LEAD: The stunning testimony this week by a leading Canadian track coach that Ben Johnson and other athletes regularly used drugs to enhance their performance may have only minimal effect on worldwide efforts to reduce drug use.

Steroid Testimony: What Effect?

LEAD: HE (eyes blazing, face reddening): What are you doing? You should have made two diamonds! She: I threw off a good trick. All I have to do is trump - He: You should have made it. You're a moron! What did you have in diamonds? The six? You should have played the six.

ABOUT LONG ISLAND;
High Cards, Bigger Egos

LEAD: A retired Air Force sergeant insisted he saw Mr. Tower under the influence of alcohol. Page 34.

The Battles Over Tower

LEAD: The closed and competitive world of symphony orchestras has been shaken in recent weeks by an extraordinary show of political pressure to change the hiring practices of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Discordant Notes in Detroit: Music and Affirmative Action

LEAD: GEORGE BALANCHINE DIED IN 1983, BUT two weeks ago his legacy returned to the land and city of his birth. For the first time, works by the master choreographer - ''Scotch Symphony'' and ''Theme and Variations'' - were danced by the Kirov Ballet, direct descendant of the company in which Balanchine himself performed in the early 1920's.

The Kirov Claims Its Balanchine Legacy

LEAD: WHEN Gov. Mario M. Cuomo announced a new accord with the Long Island Lighting Company last week to close the $5.5 billion Shoreham nuclear-power plant, the clock began running on what may be the final attempt to resolve Long Island's most perplexing issue.

Timing Crucial in Shoreham Accord

LEAD: REMEMBERING the good times that accompanied Carlos Andres Perez's first term in office in the late 1970's, many Venezuelans were so delighted to return him to power in last December's elections that they ignored his repeated warnings that a painful period of austerity lay ahead.

The Debt Crisis Sets Off a Latin Time Bomb

LEAD: To their utter astonishment and consternation, Mexican immigration officials have in recent days apprehended Nicaraguans, Salvadorans and other Central Americans swimming across the Rio Grande from Texas.

Latin Refugees Fleeing Texas for Mexican Haven

LEAD: High school athletics have become the latest entree on the American sports menu, served up to help satisfy the voracious appetite of the fan. As a result, scholastic athletes are on the verge of becoming as important to the billion-dollar sports industry as their college brothers and sisters - and just as vulnerable to big-time exploitation.

Arena of Big-Time Athletics Is Showcasing a Younger Act

LEAD: There are times when Washington takes a mud bath, splashing about indecorously in full view of the whole country, and almost everyone here agrees that this week was one of those times.

Mud on the Senate Floor; In the Tower Debate, All Parties Blame One Another for Disclosures That Sting

LEAD: JOHN W. WARNER of Virginia, senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, gripped a tome on constitutional law in one hand and punched the air with the other, throwing the history and theory of American government into his party's defense of John G. Tower.

On Capitol Hill, A Struggle For the Record

LEAD: Fifty years ago a social visionary named Austin Tappan Wright dreamed up a Utopian community named Islandia, which he placed through a series of writings somewhere in the southern seas near Antarctica. Then, 25 years ago Levitt & Sons built a 500-house community in southern Long Island, and, borrowing from Wright's fictional ideas, named it Islandia.

POSTINGS: Islandia Redux; Can a Utopia Run Out of Land for Housing?

LEAD: A SUBDIVISION here designed with the horsy set in mind has drawn buyers attracted more by its equestrian atmosphere than by the potential of keeping horses.

NATIONAL NOTEBOOK: Gurnee, Ill.;
A Horsy Suburban Setting

LEAD: The National Economic Commission, a bipartisan panel appointed by the President and Congress in the aftermath of the Oct. 19 stock market collapse, failed to come to an agreement last week on a blueprint for cutting the Federal budget deficit. The failure of the commission means that next October it is more likely that Congress will be forced to accept the automatic cuts of the Gramm-Rudman Act, a process known as sequestration.

Prospects; The Budget Panel Fizzles

LEAD: A SMALL subdivision of upscale single-family homes rising in this suburb of 3,800 residents east of Worcester will help meet a demand from professionals in that city and on the new Interstate 495 high-tech corridor.

NATIONAL NOTEBOOK: Boylston, Mass.;
Attracting Professionals

LEAD: Striking machinists, joined by pilots and flight attendants, all but paralyzed Eastern Airlines' operations yesterday, grounding nearly 90 percent of its planes and stranding passengers at scores of airports across the nation and in Latin America and the Caribbean.

MECHANICS' STRIKE VIRTUALLY SHUTS EASTERN AIRLINES

LEAD: A brief cautionary tale: one day some years ago, after I had published a book, I was asked for permission to excerpt a piece from it in an anthology. Delighted, I wrote back. As it happened, I used this anthology in a course I taught. I admired its selections, and found the study questions helpful.

THE LAX HABITS OF THE FREE IMAGINATION

LEAD: Gary McCord, who carries a microphone on courses these days when he isn't carrying a set of clubs, has caused a big stir in the ranks of PGA Tour officials.

Golfing Talk Causes a Stir

LEAD: Once again, Hanson P.L.C. has Wall Street guessing. In the past few months, Hanson Industries, the British conglomerate's American arm, has bought 9.8 percent of the shares of the Cummins Engine Company, the diesel engine maker based in Columbus, Ind. And with Cummins's shares trading in the mid-60's, up from $50 in mid-December, before Hanson began its purchases, Wall Street sniffs a takeover battle - although

Hanson's Meteoric Rise

LEAD: A $4 million renovation is under way in Fairview, N.J., that will convert four buildings used over the last 25 years as truck terminals, garment factories and warehouses into a mixed-use office-commercial complex.

POSTINGS: Fairview Conversion; 4 Buildings, New Uses

LEAD: New York State has a new law intended to give buyers of new homes increased protection against defects such as leaking roofs and faulty plumbing by defining the legal responsibilities of contractors. While state law already had held contractors liable for deficiencies in new homes even in the absence of a formal warranty, the law that went into effect Wednesday defines what is included in the implied warranty.

POSTINGS: Warranties for New Homes; Law Aids Buyers

LEAD:  HAROLD MACMILLAN  Volume One: 1894-1956.  By Alistair Horne.  Illustrated. 537 pp. New York:  Viking. $24.95.

THE UNFLAPPABLE OLD MAGICIAN

LEAD: FOR a few months every four or eight years, career civil servants demonstrate that the machinery of Government works well in many respects when nobody is quite in charge. For day-to-day operations, a Cabinet seems unnecessary: Social Security checks are issued, taxes are collected and research on AI

Agencies Without Bosses Keep Going - But Where?

LEAD: NEW figures compiled by a company that monitors housing in Florida show that a sluggish market persists in Tampa, one of the nation's liveliest markets in the early to middle 80's. Nevertheless, the average sales price is rising.  According to Alam Housing Reports, new-home sales in 1988 totaled 2,567, down roughly 18 percent from 1987 sales of 3,028.

NATIONAL NOTEBOOK: Tampa, Fla.;
An Old Saw Contradicted

LEAD: While Congress debates how or whether to help American industry compete in the emerging market for high-definition television, a small arm of the Department of Defense is already poised to dispense money to companies and universities to help in development of the technology.

America's Answer to Japan's MITI

Sterling Sandmann Knight is an American actor, singer, and dancer. He is known for his role as Chad Dylan Cooper in the Disney Channel sitcom Sonny with a Chance and its spinoff So Random!, Zander Carlson in Melissa & Joey, and Christopher Wilde in the Disney Channel Original Movie Starstruck.

Sterling Knight, American actor, singer, and dancer

Sterling_Knight

Jacob Matthew Lloyd is an American former actor who portrayed young Anakin Skywalker in the film Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) and Jamie Langston in Jingle All the Way (1996).

March 5, 1989

Headlines from March 5, 1989

Steroid Testimony: What Effect?

ABOUT LONG ISLAND; High Cards, Bigger Egos

The Battles Over Tower

Discordant Notes in Detroit: Music and Affirmative Action

The Kirov Claims Its Balanchine Legacy

Billboard 200

Don't Be Cruel

Appetite For Destruction

Electric Youth

Traveling Wilburys

Shooting Rubberbands At The Stars

Notable Births

Historical Context for March 5, 1989