* Vested Interest: Oliver North has entered...

* Vested Interest: Oliver North has entered into the bulletproof vest business with Joseph Fernandez, a former CIA station chief in Costa Rica who faced charges--later dropped--of obstructing inquiries into the Iran-Contra affair. In the company brochure, North says: “I rely every day on the . . . GTI vest. The comfort is unequalled, and . . . it provides the ultimate in body armor.”

* Playing Games: Gawkers and gamblers previewed Donald Trump’s $1-billion Taj Mahal casino Monday in Atlantic City, N.J. Gamblers had to use play money for craps, blackjack and baccarat during a state-required period of test gaming. “It’s Monday morning and it’s raining and I don’t think there is an empty machine to be had,” said Trump. The casino officially opens Thursday.

* News Watch: According to Newsweek magazine, George Bush likes to watch ABC’s “World News Tonight” with Peter Jennings, switches to Dan Rather and likes Tom Brokaw the least. And he is said to have no love for cartoonist Garry Trudeau, for his years of ridicule, and columnist George Will, who once described Bush as a “lapdog.”

* Blind Date: Sony Corp. of America said Monday that it apologized to a customer for using Dec. 7--the date of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor--as an example in an owner’s manual explaining how to set the date on its videocassette recorders. Scott L. Edelheit had complained about the date, said Jason Farrow, a spokesman at Sony in Park Ridge, N.J. “It would be irrational for anyone to think that a company that does 25% of its business in the United States would ever intentionally do anything like that.”