August 9, 1986

Scores of Japanese companies are coming to the United States to build factories or buy real estate in a drive that will create thousands of jobs and could ease tensions over the United States trade deficit. The soaring Japanese yen has made factories in Japan uncompetitive, Japanese and American finance experts say, so companies are moving production to other countries - just as American corporations shifted some production to Asia a few years ago, mostly because of the dollar's surge against other currencies but also because of lower wage rates. Rail Cars in Brooklyn Mitsui & Company (U.S.A.) and the Tokyu Car Corporation, for example, said recently that they plan to assemble rail cars in Brooklyn, beginnng in January. Matsushita-Kotobuki Electronics Industries will make color televisions and Panasonic video recorders in Vancouver, Wash. Fujitsu America says it may accelerate production at a disk drive plant that opened this month in Hillsboro, Ore.

The House of Representatives voted today to impose a one-year moratorium on all but the smallest American underground nuclear tests if the Soviet Union would reciprocate and agree to on-site monitoring instruments. The measure, which would be binding on the Reagan Administration if incorporated into final legislation, was approved by an unexpectedly large margin, 234 to 155. The vote was the first Congressional move to halt nuclear weapons testing. Until today, Congress had voted for only nonbinding measures that urged the Administration to negotiate a ban on nuclear tests. Underground tests are the only type permitted under the 1963 partial test-ban treaty.

The White House announced today that President Reagan would undergo a urological examination Saturday that is unrelated to his bout with colon cancer. The spokesman, Larry Speakes, said the President would have at least two tests performed at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center in Maryland after delivering his weekly radio address at the White House. In making the announcement, Mr. Speakes and other White House officials gave no indication whether the 75-year-old President was experiencing discomfort or other symptoms that might have prompted the examination. Urologist Urged Tests Now Mr. Speakes said the tests had been urged by the President's physician, Dr. T. Burton Smith, a urologist, but left unclear why they are being performed now.

The Federal Government has for the first time accused an employer of illegally discriminating against a person with AIDS, Federal officials said today. The charge was made by the Department of Health and Human Services, which said that a North Carolina hospital had violated a man's civil rights by dismissing him from his job as a registered nurse and then refusing to consider him for any other job. Letter Sent to Hospital The Government said the Charlotte Memorial Hospital and Medical Center had violated the law ''by discriminatorily denying the complainant individualized consideration for possible re-employment.'' The charge is contained in a nine-page letter received Thursday by the hospital. Cecily Newton, a spokesman for the hospital, declined to comment. ''Our legal counsel has not had an opportunity to review the letter,'' she said.

Severe overcrowding in New York City jails - partly a result of the sharp increase in drug arrests this year -has become a factor in some courtroom decisions about who is jailed and for how long, according to judges, defense lawyers and prosecutors. Judges and court administrators say there have been no specific directives to ease the sentences or pretrial detention of drug offenders. But many say the jails' limited capacity - illustrated by recent protests at Rikers Island because of overcrowding - has become part of the criminal-justice process, whether it is conscious or not. ''Everyone has that as a backdrop -the severe limitations on prison space,'' said State Supreme Court Justice Carol H. Arber, who has served as a Criminal Court judge in Manhattan. ''If you lock up everybody who comes before you with a small possession charge, then what do you do when the real muggers and rapists come in? You're not going to have room for them.''