November 8, 1985

''However, this court is convinced that a conviction which rests upon racial stereotypes, fears and prejudices violates rights too fundamental to permit deference to stand in the way of the relief sought.'' - Judge H. Lee Sarokin of Federal District Court in Newark, in overturning the murder convictions of Rubin (Hurricane) Carter and John Artis. [B4:5.]

Representative Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, pledged today that his panel would finish work on tax-revision legislation ''by Thanksgiving,'' but he said the bill ''may not sit well with the purists.'' In a speech prepared for delivery in Chicago tonight and again in Washington Friday, Mr. Rostenkowski said the bill would be ''a series of compromises.'' He vowed, however, to come in with a bill that is ''a lot better than present law, in both principle and practice.''

International Colombian forces broke a siege that began Wednesday after guerrillas stormed the Palace of Justic in Bogota and took dozens of judges and other Government employees hostage. The President of Colombia's Supreme Court and five other judges were among dozens of people killed in the battle. Radio stations quoted a military commander as saying all the rebels were dead. [Page A1, Col. 6.] AIDS seems to be spreading by conventional sexual intercourse among heterosexuals in Africa and is striking women nearly as often as men, according to researchers in Rwanda. Scientists are striving not only to control the incurable disease but also battling governments' suppression of information crucial to the search for the origin, cause and cure of AIDS. A continuing unchecked spread of AIDS among sexually active women in Africa has caused many babies to be born with the disease. [A1:3-5.]

A Federal judge, citing ''grave constitutional violations'' by prosecutors, today overturned the triple-murder convictions of Rubin (Hurricane) Carter and John Artis. The ruling, by Judge H. Lee Sarokin of District Court here, marked the latest twist in a series of courtroom conflicts that over 19 years resulted in two guilty verdicts by juries and two reversals of the convictions on appeals. Mr. Carter, who is 48 years old, was a leading middleweight boxer when he was arrested in 1966 in the fatal shootings of two men and a woman in a Paterson, N.J., bar. He has spent most of the last 19 years in New Jersey prisons, serving two consecutive life sentences. Mr. Artis, who is 39, was released on parole in 1981, after serving nearly 15 years of a life sentence.

When Congress set up the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation in 1974, the aim was to protect the retirement income of workers at companies in trouble. But recently, after the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation terminated its pension plan, it seemed to some people that it was the companies that are being protected. ''The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is now being prostituted to help companies avoid going out of business,'' said William H. Knoell, chief executive officer of the Cyclops Corporation, a Pittsburgh-based steelmaker. He believes that the agency was ''put together to be a provider of last resort to pensioners whose companies have gone out of business.'' And he complained that ''in the particular case of our competitors at Wheeling-Pitt, it will give them a competitive advantage.''