LEAD:  Yankees Sell TV Rights In $500 Million Cable Deal

INSIDE

LEAD: President Reagan and President-elect Bush assured Mikhail S. Gorbachev at their lunch on Wednesday that leaders in the West want his campaign of economic change to succeed, Administration officials said today.

Reagan and Bush Told Gorbachev Of Hope for Perestroika's Success

LEAD: The Soviet Union today accepted an offer of United States assistance in coping with the earthquake in Armenia, marking the first time that large-scale American aid will be sent to the Soviet Union since the two countries were allies in World War II.

Soviets Accept U.S. Aid for First Time Since 40's

LEAD: With dramatic new accounts of the Armenian earthquake reaching Moscow, officials said today that the death toll could reach 50,000 and that 400,000 people had been left homeless.

SOVIET AIDES SAY DEATHS IN QUAKE MAY REACH 50,000

LEAD: Israeli ground troops landed by sea just south of Beirut before midnight Thursday and marched two miles into central Lebanon, where they destroyed parts of a Palestinian guerrilla headquarters, Israeli officials said today.

Israel Launches Big Land Attack On a Palestinian Base in Lebanon

LEAD: This is what the police know: Four men have been shot, one on each of the last four nights, all within a one-mile radius.

On Long Island, Four Shootings but No Motive

LEAD: President Reagan is in ''excellent health,'' the White House said last night after a cancer check-up and general examination. A bit of tissue was removed from his colon, but doctors said it appeared to be benign.

Check-Up Finds Reagan Healthy

LEAD: Black New Yorkers constitute ''a community in crisis'' whose economic vitality is sapped by institutionalized prejudice, insufficient city resources for job training, difficulties obtaining business loans and the inability of schools to stem the flood of dropouts, a mayoral commission says.

Panel Finds New York Blacks In 'Crisis' and Lists Remedies

LEAD: ''There is no clinical suggestion of a recurrence of the cancer, either in terms of the First Lady or the President.'' - Marlin Fitzwater. [ 9:4. ]

Quotation of the Day

LEAD:  International 3-8, 28  Armenia's toll could reach 50,000 people dead with 400,000 people homeless from Wednesday's earthquake, Soviet officials said, as rescue workers still struggled through the ruins and devastation.  Page 1  Mikhail Gorbachev was assured at his luncheon meeting with President Reagan and President-elect Bush that the United States wished him success with his economic initiatives, Administration officials said.

NEWS SUMMARY

LEAD: Lech Walesa and Andrei D. Sakharov, two Nobel Peace Prize laureates from Communist Europe, arrived here today to join in commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man.

Walesa and Sakharov Arrive in Paris

LEAD: An article yesterday about a New York City Council bill on health insurance premiums for municipal retirees rendered a word incorrectly in a remark by the Council majority leader, Peter F. Vallone of Queens. Discussing Mayor Koch's threatened veto of the bill, Mr. Vallone said, ''It would seem you want to teach the City Council a lesson for daring to initate a budget priority''; he did not say ''budget grab.

Corrections

LEAD: A picture caption yesterday about a NATO reaction to Mikhail S. Gorbachev's announcement of troop cuts in Europe gave an incorrect order in some copies for the Foreign Ministers with Secretary of State George P. Shultz. From the right were Roland Dumas of France, Hans-Dietrich Genscher of West Germany and Sir Geoffrey Howe of Britain.

LEAD: Because of an editing error, an article yesterday about competing dinners for American Nobel laureates misidentified, in one passage in some copies, a man who criticized the choice of entertainment at a Washington dinner. He was Wassily Leontief, not Dr. Henry A. Singer.

LEAD: The crews of two American civilian planes hit by missiles near the disputed Western Sahara on Thursday were aware that it was a war zone, but were not specifically warned to avoid the area, United States aid officials said today.

Downed Pilot Knew of Danger in Sahara

LEAD: President Francois Mitterrand met with eight members of the Charter 77 human rights group today, telling them he wanted to meet the real people behind names and activities with which he had long been familiar.

Mitterrand, in Prague, Meets Rights Defenders

LEAD: An article on Thursday about Community School Board 4 in New York City included an incorrect description supplied by Robert F. Wagner Jr., president of the Board of Education, about the status of Robert Rodriguez, a board member. The Board of Education voted to ask the State Education Commissioner to remove Mr.

LEAD: The credits on Wednesday with a theater review of ''Fighting Light'' listed the play's presenters incompletely. The producer is T. Harding Jones.

LEAD: It's a long, long way to London from here, and every so often the five million Scots do something to remind the English that they can't just be taken for granted. The voters of the Govan district of Glasgow did that last month, electing a nationalist Member of Parliament who promised to fight for Scottish independence within the European

Anger Stirs Anew in a Hardly Lily-Livered Land

LEAD: The former Philippine President, Ferdinand E. Marcos, suffered congestive heart failure and was hospitalized today, a spokesman said. Mr. Marcos, 71 years old, was taken by ambulance to St. Francis Hospital and admitted on the recommendation of his physician, Calvin Wong, because of ''the acute onset of congestive heart failure'' today, a spokesman, Gemmo

Marcos Is Hospitalized With a Heart Ailment

LEAD: As Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi prepares for a trip to China on Dec. 19, India is moving into a pivotal role in the efforts to find a solution to a decade-long war in Cambodia, diplomats and officials said here today.

INDIA TAKES A ROLE IN CAMBODIA TALKS

LEAD: A painful vigil went on today as tens of thousands of Armenians here sought to learn whether friends and relatives were among the victims of the Soviet earthquake.

California Armenians Stand Painful Vigil

LEAD: NATO said today that changes in the Soviet Union provided ''an unprecedented opportunity'' to create a safer world, but that the alliance must not abandon plans to upgrade or replace short-range nuclear missiles in Europe.

NATO Praises Soviet Arms Cuts but Doesn't Join In

LEAD: Long after the victims are buried and the rubble removed, Wednesday's earthquake in Armenia will haunt Mikhail S. Gorbachev's effort to revive the Soviet economy and reshape the country.

Add Economy To Quake Toll For Kremlin

LEAD: The neutrality of Afghanistan, which President Najibullah has announced as one of his principal objectives, appears nearly at hand. Since the Soviet Union, without the Kabul Government, began top-level peace talks with the guerrilla leadership, the Afghan regime is so isolated that it appears to be no longer interfering even in its own international affairs.

For Kabul, It's Neutrality by Default

Wilfried Guemiand Bony is an Ivorian former professional footballer who played as a striker.

Wilfried Bony, Ivorian footballer

Wilfried_Bony

Neven Subotić is a former professional footballer who played as a centre-back.

Neven Subotić, Serbian footballer

Neven_Subotić

Richard Salvatore Castellano was an American actor who is best remembered for his role in Lovers and Other Strangers and his subsequent role as Peter Clemenza in The Godfather.

Richard S. Castellano, American actor (born 1933)

Richard_S._Castellano

John Lawrence was a diminutive Yorkshire-born cricketing all-rounder whose middle or lower order batting and leg-break and googly bowling were of great importance to Somerset in the 10 cricket seasons immediately after the Second World War.

Johnny Lawrence, English cricketer and coach (born 1911)

Johnny_Lawrence_(cricketer)

Dorothy de Rothschild was an English philanthropist and activist for Jewish affairs who married into the wealthy Rothschild banking family.

December 10, 1988

Headlines from December 10, 1988

INSIDE

Reagan and Bush Told Gorbachev Of Hope for Perestroika's Success

Soviets Accept U.S. Aid for First Time Since 40's

SOVIET AIDES SAY DEATHS IN QUAKE MAY REACH 50,000

Israel Launches Big Land Attack On a Palestinian Base in Lebanon

Billboard 200

Rattle And Hum (Soundtrack)

Giving You The Best That I Got

Cocktail

Appetite For Destruction

New Jersey

Notable Births

Notable Deaths

Historical Context for December 10, 1988