The government doesn't know how many people are infected every year, but 400,000 people got sick from Milwaukee's water in 1993 and about 100 died. Besides Newark, the National Association of People With AIDS cited include Atlanta; Minneapolis; St Petersburg, Dallas; and Washington, DC. Cryptosporidium is a microscopic parasite typically spread by feces. It can cause diarrhea, nausea stomach cramps, and can kill AIDS patients and others with weak immune systems.

Can you identify a melanoma? Many adults are still in the dark about melanoma the deadliest form of skin cancer and the role severe childhood sunburn can play in its development, a survey found. The survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Dermatology found that among adults over 18, about 50 percent of men and 35 percent of women did not recognize the term melanoma, which is caused by excessive exposure to the sun. FDA reform and drug approval Americans would be at risk of getting infected blood transfusions and being poisoned by the food supply under pending legislation to revamp the Food and Drug Administration, the agency's chief said Wednesday. Reforming the FDA "should not be a gamble with the public's health and safety," Commissioner David Kessler told a House panel. The bills as written will put American patients and consumers at risk." At issue is how to make the agency responsible for safeguarding the nation's food and medicines work more efficiently.

Manufacturers and some patients complain that the FDA takes too long to approve medical breakthroughs, while consumer advocates and other patients say the FDA isnt strict enough in protecting Americans from harmful products. ing wisdom teeth. She hasn't been able to move her jaws normally since, and experts at a National Institutes of Health conference admit that medical science has little to offer her. Greene of Macon, now 35, is one of 1 0 million Americans who suffer from what some call temporomandibular disorders, or TMD, a difficult-to-describe malady that can make jaw movement so painful that it is difficult to eat and talk. About $1 billion a year is spent on treatment of TMD patients, yet most treatment is not based on proven science, said Judith E.N.

Albino of the University of Colorado Health Science Center, Denver, chairwoman of an NIH committee of experts that studied the disorder. Albino said medical science is so uncertain about TMD that it has not been accurately diagnosed or described or even been given a name agreed to by all. Asthma deaths and black youths The rate of reported asthma deaths among young people more than doubled between 1980 and 1993, with blacks hit far harder than whites, the government said Thursday. From birth to 4 years old and for ages 15 to 24, blacks were six times more likely than whites to die of asthma in 1 993, the most recent year for which figures are available, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Blacks ages 5 to 1 4 were four times more likely than whites that age to die from asthma in 1 993, the CDC said.

"Part of it may be due to poor access to medical care and socioeconomic factors, but we're really not sure what to attribute it to," said Carol Johnson, a CDC epidemiologist Lyme disease season The warm-weather season normally associated with the irritation of hay-fever and the misery of allergies in the Northeast also marks the peak period for exposure to an even more debilitating malady prevalent in the Garden State: Lyme disease. The majority of the deer tick-borne disease cases are diagnosed and reported during the months of May through August The beginning of Lyme disease season has Hunterdon County officials particularly concerned. The predominantly rural area is a Lyme disease hot spot accord-big to the federal Centers for Disease Control It calculates Hunterdon County's case rate to be the second highest among counties nationwide. fourth annual festival celebrating children around the world, set for Saturday (rain date Sunday) at the Austin J. Tobin Plaza of The World Trade Center in Manhattan.

Bob McGrath, who plays Bob on "Sesame Street," will once again serve as host and master of ceremonies. "It is the largest free family festival for children in the New York City area," said McGrath from his Teaneck home. "We have had 1 5,000 to 20,000 people attending in the past. I go away thinking this is the most terrific thing that New York provides." The festival features CenterStage, where McGrath will introduce such entertainers as: the kids from Broadway's The King and Latin American storyteller Felix Pitre, and PBS characters including Cookie Monster, Mr. McFeely, and Schemer from "Shining Time Station." McGrath will also sing songs from his new recording "Sing Me a Story." Monet sells for $7.2 million A Monet landscape with grainstacks -one of a series of 30 that helped establish the artist's reputation sold for $7.2 million Wednesday at Sotheby's sale of impressionist and modern art.

Another landscape by Claude Monet, "Antibes, View of the Plateau of Notre-Dame," sold for $3.7 million, the auction's second-highest price. The total for the evening was $64.6 million, slightly less than the auction house's low estimate of $71 million. Sotheby's sold 58 of the 68 lots it offered, generally at prices within its pre-sale estimates. Revival of 'An Ideal Husband' Quite the voice of common-sense morality that Oscar Wilde and a pretty good playwright too. Take a look at the splendid revival of "An Ideal Husband" which arrived Wednesday at Broadway's Barrymore Theater from London, courtesy of direc- tor Peter Hall and a fine cast of mostly British actors.

Its stars are unknown on these shores, but they are sturdy professionals who know how to get the most out of Wilde's elegant play. Written in 1 895, "An Ideal Husband" discourses on the impossibility of per- I fection and how one deals with idols who have feet of clay. This production has the good fortune of starring Martin Shaw as Goring. Shaw I is not a conventional leading man, but he has an engaging smile and a sure sense of comic timing. AP, and other news service reports 1 EEfilTH Todays health begins on pageA-15 'Heartbeats' In Teaneck Amanda McBroom is a singer-songwriter best known for composing the Bette Midler song "The Rose." But she's also the author of a theater piece that's become a hardy perennial, "Heartbeats." A musical about a woman's reflections as she nears middle age, "Heartbeats" has been produced in a number of theaters around the country in the last several years.

It's now being presented by Teaneck's American Stage Company, with Jennifer Allen in the lead role. McBroom, who wrote the music and lyrics, and collaborated on the book with Bill Castellino who's directing the American Stage version said, "everything about the show is slightly autobiographical. It's about a woman turning 40, which I was at the time I wrote it But her trauma is not my trauma I'm very happily married." Castellino described the show this way. "It has the spirit of 'Shirley the simplicity and romance of The and the pop-rock feeling of Every day is Children's Day Cookie Monster wouldn't miss it Neither would his friend Bob. Mr.

McFeely is stopping by from Mr. Rogers' neighborhood, and so are storytellers, singers, and a cast pf characters from the new production of "The King and They are all part of Children's Day, the Compiled from Record staff, Little help for jaw pain When Linda Greene was 12 years old, i a dentist dislocated her jaw while extract- SP-4 Compiled from Record staff, AP, and other news service reports.