February 5, 1983

A New Jersey judge today ordered an 18-year-old woman to live and work at a Roman Catholic home for women for at least 30 months as an alternative to imprisoning her for setting a house fire that killed her brother. The sentence reflected efforts by the judge, the prosecution, probation officials, a public defender and family members to avoid exposing the woman to the environment of a state prison. ''Jail would kill her,'' said the judge, Fred C. Galda of State Superior Court. He assigned the woman, Ann Marie O'Brien, to the custody of People of Hope, a Newark-based movement of Roman Catholic charismatics who stress religious renewal through concentrated study of the Bible.

The United States and China agreed today on preliminary steps to revive high-level military contacts that were largely suspended after the Reagan Administration took office two years ago. Defense Minister Zhang Aiping, in a meeting with Secretary of State George P. Shultz this morning, agreed with an American suggestion for closer military relations and with procedures that United States officials hope will lead to an early visit to China by Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger. A senior American official, in providing details on Mr. Shultz's meetings today, also said Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang told Mr. Shultz he would visit the United States and invited President Reagan to come to China. No dates were set for either visit.

Mozart's very first symphony has been discovered and authenticated by international experts, and will be performed in Denmark in March or April. Mozart was about 9 years old when he wrote it. The manuscript was found 40 years ago in a cellar in Odense, Denmark, but not until recently was attention paid to it. Experts say it was composed in London in 1764 or 1765.

The nation's unemployment rate fell last month for the first time in the 17 months since the start of the recession, the Labor Department reported today. The number of unemployed people fell to 11,446,000 in January, a decline of 590,000 from December, cutting the rate to 10.4 percent from 10.8 percent in December. The number of civilians with jobs remained at 99,103,000, Under a new statistical system, the 1,667,000 members of the armed services based in the United States were added to the total work force for the first time, giving an alternative rate of 10.2 percent for January. This was down from what would have been 10.7 percent in December had servicemen been included then. Including military personnel, the total number of employed people rose to 100,770,000 last month.

President Reagan today condemned the violence accompanying the strike by independent truckers and said he would not consider the strikers' demand for repeal of new taxes on gasoline and commercial trucks. ''To let a small percentage of any group of people in our country, by the Excerpts from news session, page 7. use of murder and violence of the kind that they've used, change the laws of this country would be the worst precedent that we could set,'' Mr. Reagan said at a news conference. One driver has been shot and killed. Others have been shot at, bricks have been thrown through windshields and nails strewn on highways. Today, in the fifth day of the strike, more random violence was reported around the country, including an ambush on a convoy of trucks in Illinois, in which three truck drivers suffered minor injuries, and the wounding of a trucker in Maine. A truck mechanic and a truck driver were arrested in the Illinois incident and were being held under $1 million bond, according to United Press International. In response to the violence, the National Guard was put on alert in Pennsylvania and National Guard helicopters were being used to patrol highways in North Carolina.