LEAD: As part of an effort to increase its profits, the Procter & Gamble Company recently announced that it would close a soap and detergent factory in Long Beach, Calif. The factory had been generating its own electricity and selling the excess to the local utility. Now, unless the company finds a buyer for the plant, that electricity will no longer be available.

Non-Utility Electricity Rising

INSIDE

BUSINESS DIGEST: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1987

The Last Tango: Isn't Anybody Out There Dancing?

LEAD: Eleven days after rejecting a deeper involvement in the Persian Gulf, Britain announced today that it would send four minesweepers to the area.

BRITISH, IN SWITCH, ADD MINESWEEPERS FOR GULF PATROLS

LEAD: The Pentagon yesterday awarded the Zenith Corporation a $104 million contract to provide the military with laptop computers, in a major setback for the embattled Toshiba Corporation.

Zenith Gets $104 Million U.S. Order

LEAD: In an action that could roil the broadcasting market in several cities, an administrative law judge denied license renewals yesterday to RKO General Inc. for its two television stations and 12 radio stations.

Renewal Rejected for RKO Stations

LEAD: The man President Reagan has chosen as his next Secretary of Commerce favors plaid sport coats rather than business suits and penny loafers rather than dress shoes, and he prefers to travel the streets of his Ohio hometown by bicycle rather than automobile.

Man in the News; A Nominee's Casual Style: C. William Verity Jr.

LEAD: The chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board today sharply criticized Gov. Bill Clements of Texas, who was quoted as saying that the Federal Government would not stand behind all insured deposits at troubled thrift institutions in Texas.

U.S. Insurers on Texas Rescue Missions; Sharp Attack On Governor

LEAD: Federal regulators are close to finding a buyer for the troubled First City Bancorporation of Texas Inc. in a deal that could include a Federal financial assistance package worth almost $1 billion, Government officials said today.

U.S. Insurers on Texas Rescue Missions; F.D.I.C. Seen Near Big Sale

LEAD: THREE years ago, Jeff Blank, a chef at the Wineskin Restaurant in Snowmass, Colo., and Gert Rausch, the chef and owner of the Austin Courtyard Restaurant here, wondered what they could possibly offer in a town that already had Tex-Mex, barbecue, French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese food.

Texas-Grown Game Is a House Specialty

LEAD: President Oscar Arias Sanchez of Costa Rica, whose Central American peace proposal was signed by regional leaders last week, has declared that the plan cannot succeed unless Nicaragua allows opposition press outlets to reopen.

COSTA RICAN CHIEF WARNS NICARAGUA ON PRESS FREEDOM

LEAD: New York City can no longer crowd inmates waiting to be sent to state prisons into an ever smaller amount of space, the agency that oversees the city's jails ruled yesterday.

Correction Board Moves to Ease Rikers Crowding

LEAD: In a ''sting'' operation that swept from Long Island to the Canadian border, 58 people, including 44 New York municipal officials, have been charged with taking bribes and kickbacks from an undercover F.B.I. agent, Federal officials announced yesterday.

F.B.I. Says Public Officials Accepted 105 of 106 Bribes Offered in 2-Year Operation

LEAD: Faced with the possibility that the Museum of the American Indian might move to Washington, Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato and Mayor Koch reversed themselves yesterday and said they would support relocating the museum to the old United States Custom House at Bowling Green.

Koch Shifts on New Site For Museum

LEAD: They say you can't unscramble an egg. But Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas seems to have come fairly close.

When It's Better to Give Back and to Receive

LEAD: By day, West 45th Street just east of Times Square is a vibrant jumble of the old and the new, the beyond-redemption and the just-begun, a place where rundown hotels, tattered billboards and a turn-of-the-century theater mingle with bright restaurant facades, a gleaming bank and two nascent office towers.

West 45th Street: Shadows Near the Bright Lights

LEAD: A fundamental revision in the way hospitals are reimbursed by insurance companies and the government was vetoed today by Governor Cuomo, who said it would have cost New Yorkers $400 million more a year.

Cuomo Vetoes Bill for Revamping System of Reimbursing Hospitals

LEAD: The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on President Reagan's nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court, scheduled to begin Sept. 15, may profoundly affect not only the Court's ideological balance but also the 1988 Presidential campaign.

Biden and His Party Risking High Stakes In Fight Over Bork

LEAD: Of the estimated 50,000 homeless people in New York, John-Ed Croft is probably the only one asking passers-by on the street for the name of a good tax lawyer.

Man of the Street Crosses Swords With the I.R.S.

LEAD: Jim Love, the announcer at the Adirondack Championship Rodeo, was taking requests before the performance tonight when he cranked up the song ''Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.'' But from the looks of it, the advice was too late.  Outside the wooden bleachers that ringed the small arena, more than 100 bronc riders, steer wrestlers, barrel racers and team ropers waited for their chance to win points and prize money at the longest-running weekly rodeo in the country.

Adirondack Rodeo: Hard Dirt, Low Stakes and Daring

LEAD: IN a neighborhood afflicted with burned-out buildings, crime and drugs, a restaurant that offers arugula with smoked pheasant, roast monkfish and flourless chocolate cake might seem incongruous - and it is.

Psst! They're Dining Well in the (Far) East Village

LEAD: Stock prices climbed to new heights yesterday, driven by the heavy buying of large institutions and small investors. Trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange was the second-largest ever.

Stocks Surge; Volume Rises To 2d-Highest

LEAD: The United States urged Israel today to scrap its costly program to produce a new jet fighter known as the Lavi.

U.S. Is Pressing Israelis to Drop Costly Jet Effort

LEAD: In millions of barrels except refinery utilization       $      Aug. 7   July 31   Aug. 8        1897   1987   1986       Gasoline production, daily   6.7   6.7   6.9        Distillate production, daily   2.7   2.7   2.9        Gasoline stocks   227.8   229.6   217.0        Distillate stocks   115.4   114.4   118.8        Crude imports, daily   5.1   6.0   4.9        Product imports, daily   2.1   2.5   2.1        Crude stocks   323.1   328.6   334.9        Crude production, daily   8.3   8.3   8.7        Refinery utilization (%)   85.9   86.1   84.0     

U.S. PETROLEUM DATA

Vanessa Nakeita Watts is a Jamaican cricketer who plays as a right-arm off break bowler. In 2014, she appeared in one One Day International and four Twenty20 Internationals for the West Indies. She plays domestic cricket for Jamaica.

August 12, 1987

Headlines from August 12, 1987

Non-Utility Electricity Rising

INSIDE

BUSINESS DIGEST: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1987

The Last Tango: Isn't Anybody Out There Dancing?

BRITISH, IN SWITCH, ADD MINESWEEPERS FOR GULF PATROLS

Billboard 200

Whitney

Bad Animals

Whitesnake

Bigger And Deffer

The Joshua Tree

Notable Births

Historical Context for August 12, 1987