LEAD: Iosif Z. Begun, the Jewish rights advocate who was freed from prison on Friday, returned home to a jubilant welcome today, pledging to devote himself to the cause of human rights in general and the rights of Jews in particular.

BEGUN, FREED DISSIDENT, RETURNS TO MOSCOW TO THE SOUND OF CHEERS

LEAD: President Reagan is unable to say with certainty if he approved in advance the first American-sanctioned arms shipment to Iran in the fall of 1985 because he genuinely cannot remember, acording to a senior Administration official who is familiar with the President's testimony to the Tower Commission.

REAGAN REPORTED UNABLE TO RECALL IRAN ARMS DECISION

LEAD: The number of cases of AIDS and AIDS-related diseases has caused increasing confusion and disruption in New York City's work force. Employers and employees are reacting to AIDS victims in ways ranging from support and financial assistance to ostracism and dismissal.

AIDS IN THE WORKPLACE: DISRUPTIONS GROWING

LEAD: Brazil's decision to suspend debt payments sent a chill through Wall Street yesterday, pushing stock prices lower in a wild and unpredictable session.

BANK ISSUES HURT

LEAD: A storm that churned its way up the East Coast early yesterday dumped 11 inches of thick snow on the nation's capital - shutting down the Federal Government for the third time in six weeks - and left New York slippery, slushy, wet and white.

WET SNOW CLOGS ROADS IN THE EAST

LEAD: Putting new pressure on the management of Viacom International Inc., Sumner M. Redstone significantly raised his bid for the media company yesterday.

REDSTONE INCREASES VIACOM BID

LEAD: Thirty demonstrators, including some who had to be carried to police vans, were arrested yesterday for trying to prevent the eviction of a woman from an apartment building owned by Columbia University.

30 SEIZED IN COLUMBIA EVICTION PROTEST

LEAD: Edward G. Lansdale, an Air Force officer whose influential theories of counterinsurgent warfare proved successful in the Philippines after World War II but failed to bring victory in South Vietnam, died yesterday at his home in McLean, Va. He was 79 years old and had a heart ailment.

ADVISER ON GUERRILLA WARFARE

LEAD: APPEARING as green slime on a damp wall, as scum on a stagnant pond and, as dots and filaments in any bit of soil under a microscope, they are not among the earth's more prepossessing organisms. But the family of bacterial species known as blue-greens can boast an unsurpassable lineage, eons of high achievement and dazzling creative powers, according to biotechnologists now trying to harness the microbes for the further service of mankind.

SCIENCE TRIES TO HARNESS BACTERIAL OVERACHIEVERS

LEAD: The chairmen of the House and Senate Budget Committees indicated today that they were ready to abandon the budget law's $108 billion deficit target for 1988, saying the goal cannot be met without gimmicks.

BUDGET PANELS' CHAIRMEN READY TO FORGET THE LAW'S DEFICIT GOAL

LEAD: The moral and ethical issues raised by the Baby M custody trial have left feminists torn between supporting a woman's right to use her body as she chooses and opposing the elements of exploitation that seem present in many surrogate-mother cases.

BABY M TRIAL SPLITS RANKS OF FEMINISTS

LEAD: Syrian troops went into action today within 24 hours of their arrival in Beirut, trading gunfire with militiamen and setting up checkpoints in an attempt to stop the fighting here.

SYRIANS ON PATROL IN EFFORT TO KEEP WEST BEIRUT PEACE

LEAD: ARCHEOLOGISTS, heeding the message of the magnetometer, dug into the rocky slope of Egypt's Valley of the Kings and uncovered steps carved out of the limestone. The steps descended to a stone portal and through that into a dark passage and to the discovery of a 3,300-year-old tomb that could yield fascinating treasures and new insights into the long reign of Ramses

TECHNOLOGY OPENS ANCIENT DOORS

LEAD: Come April 15, another annual tradition will largely be relegated to tax history: the rush to earn a last-minute tax deduction by putting money into an Individual Retirement Account.

LAST CHANCE TO SET UP I.R.A. UNDER OLD RULE

LEAD: At the Lockheed Corporation's Rye Canyon research complex in the mountains 30 miles north of here, technicians are busy completing a $58 million state-of-the-art flight simulator capable of creating a stunningly realistic environment for testing cockpit designs.

NEW RISKS IN MILITARY DEALS

INSIDE

LEAD: MARKETS  Stock prices ended lower in a wild, unpredictable session as the market reacted to Brazil's decision to suspend payments on its foreign commercial debt. Traders said a sharp drop in stock index futures caused heavy program selling of stocks in early trading. The Dow Jones industrial average nearly recovered fully from a drop of almost 45 points, but a sharp reversal in the final hour left the blue-chip index 18.70 points lower, at 2,216.54.

BUSINESS DIGEST: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1987

LEAD: According to sociologists, the average teen-ager is getting more complicated by the minute. However, Gus Dastous is not. As 16-year-old Gus often says, ''Cycling takes up my summer and wrestling takes up my winter.''

Our Towns; One-Man Team: A Game Wrestler Gets Off the Mat

LEAD: RECENT efforts to treat and study young survivors of civil war and terrorism have yielded important new insights into the special emotional needs of violence-scarred children.

TERROR'S CHILDREN: MENDING MENTAL WOUNDS

LEAD: Nine months after they began to enter service, the newest subway cars in New York City's fleet - the R-68's -are performing ''unacceptably,'' according to the Transit Authority, which is considering switching to a rival manufacturer for the final 200-car order.

TRANSIT AUTHORITY IS CRITICAL OF ITS NEWEST SUBWAY CARS

LEAD: The personal computer industry is bracing for the imminent arrival of a new generation of desktop machines whose power and ease of use, some predict, will again transform the way people and companies handle information.

THE WIDENING COMPUTER GAP

LEAD: The police recruits in ski jackets and wool hats bounced in place before bullet-strewn targets on the firing range, blowing on hands made numb by the bitter cold and sore from squeezing triggers.

FOR POLICE RECRUITS, DISRUPTION AMID RITES OF PASSAGE

LEAD: The Rainier Bancorporation, the second-largest bank in the state of Washington, said today that it had received takeover proposals from two large out-of-state banking companies.

RAINIER GETS 2 TAKEOVER PROPOSALS

LEAD: * Abraham & Straus, Brooklyn, appointed William Margulis senior vice president, director of stores.

EXECUTIVES

LEAD: Leaders of Connecticut's General Assembly, no strangers to partisan quarrels at the State Capitol, had a nonpartisan disagreement today. An abstract sculpture of an eagle for their new legislative office building didn't look enough like an eagle to suit some lawmakers.

CONCRETE TIFF OVER ABSTRACT EAGLE

Kim Kyu-jong is a South Korean entertainer, actor, and a member of boyband SS501.

Kim Kyu-jong, South Korean singer, dancer, and actor

Kim_Kyu-jong

Ashley Walker is an American-Romanian professional basketball player. She plays the forward position for the Reyer Venezia in the Italian Serie A1.

Ashley Walker, American-Romanian basketball player

Ashley_Walker_(basketball)

Mario Suárez Mata is a Spanish former professional footballer who played as a defensive midfielder.

Mario Suárez, Spanish footballer

Mario_Suárez_(footballer)

Christopher Trimmel is an Austrian professional footballer who plays as a right-back or wing-back for Bundesliga club Union Berlin, whom he captains, and the Austria national team.

February 24, 1987

Headlines from February 24, 1987

BEGUN, FREED DISSIDENT, RETURNS TO MOSCOW TO THE SOUND OF CHEERS

REAGAN REPORTED UNABLE TO RECALL IRAN ARMS DECISION

AIDS IN THE WORKPLACE: DISRUPTIONS GROWING

BANK ISSUES HURT

WET SNOW CLOGS ROADS IN THE EAST

Billboard 200

Slippery When Wet

Licensed To Ill

Night Songs

The Way It Is

Different Light

Notable Births

Historical Context for February 24, 1987