May 2, 1985

A Federal judge yesterday approved a proposal by 18 Wall Street brokerage houses to pay $140 million to investors who purchased annuities through the brokerages from the bankrupt Baldwin-United Corporation. But the proposal, approved by Judge Charles L. Brieant of the Southern District of New York, does not mean that policyholders will be receiving checks soon. Instead, the brokerages hope to place their $140 million into a bigger pool of money that may soon be assembled to pay policyholders.

Twice a day, at the end of the flood tides, 100 commercial fishermen from Edgewater to Germantown, N.Y., harvest a bounty of shad. Although commercial fishing for many species has been banned for years on the Hudson River because of high levels of PCB's, or polychlorinated biphenyls, the commercial shad fishery remains open. Shad have low levels of PCB's, which cause cancer in animals, because they spend most of their life outside the river. If the tide is right, motorists stalled in traffic on the West Side Highway get a glimpse of this springtime ritual that dates to when Indians were the only inhabitants of the region.

''I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, find that the policies and actions of the Government of Nicaragua constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States and hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.'' - Presidential Executive Order. [A8:1.]

Nicaragua's Vice President condemned the economic embargo ordered by President Reagan today, and said it would bring the Sandinista Government closer to the Soviet Union. Vice President Sergio Ramirez Mercado, calling the measures ''absolutely illegal and arbitrary,'' said his Government intended to protest to the International Court of Justice at the Hague. ''Nicaragua is going to add this to the case we have initiated before the World Court against the U.S. Government,'' Mr. Ramirez said. The World Court heard Nicaragua's complaint about the United States' mining of its ports in 1983. The United States has refused to accept the court's jurisdiction in the matter, which is still pending.

A CLASS of fifth graders in a public school here is having an innovative art lesson. The subject is collage, but colored paper and paste pots are nowhere in sight. All eyes focus on a screen that projects a print of a famous collage, part of a series the artist called ''Jazz.'' To judge by the number of hands in the air, almost everyone knows the artist's name. ''It's that dude, Henry Matisse,'' says a boy in the back row. A French-speaking boy looks horrified. '' Henri !'' he calls, '' Henri Matisse!''