The Signature and the Numbers
Closed mid-October 1996 · On stands late October 1996
The Front
A Cartoon, Retooled
Gargoyles is retooled as The Goliath Chronicles, folded here into a business-desk paragraph on the Disney/Capital Cities-ABC media consolidation
The Club That Outsold the Critics
Oprah Winfrey launches her televised book club, noted here inside a piece on daytime syndication economics
A Death in Las Vegas
Tupac Shakur dies of gunshot wounds sustained in Las Vegas
The Essay
The Numbers and the Argument
The CompStat argument — whether broken-windows enforcement or the crack market's own lifecycle better explains the decade's real crime decline
What the Welfare Law Signs Away
The federal welfare-reform law signed this August, and the case that its savings are borrowed against the states
Marriage, Defined by Statute
The Defense of Marriage Act, signed this month, and what a federal definition changes for couples a state has already recognized
The Foreign File
Bosnia Votes
A dispatch on Bosnia's first postwar national elections, held under IFOR watch and international skepticism
The Feature Well
The Precinct That Changed Its Mind
A feature on commanders in a Midwestern city's police department arguing over which numbers to believe as they weigh adopting the NYPD's data-driven approach
The Diet Book Economy
A feature on the fall's bestseller lists, dominated by diet and self-help titles, and the money moving through a genre the magazine has never reviewed seriously
The Back
Shine, Returned
Tom Ford's Gucci turn and Gwyneth Paltrow's VMA suit mark fashion's return to shine