LEAD: Starting today, the suggested newsstand price of The Times on weekdays within 75 miles of New York City, and on all of Long Island, is increased to 35 cents. The change is prompted by rising production costs, including an increase in the price of paper. The newspaper's Sunday price is unchanged, as is its weekday price outside the 75-mile area.

To Our Readers

LEAD: Before today's game with the Dallas Cowboys, a number of Giants players talked about, even dwelled on, the bad luck that seemed to haunt the team whenever it visited Texas Stadium. After the Giants' 12-10 victory, even the most superstitious Giant might believe that fate switched sides. At least for an afternoon.

Giants Hold Off Cowboys

LEAD: The Senate, in the next two weeks, and the House, shortly afterward, will decide how much to increase the minimum wage of millions of American workers at the lowest end of the economic scale.

Congress, Eyes on Elections, Taking Up Minimum Wage

LEAD: The last traces of Hurricane Gilbert were being felt on both sides of the border today as the United States Coast Guard helped villagers flee treacherous flood waters in northern Mexico and residents in several Texas towns cleaned up debris from tornadoes spawned by the storm.

Coast Guard Joins Effort to Save Mexicans Trapped by Hurricane

LEAD: A LEADING manufacturer of asbestos has decided that, when it comes to litigation, a strong offense can be a powerful defense.

Business and the Law; Target Is Suing Asbestos Lawyers

LEAD: A soft-spoken man with a successful law practice and two flags standing guard over his desk, State Senator Ralph J. Marino hardly seems the sort destined to shake up the establishment.

L.I. Lawmaker Shakes Albany In G.O.P. Rise

LEAD: Attention must now be paid to the Jets, who today crushed a playoff team for the second straight week. But this time, in a 45-3 rout of the Houston Oilers, they threw punches as well as footballs.

Jets Slug Oilers in 45-3 Rout

LEAD: Executives of companies that provide radon detection and testing services say their prospects received a lift from a public health advisory issued by the Government last week.

U.S. Warning Helps Radon-Test Companies

LEAD: The Unisys Corporation is expected to introduce today a powerful line of mainframe computers in an effort to revive its aging Sperry line and slow the defection of customers to competing mainframe computer makers.

New Unisys Computers Expected

LEAD: In a series of recent cases, state courts across the country have overturned what had been hailed as trailblazing criminal convictions of companies and their executives for workers' deaths and injuries.

States Are Toppling Workplace-Injury Convictions

LEAD: Toward midnight, with the 24-hour sun of the Arctic summer hovering above the horizon, a dilapidated wooden cabin came into sight on the shore of the Mackenzie River. Its roof caving in and walls askew, the cabin is all that remains of a community that took its name from a gunfight between two fur trappers in the 1920's.

Barges: Lifeline for the Far North

LEAD: The Burmese armed forces removed the civilian leadership of the Government Sunday, banned street demonstrations and ordered striking workers back to their jobs.

BURMESE MILITARY OFFICIALLY TAKES REINS OF POWER

LEAD: The plunge of an Italian stunt plane into a crowd of spectators at the Ramstein air base three weeks ago has aggravated a lingering resentment among West Germans at limits on their sovereignty, some 43 years after the end of World War II.

GERMANS QUESTION THEIR SOVEREIGNTY

BUSINESS DIGEST

LEAD: Stanley M. Friedman's bribery and conspiracy trial is scheduled to open in State Supreme Court in Manhattan today. Perhaps you're wondering why.

Metro Matters; Another Trial For Friedman: What's Behind It

LEAD: When they were students at the High School of Music and Art in the early 1960's, Leslie Dorsey and his classmates used to stride through Manhattan, singing arias and cantatas, their voices resonating between buildings and inside subway cars. It was as if the city was theirs.

Requiem for a Victim: A Singing Cabby

LEAD: A high-stakes board-room drama with all the intrigue, glamour and bold moves of a Hollywood plot has captivated the French business community this summer.

Pivotal Figure Emerges In Moet-Vuitton Feud

LEAD: Credit market analysts said that short-term interest rates are likely to move higher during the remainder of the month, without the prodding of the Federal Reserve Board.

Short-Term Rate Rise Anticipated

LEAD: It took 110 seconds and one punch to end Kelcie Banks's bid for a gold medal in boxing. It took less time and no punches to scotch Anthony Hembrick's. It would be difficult, though, to say who felt worse when it was all over.

U.S. Boxers Suffer A 2d Startling Blow

LEAD:  Socialists Win in Sweden  Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson retained office as the Social Democratic Party retained its dominant position in Swedish elections. Page 12.  Possible Snag for Gulf Talks  The furor over accusations that Iraq has used chemical weapons against its Kurdish minority may create new obstacles for the Iran-Iraq peace talks, Western diplomats and Iraqi officials say.

INSIDE

LEAD:  SWIMMINGJanet Evans won the United States' first gold medal of the Games in the 400-meter individual medley. Kristin Otto of East Germany, Adrian Moorhouse of Britain and Duncan Armstrong of Australia also won golds.  BASKETBALLYugoslavia scored a surprisingly easy 92-79 victory over the Soviet Union.

Olympic Highlights

LEAD: Lieut. Gen. Prosper Avril assumed power in Haiti today after noncommissioned officers of Haiti's Presidential Guard seized power from Lieut. Gen. Henri Namphy.

INSTALL ANOTHER

LEAD: Along Washington Square North, 20 protesters held banners and chanted, ''The park belongs to the people.'' Two hundred others who became spectators milled, and dozens of uniformed and plainclothes police officers watched from the curb across the street.

Park Protest: Weekly Test For the Police

LEAD: Only hours after two boys, aged 12 and 15, were arrested for vandalizing and setting fire to a Brooklyn synagogue, about 10,000 people gathered on the nearby streets yesterday to attend a funeral service for the five Torah scrolls destroyed in the Sabbath blaze.

2 Boys Held in Synagogue Fire And 10,000 Mourn 5 Torahs

LEAD: China's leadership is locked in a major struggle over the direction of economic policy, a clash of wills that may have reduced some of the authority of Zhao Ziyang, the Communist Party leader, according to diplomats and Chinese familiar with discussions at the highest levels of government.

Beijing Leaders Reportedly Split Over Economics

Katrina Bowden is an American actress. After a two-episode arc on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live (2006), she received mainstream recognition for her recurring, later main, role as Cerie on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock (2006–2013). As part of the ensemble cast, Bowden won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series in 2009.

September 19, 1988

Headlines from September 19, 1988

To Our Readers

Giants Hold Off Cowboys

Congress, Eyes on Elections, Taking Up Minimum Wage

Coast Guard Joins Effort to Save Mexicans Trapped by Hurricane

Business and the Law; Target Is Suing Asbestos Lawyers

Billboard 200

Hysteria

Appetite For Destruction

Tracy Chapman

Roll With It

He's The D.J.; I'm The Rapper

Notable Births

Historical Context for September 19, 1988