LEAD: A sharp drop in crude oil prices in recent weeks has prompted oil ministers around the world to call for emergency meetings aimed at preventing a recurrence of the 1986 price collapse.

OIL MINISTERS SEEK MEETINGS TO AVERT COLLAPSE IN PRICES

BUSINESS DIGEST: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 1988

INSIDE

LEAD: Just a year ago, fashion designers declared that short skirts were back and that no woman should even think of covering her knees. Now, in a remarkably speedy turnabout, they are showing some longer styles for fall and extolling the virtues of variety, including pants.

Women Balk, and Minis Fade

LEAD: THE burning political question in the world of nutrition has nothing to do with Presidential primaries.

Sorting Facts In Food Ads

LEAD: The Digital Equipment Corporation introduced several mainframe computers today in another challenge to the International Business Machines Corporation, the industry leader.

New Digital Computers Will Challenge I.B.M

LEAD: New York City announced plans yesterday to buy and shut down the Holland Hotel, a midtown welfare hotel that has become a symbol of the plight of homeless families in the city. The city wants to renovate and convert the hotel to a residence for homeless people who are elderly or mentally ill.

New York Bids for Welfare Hotel, a Symbol of Homeless Plight

LEAD: Stung by its failure to continue churning out blockbuster hits like the Cabbage Patch kids and the Teddy Ruxpin talking bear, the toy industry is shifting back to basics. Classics like building blocks, trains and cars are regaining popularity and some middle-tier companies best known for their old favorites are enjoying a renaissance.

A Revival for Makers of Classic Toys

LEAD: NEARLY 70 years ago, a determined suffragist known as Mrs. Thomas Hepburn heard Margaret Sanger speak on the need for birth control; the message changed her life. Mrs. Hepburn, the wife of a prominent Connecticut doctor, decided that women needed birth control even more than they needed the vote.

For Katharine Hepburn, Her Mother's Crusade

LEAD: Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Senator Albert Gore Jr. divided the biggest one-day harvest of national convention delegates of this election year yesterday.

3 DEMOCRATS LEAD

LEAD: Governor Cuomo's handling of the Tawana Brawley case is being criticized by some of New York City's leading black political figures, who say Mr. Cuomo lent legitimacy to the Rev. Al Sharpton and thereby undermined his own efforts to resolve the case.

Racial Puzzle For Cuomo; Some Blacks Criticize Him on Brawley Case

LEAD: THOSE bountiful gushes of straw-gold olive oil, those smells of basil and rosemary perfuming the thick New York air, those heaps of couscous that threaten to block traffic at major intersections: these are sure signs of another food trend under way in New York and, to an extent, elsewhere.

New Interest in Mediterranean Food: Rich Cuisine on a Clear Conscience

LEAD: BENEATH the lofty toques of most haute cuisine chefs in France is a humble bistro cook, or so it seemed on a recent trip through Paris and Burgundy, with stops at 20 or so restaurants. Everywhere, chefs and restaurateurs were talking about a rekindled interest in ingenuous home cooking, rhapsodizing over boeuf bourguignonne and coq au vin with a fervor once reserved for the latest nouvelle cuisine flourish.

In France, A Fondness For Homey Classics

LEAD: Late last summer, eight low-income families renovating an abandoned building in Brooklyn found themselves in a jam. Money from a state grant was late, and the families owed a total of $4,500 to an insurance company and an electrician.

From Milk Co-op for Poor, A New Hope for Housing

LEAD: Vice President Bush took a long stride toward the Republican Presidential nomination yesterday by sweeping all 16 primaries at stake.

RUNAWAY IN G.O.P.

LEAD: The Soviet Union is preparing to introduce a progressive income tax on individuals to curb the growing wealth of private business ventures, Mikhail S. Gorbachev announced in remarks published today.

Soviet Will Tax Private Incomes On Scaled Basis

LEAD: The recent calm in the foreign exchange markets has been shattered this week not by one of the world's three major currencies - the American dollar, the German mark and the Japanese yen - but by the second-tier British pound.

Pound's Strong Gains Reflect Hot Economy

LEAD: R.H. Macy & Company began its $6.1 billion tender offer for Federated Department Stores yesterday. It also filed its expected lawsuit against the Campeau Corporation, seeking to postpone next Tuesday's expiration of Campeau's competing offer.

Macy Begins Its $6.1 Billion Federated Bid

LEAD: For 40 years, Peter W. Rodino Jr. has represented New Jersey's 10th District in Congress, earning a reputation as a civil-rights advocate as far back as 1957. But today the man who was floor manager for the 1966 Civil Rights Bill and who wrote the 1982 Voting Rights Act Extension is under pressure to retire, so that New Jersey can elect its first black

Black Politicians Pressure Rodino to Retire

LEAD:             *6*REPUBLICAN            Delegates   Pct. of Precincts   *4*% of total     State   at Stake   Reporting   BUSH   DOLE   KEMP   ROBERTSON              ALA.   38   72   64   17   5   15        ARK.   27   54   47   27   5   18        FLA.   82   93   63   20   5   11        GA.   48   95   53   23   6   16        HAWAII    *   -   -   -   -   -       IDAHO    *   -   -   -   -   -       KY.     

SUPER TUESDAY: THE RESULTS AT A GLANCE

LEAD: The province of Quebec announced today that it would proceed with the $6 billion second construction phase of its huge hydroelectric power project on James Bay, which would be the largest installation of its kind when completed.

Big Quebec Power Plan In Phase 2

LEAD: A European diplomatic protest has led Senate conferees to rewrite a portion of a trade bill calling for sanctions against the Toshiba Corporation of Japan and Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk of Norway, following their illegal diversion of military technology to the Soviet Union.

Senators Ease Trade Penalty Bill

LEAD: Word raced through the staff meetings in Central Park a couple of days back: snowdrops (galanthus nivalis) had been spotted blooming in the Conservatory Garden. It wasn't long after that Sarah Price, the curator, discovered a crocus near the women's room. Glory be! Could winter's back be broken?  You should live so long.

About New York; Hunting Clues To Winter's End In Central Park

LEAD: Arthur K. Salomon, a grandson of a founder of the Salomon Brothers investment banking firm, pleaded guilty today to first-degree assault in the shooting of a 19-year-old motorist on the Hutchinson River Parkway last June.

Grandson of Salomon Founder Guilty in Shooting

LEAD: Seeking to eliminate any legal obstacles to its bid to acquire the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, Pirelli S.p.A., the large Italian tire manufacturer, yesterday sought a temporary restraining order declaring an Ohio takeover law unconstitutional.

Ohio Law on Takeovers Is Challenged by Pirelli

Kurt Georg Kiesinger was a German politician who served as the chancellor of West Germany from 1 December 1966 to 21 October 1969. Before he became Chancellor he served as Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg from 1958 to 1966 and as President of the Federal Council from 1962 to 1963. He was Chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1967 to 1971.

March 9, 1988

Headlines from March 9, 1988

OIL MINISTERS SEEK MEETINGS TO AVERT COLLAPSE IN PRICES

BUSINESS DIGEST: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 1988

INSIDE

Women Balk, and Minis Fade

Sorting Facts In Food Ads

Billboard 200

Dirty Dancing

Faith

Kick

Tiffany

Bad

Notable Deaths

Historical Context for March 9, 1988