LEAD: The latest flurry of billion-dollar deals on Wall Street has renewed calls in Washington for sweeping changes in the corporate tax code to discourage borrowing for takeovers. But changing the rules to make debt a less attractive form of financing is no simple matter, and could have a number of unintended consequences, say business executives and academic experts.

Tax Changes Sought As Deals Get Bigger

LEAD: The free-trade agreement between the United States and Canada, which is expected to take effect Jan. 1, is likely to lead to significant changes in the world trading system.

U.S.-CANADA PACT IMPLIES BIG CHANGE FOR WORLD TRADE

LEAD: Thanksgiving is tomorrow. Following are holiday schedules.  NEW YORK  Parade: Begins at 9 A.M. at 77th Street and Central Park West. Travels to Columbus Circle, down Broadway to 34th Street and Seventh Avenue.  Government offices: Closed.  Post office: Express Mail and special delivery only.

Holiday Tomorrow

LEAD: A grand jury is investigating complaints that drugs were used and school property was stolen by some members of the Bronx school board that runs the elementary school whose principal was recently arrested on a drug-possession charge, a Bronx law-enforcement official said yesterday, The New York City Schools Chancellor, Dr.

Bronx School Board Members Investigated

LEAD: On Monday, while 12 million Canadian voters were deciding the fate of their Conservative Government and, indeed, the future economic alignment of North America, the Prime Minister of Canada took a nap.

Man in the News; A Triumphant Canadian; Martin Brian Mulroney

LEAD: Although the board of the Hospital Corporation of America accepted a management buyout offer of $51 a share on Monday night, many Wall Street traders decided yesterday not to wait around for the payoff. They drove the price of the hospital chain's shares down $3.625, to $43.

Stock Drops on Hospital Buyout

LEAD: The United States could lose its lead in international markets for personal computers, automated manufacturing equipment and semiconductors if American industry fails to become a leading player in the emerging market for high-definition television, the American Electronics Association warned yesterday.

U.S. Warned On New TV Technology

LEAD: WHEN families gather around the holiday table for the traditional feast, there is traditionally one person who is conspicuous by either absence or presence.

There's a Black Sheep In Every Family Fold

LEAD: A trial that has turned mostly on love and money got an overlay of politics yesterday as Mayor Koch made a rare appearance in a criminal case to testify against his old friend and former Cultural Affairs Commissioner, Bess Myerson.

Koch Testifies At the Trial Of Myerson

LEAD: At 12:01 this morning, one of the most extensive restructurings of airline fares in a decade went into effect, substantially raising the cost of flying for business and leisure travelers on most routes.

New Air Fares Begin Today; Widest Increases in a Decade

LEAD: THANKSGIVING dinner for 60? Or will it be 75? Dallas Ernst is not quite sure how many to expect this year, any more than she was last year or the years before that. But that's all right; the guests are bringing the food.

A 'No Sweat' Artists' Celebration

LEAD: More than two years ago, New York City, concerned about high prices for concrete, helped set up a company that would supply the city's needs in Manhattan and, it hoped, bring down prices industrywide.

A Venture in Concrete: New York City Pays a Price

LEAD: INTERNATIONAL  The U.S.-Canada trade agreement is likely to lead to significant changes in global trading. It is expected to reduce both countries' cost of doing business, increasing their productivity and competitiveness. Prime Minister Mulroney said he would use his majority to seek rapid approval.

NEWS SUMMARY

LEAD: For the first time the Federal Government has voluntarily agreed to clean up a polluted nuclear weapon plant under an order that is enforceable by a Federal court.

U.S. Agrees in Landmark Accord To Cleanup of Nuclear Complex

LEAD: Former President Chun Doo Hwan apologized to the nation this morning for abuses during his eight years in power and said he stood ready to face punishment.

Korean Ex-President Offers His Apology For Abuse of Power

LEAD:  Africa Accord Advances  South Africa said it had agreed to a peace plan under which it would withdraw from Namibia and Cuba would pull out of Angola. Page A13.  Safety at Meat Processor  The Government, a major meat-packer and labor leaders agreed on factory improvements that could revolutionize the industry.

INSIDE

LEAD: Loretta Van Alstyne and her three teen-age children moved here four years ago to a two-bedroom mobile home from her mother's house nearby. They felt fortunate. ''It was affordable, it was cozy and it was in the area,'' said Mrs. Van Alstyne, a 47-year-old typist with the New York State Education Department who grew up in this hamlet of 1,500 people 20 miles south of

Now, Many Mobile Homes Must Move On

LEAD: Petroleum markets were convulsed yesterday by conflicting reports emanating from the Vienna meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Conflicting News on OPEC Makes Oil Prices Fluctuate

LEAD: The Consumer Price Index rose by four-tenths of 1 percent in October as upward pressure on food prices abated while big increases were posted for such diverse items as clothing, cable television and automobile insurance and finance charges.

Consumer Prices Up By 0.4%

LEAD: SOMEONE once complained that the Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi wrote the same concerto 450 times. It's different with wine: the book, like the concerto, doesn't change; only the writers do. Each year around this time the new books appear, most of them reinventing the wheel, or the grape, one more time.

Varieties For the Bookshelf

LEAD: President-elect Bush said today that he would open negotiations with Congress on his first day in office in an effort to reduce the Federal budget deficit.

BUSH VOWS TALKS ON HIS FIRST DAY TO CUT THE DEFICIT

LEAD: ''THESE days I'm cooked out,'' said Mattie Ball Fletcher as she beat a bowl of boiled turnips with a wooden spoon, carefully adding sugar. So she says, but Mrs. Fletcher - Mattie Ball to her friends - was certainly giving those turnips a workout. The setting was her kitchen in Washington, Va., about 90 miles southwest of the nation's capital.

Still Cooking, After a Century Of Thanksgivings and Other Feasts

LEAD: In an effort to bolster its bid for RJR Nabisco Inc., an investment group led by the First Boston Corporation has asked three well-known deal makers to participate in what would be the largest purchase ever of a corporation.

First Boston Seeks Help On Nabisco

LEAD: As the short, rumpled man pushes his cart up and down supermarket aisles, he tries to strike up conversations with fellow New Yorkers. Lest you've already concluded he's unhinged, perverted or participating in some weirdo Learning Annex course, let it be hastily stated that the man has an unimpeachable ulterior motive.

About New York; Done Reading That Cereal Box? Meet the Author

LEAD: IF California is the wave of the future, auto insurance companies are going to have to learn how to swim underwater. Furious with the doubling of rates since 1982, Californians just voted to roll back premiums by 20 percent and allow an elected insurance commissioner to set them in the future.

November 23, 1988

Headlines from November 23, 1988

Tax Changes Sought As Deals Get Bigger

U.S.-CANADA PACT IMPLIES BIG CHANGE FOR WORLD TRADE

Holiday Tomorrow

Bronx School Board Members Investigated

Man in the News; A Triumphant Canadian; Martin Brian Mulroney

Billboard 200

Rattle And Hum (Soundtrack)

Giving You The Best That I Got

Appetite For Destruction

New Jersey

Cocktail

Historical Context for November 23, 1988