LEAD: The stock market continued a broad retreat yesterday from its recent post-crash highs, and the Dow Jones industrial average plunged 38.59 points, to 2,038.58.

Dow Plunges 38.59, Ending At 2,038.58

LEAD: The United States trade deficit shrank to $10.5 billion in September, a double-barreled $1.8 billion improvement that reflected both higher exports and lower imports.

Trade Gap Shrank in September

LEAD: SMALL wonder that people today are confused about what constitutes a craft. The term applies as readily to garden sculpture as it does to handmade books and stenciled kimonos. But while crafts-hopping through galleries, shops, museums and art centers in almost any large city in the United States, one fact remains constant: the field is greatly diverse.

Out of the Melting Pot, a Vast Diversity of Crafts

LEAD: The restive Soviet republic of Estonia today asserted the right to reject Soviet laws that appear to infringe on local autonomy, ignoring an appeal from a senior member of the Soviet Politburo to avoid a confrontation with Moscow.

Estonia Asserts A Right of Veto On Soviet Laws

LEAD: Homeless families entering the city's shelter system are often kept in squalid barracks-style shelters far longer than state regulations allow, a report by a nonprofit advocacy group says.

Panel Study Faults Shelters On Long Stays

BUSINESS DIGEST

LEAD: The right wing of the Republican Party, recognizing that the top jobs in the next administration will go to moderate allies of Vice President Bush, is courting Senator Dan Quayle in its efforts to get adherents of the New Right into important Government positions.

Conservatives Looking to Quayle As Their Top Ally in White House

LEAD: Day after day the cities, the weather, even the language changes but the scene doesn't. Hundreds of Conservative Party regulars pack into a gym. The hard, driving beat of a rock song assaults all ears. Suddenly, a spotlight flashes to the door. Enter the jut-jawed politician with his beautiful, smiling wife.

Canada's Historic Decision: Mulroney Pulls No Punches

LEAD: Bluntly and unequivocally, the Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, said today that the economy faces tough going if Congress and President-elect Bush do not move promptly to reduce the budget deficit.

U.S. BUDGET DEFICIT MUST BE CUT SOON, GREENSPAN WARNS

LEAD: A painting described as Gilbert Stuart's ''Portrait of George Washington'' was sold at Sotheby's in London yesterday for $495,000, five months after being auctioned for $3,300 at Christie's East in New York because of doubts about its authenticity.

Which Washington, A $495,000 Stuart Or a $3,300 Copy?

LEAD: ''IT'S rather like a salad, you know?'' The decorator Georgina Fairholme was not discussing sprouts, courgettes or aubergines, but the delicate mixture of greens in the living room she designed for the Royal Oak Foundation Designer Show House, where English style - as interpreted by English decorators, American decorators, American decorators working in England and English decorators working in

Both Sides of the Pond Look at English Decor

LEAD: SPINNING yarns, literally, has become a favorite pastime of growing number of Americans. In 1970, there were perhaps 1,500 to 2,000 people in the United States who spun their own yarn, using a hand-held spindle or treadle-driven spinning wheel to twist natural fibers like wool, silk, flax, mohair, angora or even dog hair into yarn.

Spinning Comes Full Circle

LEAD: When Gov. John H. Sununu of New Hampshire was first mentioned several weeks ago as a possible White House chief of staff, many of President-elect Bush's closest aides were skeptical.

Bush's Political Engineer: John Henry Sununu

LEAD: The General Electric Company of Britain and Siemens A.G. of West Germany joined forces today in a $3 billion takeover offer for the Plessey Company, General Electric's main British rival.

Siemens and Britain's G.E. Make Joint Offer for Plessey

LEAD: Warren E. Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., who has gained a reputation over the years as a brilliant investor, has quietly moved to keep an important part of his investing activities secret.

Master Investor Lowers the Blinds

LEAD: The September figure of $10.5 bil-lion, an improvement of $1.8 billion from August, reflected both higher exports and lower imports. Page D1.

Trade Deficit Shrinks

LEAD: At least half of the 9,000 athletes who competed at the Olympics in Seoul used performance-enhancing drugs in training, according to estimates by medical and legal experts as well as traffickers in these substances. These experts also contend that the drug-testing programs of the International Olympic Committee and other sports associations have had no impact in reducing the use of such drugs, including anabolic steroids.

DRUG USE BY ATHLETES RUNS FREE DESPITE TESTS

LEAD: The last time Hugh L. Carey, the former Governor, engineered a challenge to an incumbent New York City mayor, his candidate lost. But so did the incumbent mayor.  In the 1977 Democratic primary, as the city struggled to emerge from its fiscal crisis, both Mr. Carey's choice, Mario M. Cuomo, and the incumbent, Abraham D.

Carey Again Sees Need for Change At City Hall

LEAD: Five years after the Metro-North Commuter Railroad endured one of the longest and bitterest strikes in passenger rail history - 42 days of stalemate ended only by an act of Congress - hostility between the railroad and some of its unions threatens daily operations.

No Headline

LEAD: A street-level anti-drug program that was born in the bloodshed of the drug trade in South Jamaica, Queens, is being shifted to the Jackson Heights and Corona neighborhoods, police officials said yesterday.

Police Shift Drug Teams In Queens

INSIDE

LEAD: The field of bidders for RJR Nabisco Inc. narrowed yesterday when an investment group led by Forstmann Little & Company declined to enter the corporate world's largest-ever auction.

Forstmann Declines to Bid on RJR Nabisco

LEAD: Robert F. Wagner Jr., the president of the New York City Board of Education, said yesterday that the board would soon consider requiring drug testing for any teacher, principal or other school employee who aroused the suspicion of a supervisor.

Wagner to Explore Drug Testing for School Employees

LEAD: Pessimists call them ''speculative grade'' bonds. Optimists prefer the term ''high yield'' bonds. But everyone knows them as ''junk'' - risky bonds that pay high rates of interest - a fast-growing segment of the bond market that has played a critical role in the wave of corporate takeovers and reorganizations of the last few years.

Expanding Role of 'Junk Bonds'

LEAD: A special assistant to Mayor Koch, Joseph DeVincenzo, testified yesterday that he routinely approved the hiring of Sukhreet Gabel for a job in New York City's Cultural Affairs Department.

Aide to Koch Testifies About Hiring of Gabel

Justin Cooper is an American former child actor. He has starred in the film Liar Liar and in the sitcom Brother's Keeper. He serves as an executive producer of The Ben Maller Show on Fox Sports Radio.

Justin Cooper, American actor

Justin_Cooper_(actor)

Sheilah Graham was a British-born, nationally syndicated American gossip columnist during Hollywood's "Golden Age". In her youth, she had been a showgirl and a freelance writer for Fleet Street in London. These early experiences would converge in her career in Hollywood, which spanned nearly four decades, as a successful columnist and author.

November 17, 1988

Headlines from November 17, 1988

Dow Plunges 38.59, Ending At 2,038.58

Trade Gap Shrank in September

Out of the Melting Pot, a Vast Diversity of Crafts

Estonia Asserts A Right of Veto On Soviet Laws

Panel Study Faults Shelters On Long Stays

Billboard 200

Rattle And Hum (Soundtrack)

Appetite For Destruction

Cocktail

New Jersey

Giving You The Best That I Got

Notable Births

Notable Deaths

Historical Context for November 17, 1988