Mountains

Three top executives of developer Donald Trump's Atlantic City casino empire were killed yesterday when their helicopter lost its main rotor and crashed on the wooded median strip of the Garden State Parkway about two miles north of the Barnegat toll plaza. The helicopter's pilot and co-pilot also were killed in the crash, which occurred shortly before 2 p.m. about 30 miles north of Atlantic City. Witnesses said they heard a loud bang and saw the sleek, Italian-made helicopter's 36-foot main rotor stop spinning and then "pop" off. The craft, flying at 2,800 feet and probably traveling about 150 m.p.h.

The Rev. George Charles Hoeh was a dynamic and well-loved Episcopal priest, a self-made millionaire and a thoroughly exuberant member of the human race. Even the detective investigating his murder remarked, "I haven't talked to anybody who didn't like him. " In his priestly life, Father Hoeh walked among the flock of his small, secure neighborhood parish in Brooklyn and served as confessor, comforter and social conscience. But he walked more dangerous paths in private life - on those frequent occasions when he abandoned Brooklyn for the relaxation of his commodious retreat in the affluent Sweetwater section of Mullica Township, N.J. It was there, on a Friday in June last year, that Father Hoeh, 58, carelessly invited home a stranger, a young man who called himself Paul and said he was from Minnesota.

Several windows and doors at the Buck Hill Inn have been smashed in by vandals, and the openings have been crudely covered with plywood. The once magnificent gardens and terraces are overgrown with weeds. Inside are eerie tableaux from happier times, when the Buck Hill Inn was one of the premier resorts in the Poconos. Firewood is still stacked beside the fireplace in the Green Leaf Library and has been since October 1990, when the inn's owners unceremoniously evicted guests and closed the doors.

Drew Brining of Hammonton is only 12, but already he's signed up with the Southern New Jersey African Violet Club. He's even breeding his own plants. It helps that his mother, Donna, is club president and owner of Fancy Bloomers, an African violet business. Still, he's unusual on two fronts: He's young and he's male in a segment of the horticultural world saddled with a "little old lady" image that just won't quit. Back in the '50s and '60s, when the craze peaked, African violets were the favorite of stay-at-home moms and grandmothers.

NEW DELHI - In fields along a northern Indian highway, mountains of grain have turned black with mildew after getting soaked in the rain. The millions of tons of wheat rotting because India ran out of warehouse space to hold another bumper crop illustrate a core problem of the nation's food crisis: India can grow plenty of food but cannot store or transport it well enough to nourish its 1.2 billion people. Warehouses are overflowing and huge quantities of wheat and rice are stored in fields under tarpaulins and thin plastic sheets, risking decay.

The Lighthouse Service and the Coast Guard are celebrating bicentennials this year, and the U.S. Postal Service is heralding the observance with a booklet of 25-cent commemoratives. The booklet, whose stamps depict five lighthouses, will be issued Thursday in Washington at the National Archives, which is celebrating the 200th anniversary of the act of the First Congress that established the Lighthouse Service. The lighthouse theme ties in with the Coast Guard, which this year also is celebrating its bicentennial.

LUZ-ARDIDEN, France - Spain's Samuel Sanchez thrilled fans of his Basque-based team with the stage win Thursday and France's Thomas Voeckler surprised himself by keeping the yellow jersey on Bastille Day as the Tour de France finally hit the mountains. Defending champion Alberto Contador ran into more, if modest, trouble in the 12th stage by losing ground to other race favorites on the day's final climb in the Pyrenees. The 131-mile run from Cugnaux to the Luz-Ardiden ski station featured three tough ascents - including two that are among the hardest in pro cycling.

SUPER-BESSE, France - Portuguese rider Rui Alberto Costa won the eighth stage of the Tour de France on Saturday after withstanding a late attack from Philippe Gilbert in the final climb, while Thor Hushovd kept the overall leader's yellow jersey. Costa waved his hands in delight and punched the air as he crossed the line in 4 hours, 36 minutes, 46 seconds to clinch the first Tour stage win of his career. The race entered the mountains for the first time in the 117-mile trek from Aigurande to Super-Besse, featuring a sharp category-2 climb up Col de la Croix and a final climb of one mile.

MIREBALAIS, Haiti - Luc Bouquet set foot in the United States for the first time in August 1988 and built himself a life that by any measure would be considered an immigrant's dream. But he has never felt at home in his adopted country. Born in Mirebalais, a small village in the Goat Mountains about 40 miles outside Port-au-Prince, Bouquet was essentially an orphan. After his mother died when he was 7, his father abandoned the family. Bouquet managed to get himself through high school, was sponsored to attend Johnson Bible College in Knoxville, Tenn.

A climber stranded overnight in winterlike weather died yesterday after suffering severe exposure on 5,363-foot Mount Madison, officials said. The victim, who suffered severe hypothermia, was hauled down the mountain by two dozen rescuers using a sled, said Peter Crane of the Appalachian Mountain Club. The four-mile trek to the base of the mountain took more than four hours because of high winds and heavy rain, he said. The victim was one of two men believed to be hiking together who were reported in trouble Sunday evening near the peak of Mount Madison, in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains, said Crane.