LEAD: The sprinkler system in a Harlem apartment tower had not been working for at least several months and possibly years before a fire that killed seven people on March 22, the head of a special Fire Department inquiry said yesterday.

SPRINKLER FAILED LONG BEFORE FIRE THAT KILLED 7

LEAD: A Board of Education program that promised summer jobs to 3,500 New York City students has placed only several hundred of them.

New York Reneges on Job Promise to Many Students

LEAD: Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Eduard A. Shevardnadze, the Soviet Foreign Minister, have agreed to hold talks in September on arms control, officials said today.

SHULTZ WILL TALK TO SHEVARDNADZE

LEAD: The Continental Illinois Corporation, the parent of the Continental Illinois Bank and Trust Company, yesterday named Thomas C. Theobald chairman and chief executive.

Continental Illinois Gets New Chief

LEAD: MEDICAL experts are struggling, with only limited success, to understand a mysterious illness that leaves its victims exhausted for months or years at a time.

Fatigue 'Virus' Has Experts More Baffled And Skeptical Than Ever

LEAD: The American Express Company said yesterday that it would buy back up to 40 million shares of its own stock, or 9.3 percent of the total outstanding, over the next two to three years.

American Express In Buyback

LEAD: Attacking with guns and tear gas, security forces in Panama arrested a leading critic of the military leader today, hours after the main opposition newspaper was shut down and all radio and television stations put under censorship.

PANAMA MILITARY ARRESTS KEY CRITIC IN NEW CRACKDOWN

LEAD: The Public Service Company of New Hampshire, pushed to the brink of bankruptcy by a $2 billion investment in a nuclear reactor that may never operate, announced today that its directors had approved a capital restructuring plan.

Seabrook Owner Plans Restructuring

INSIDE

BUSINESS DIGEST: TUESDAY, JULY 28, 1987

LEAD: DIPLOMATS from 86 nations have just banned international commerce in the world's largest parrot, the hyacinth macaw, as well as in the Corsican swallowtail butterfly, Ursini's viper, and the star cactus, among other endangered species.

Despite Setbacks, World Control of Trade in Wildlife Expands Influence

LEAD: T. Boone Pickens, the Texas oilman and corporate raider, has indicated his intention to acquire as much as a 15 percent stake in the Boeing Company, the aircraft maker said today.

Pickens May Buy Into Boeing

LEAD: At the Third Base Lounge, down the road from the General Electric Company's television assembly plant, the conversation between gulps of beer is about the recent buyout of the plant by a European electronics giant.

At G.E. Plant, Familiar Fears

LEAD: Leaders of the House Agriculture Committee plan to introduce legislation this week that would provide a multibillion-dollar line of credit with the Treasury to rescue the crippled Farm Credit System, committee staff members said today.

Bill Aiding Farm Credit Pushed by House Chiefs

LEAD: USING an observation method analogous to brain scanning, oceanographers are in the early stages of a bold new effort to chart the oceans' flow for clues to the world's future climate.

Vast Effort Aims to Reveal Oceans' Hidden Patterns

LEAD: Some manufacturers of brand-name prescription drugs, alarmed by the success of cheaper generic versions of their products, are waging a counterattack against their competition.

DRUG MAKERS FIGHTING BACK AGAINST ADVANCE OF GENERICS

LEAD: BEHAVIORAL scientists studying personality differences between siblings have discovered what they describe as the overriding influence of a unique ''micro-environment'' in the family for each child.

Each Sibling Experiences Different Family

LEAD: Bob Dole, the Senate Republican leader, added to the atmosphere of partisan confrontation surrounding the nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court by suggesting today that President Reagan use a constitutional procedure to place Judge Bork on the Court without Senate confirmation.

DOLE SUGGESTS A WAY FOR PRESIDENT TO SEAT BORK BEFORE SENATE VOTE

LEAD: New York City stanched its loss of manufacturing jobs in the first half of this year and reached a 16-year high in overall employment while its suburban competitors faltered, the United States Labor Department announced yesterday.

Employment Surges To a 16-Year High For New York City

LEAD: In March 1986, Will Smith was medically ready to leave the Pilgrim State Psychiatric Hospital and move to a community residence home. He was anxious to get a job, to start life again. But there wasn't a bed for him in his home county, Nassau.

Our Towns; Agony of Patients Of Mental Health Is Finding a Bed

LEAD: The Federal Government has reversed itself and will automatically extend Social Security disability payments to victims of AIDS who meet the newly expanded Federal definition of the deadly disease, a top Social Security Administration official said yesterday.

U.S. IS EASING BENEFITS POLICY ON AIDS CASES

LEAD: Could leopard fashion make a comeback - coats and hats of real leopard skin, not the spotted prints now enjoying a certain chic? Conservationists' nightmares were prompted by a new report that the African leopard is surprisingly robust. Far from endangered, the scrappy animals even live inside several capital cities in Africa, said Rowan B.

Will the Leopard Coat Return?

LEAD: Never mind the junked cars that ring the shore or the thunderous planes that soar overhead from nearby La Guardia Airport. John Pache would not live anywhere but along the East Bronx waterfront.

PATCH OF BRONX WATERFRONT WARILY AWAITS RENAISSANCE

LEAD: The White House angrily insisted today that President Reagan had not tried to mislead the public when he withheld information about the Iran-contra affair last November.

REAGAN AIDES DENY HE TRIED TO FOOL THE PUBLIC ON IRAN

LEAD: At a smart hotel here, it is possible for a person of some wealth to be served Swiss food by a waiter from Southeast Asia costumed as an English fox hunter while a Polish trio plays string music of vaguely Viennese extraction.

COSTLY, UNEASY KUWAIT

Yevhen Hryhorovych Khacheridi is a Ukrainian former footballer.

Yevhen Khacheridi, Ukrainian-Greek footballer

Yevhen_Khacheridi

Pedro Eliezer Rodríguez Ledesma, known as Pedro, is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a winger for Serie A club Lazio.

Pedro, Spanish footballer

Pedro_(footballer,_born_1987)

Christofer Ranzmaier is an Austrian politician of the Freedom Party. He has been a member of the National Council since 2024, and was a member of the Tyrolean Landtag from 2018 to 2022.

Christofer Ranzmaier, Austrian politician

Christofer_Ranzmaier

John Brophy Renshaw was an Australian politician. He was Labor Premier of New South Wales from 30 April 1964 to 13 May 1965. He was the first New South Wales Premier born in the 20th century.

July 28, 1987

Headlines from July 28, 1987

SPRINKLER FAILED LONG BEFORE FIRE THAT KILLED 7

New York Reneges on Job Promise to Many Students

SHULTZ WILL TALK TO SHEVARDNADZE

Continental Illinois Gets New Chief

Fatigue 'Virus' Has Experts More Baffled And Skeptical Than Ever

Billboard 200

Whitney

The Joshua Tree

Girls; Girls; Girls

Whitesnake

Bad Animals

Notable Births

Notable Deaths

Historical Context for July 28, 1987