December 5, 1986

Amy Carter, who as an elementary pupil brought a tree house to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, now lives in a cooperative of vegetarians near the campus of Brown University and spends much of her time struggling to change United States policy on South Africa, Nicaragua and hunger. The 19-year-old sophomore whose father was the chief defender of the laws of the United States from 1977 to 1981 is also compiling an arrest record that seems more typical of the activists of the late 1960's. Last month she was arrested with Abbie Hoffman, a prominent demonstrator of that era, and spent six hours with him in a holding pen in Amherst, Mass. Thus has the daughter of the President who made ''human rights'' a household term determined to make her mark on politics, joining a tradition of civil disobedience that has largely lapsed.

Mayor Koch yesterday took issue with a court stipulation on foster care - an agreement that his administration has already accepted. The same court agreement is so strongly opposed by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York that church officials have threatened to discontinue some of the foster care that Catholic agencies currently provide rather than comply with it. The stipulation states that agencies cannot impose their religious beliefs on children in their care, and lays out a number of regulations - among them that they must give foster children access to family-planning information, services and counseling. Over all, the agreement states that religious agencies cannot impose their religious beliefs on children in their care.

A man and a woman were shot to death near Queens Borough Hall yesterday by the woman's estranged husband, who used his taxicab to force the victims' car to the side of the road, the police said. The woman was killed by a bullet fired through the windshield. The man was fatally shot after being chased on foot several hundred feet. The killer then walked back to the cab and drove off - even stopping for a traffic light a block away, witnesses said - before surrendering at a police station several hours later.

Both houses of Congress will choose their own special committees to investigate the secret Iran arms dealing and the funneling of funds to the Nicaraguan rebels, Congressional leaders announced today. There was still a partisan disagreement over timing. Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, the Republican leader, continued to press for an emergency session of Congress this month to establish the committees while he is still majority leader. He said in a statement that President Reagan would decide Friday whether to call such a session.

Robert E. Mercer, chairman of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, pointed recently to the company's stock price flashing on the computer terminal in his plush office here. ''I used to check the stock price maybe once a week,'' Mr. Mercer said. ''But I've started checking it every day, sometimes several times a day, after this Goldsmith thing got started.'' Indeed, a lot has changed for Goodyear since the start of the ''Goldsmith thing,'' the bruising battle to fend off Sir James Goldsmith, the British-French investor. To end his takeover efforts, Goodyear last month announced a costly stock buyback that left Sir James with a profit of $93 million. But that strategy also means the world's largest tire maker will be refashioning itself from a diversified company with interests in aerospace and energy into a corporation with little activity outside its core rubber business.