LEAD: Although wholesale prices are surging, inflation at the consumer level is not following suit, primarily because of the resistance of buyers to higher prices.

Consumers Resist Price Rises, Putting Squeeze on Retailers

LEAD: Gov. Mario M. Cuomo said today that he would favor banning development along parts of the Hudson ning development along parts of the Hudson River waterfront in lower Manhattan, a significant shift in his position.

Cuomo Favors Building Ban Along Hudson

LEAD: Under clouds of uncertainty as gray as the mist that shrouded City Hall, the New the mist that shrouded City Hall, the New York City Board of Estimate met yesterday for the first time since the United States Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional, and despite doubts about its future it did business in its usual unusual way.

Condemned but Cozy, Board Goes On

WEEKENDER GUIDE

LEAD: Because there are virtually no gaps in the Alaska oil slick, scientists fear unusually persistent poisonous effects. The chairman of Exxon said part of the problem was a delay in permission for cleanup efforts, but officials disputed that contention. Page A12.

Long-Term Worries Over Fish

LEAD: While the savings industry has suffered $100 billion in losses on speculative real estate, fraud and mismanagement, and the banking industry has seen failures surge to more than 200 last year, one segment of the nation's financial sector seems to have known only bright days and clear skies in recent years.

Clouds on Credit Union Horizon

LEAD: The Coast Guard today opened formal legal proceedings against the captain of the tanker that ran aground here last week after the head of an investigatating team reported that the captain had unacceptably high levels of alcohol in his blood nine hours after the accident.

CAPTAIN OF TANKER HAD BEEN DRINKING, BLOOD TESTS SHOW

LEAD: As the decades of the 20th century rolled by and other states in the Northeast gave in and enacted income taxes, Connecticut held firm to the old image of small-government New England, where the state's business was to mind its own business and keep taxes low. The income tax is still the issue on which all candidates must make their stand known, and in many towns, sworn opposition has become almost a requirement for election.

Can It Be? Income-Tax Talk in Connecticut?

LEAD: Tomorrow, nine male Shermans -Ben, the father, his sons Gary and Mark, Uncle Murray, Cousin Stevie and a flotilla of grandchildren - will embark on the slightly demented annual ritual known as the opening day of trout season in New York State.

A Fish Story From the City You Say? Read On

LEAD: The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Donald W. Riegle Jr., is considering proposing a significant change in the financing of the Bush Administration's savings and loan bailout plan, the Banking Committee's chief of staff said today.

Riegle Mulls Proposal on Bailout Plan

LEAD: A long-running battle for control of Harrods department store, one of the most unusual corporate disputes ever, took some bizarre turns today.

British Battle Over Harrods: 'Tiny' vs. 'Phoney Pharaoh'

LEAD: A decade ago, Morris Township - an upper-middle-class suburb where homes sell for $200,000 to $1 million - was sued by the state for exclusionary zoning. Leaders in this Republican town fought it for years, but by the mid-1980's they saw the writing on the wall. In 1983, the State Supreme Court issued the landmark Mount

Our Towns; Taking Control In the Wake Of Mount Laurel

LEAD: A PHOTOGRAPH, whether intended to or not, speaks of the time in which it was made. This is obvious in the case of images taken years ago -pictures from the first days of Israel's independence, for example, or from the tumultuous decade of the 1960's. But it is also true of contemporary art photographs of the sort one finds displayed in SoHo galleries.

Review/Photography; Slices of Time, Preserved in Deft Images

LEAD: For nearly half of each day, the 1450 spot on the AM radio dial here belongs to WCEV, a Polish language radio station that serves up a diet of polka music on a signal barely audible along the city's northern border.

Black Talk Radio: A Vital Force Is Emerging to Mobilize Opinion

LEAD: Two subway workers, apparently with their backs to the danger, were struck and killed yesterday by a fast-moving Lexington Avenue express train as it roared through a curved local station in Manhattan's East Village, transit officials said.

2 Subway Workers Killed by a Train Rounding a Curve

LEAD:  Anticipating Milken's Trial  Premier legal talent and leading Wall Street figures will figure in the trial of Michael R. Milken. Page D1.  Bank Merger Offer  NCNB of North Carolina asked Citizens and Southern of Atlanta to merge. The deal could create the nation's sixth-largest bank. Page D1.

INSIDE

BUSINESS DIGEST

LEAD: AT its best, music has a mystical, indefinable quality that transforms it from a succession and combination of tones into a coded message from a composer's sourl to a listener's. If this wordless communication is not crystallized densely enough, the message is ephemeral - capable of stirring a response just once or twice, or only at a particular time and place.

Musical Traditions: Some Hardy Breeds With Staying Power

LEAD: In a move that would create one of the nation's 10 largest banking companies, the NCNB Corporation of Charlotte, N.C., last night announced an offer to merge with the Citizens and Southern Corporation, the largest banking company in Georgia.

Georgia Bank Gets NCNB Bid

LEAD: Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said today that he would tell President Bush that he is ready to propose elections for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, but only after the violence there ends.

Shamir Says His Proposal to Bush Is to Allow Palestinian Elections

LEAD: The parent of Northwest Airlines received a takeover offer yesterday of $90 a share in cash, or about $2.6 billion, from a group led by Marvin Davis, the oilman and investor.

Davis Makes a $2.6 Billion Offer for NWA

LEAD:  THE ARTS  Fiction: ''Breathing Lessons,'' Anne Tyler  Drama: ''The Heidi Chronicles,'' Wendy Wasserstein  History: Two awards: ''Parting the Waters,'' Taylor Branch, and ''Battle Cry of Freedom,'' James M. McPherson  Biography: ''Oscar Wilde,'' Richard Ellman  Poetry: ''New and Collected Poems,'' Richard Wilbur

The Pulitzer Prizes

LEAD: The 110-page indictment of Michael R. Milken announced Wednesday outlines a script for what lawyers expect will be one of the most important trials in securities history.

Milken Case: An Instant Classic

LEAD: Two of the three biggest oil producers in Alaska said yesterday that they would be unable to fulfill contracts with customers because of problems caused by a tanker spill a week ago off the Alaskan port of Valdez.

2 Alaska Oil Producers Halt Deliveries Because of Spill

LEAD: WHEN economic policy makers are the prisoners of circumstances and lack the resources to control events, they are well advised to be vague about their proposals. In searching for a solution to the third world debt problem, Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady is employing the economics of vagueness.

Third World Debt: The Brady Plan

Alberto Martín-Romo García-Adámez, known simply as Alberto Martín, is a Spanish footballer who plays for Linense as a midfielder.

Alberto Martín Romo García Adámez, Spanish footballer

Alberto_Martín_(footballer)

Nejc Vidmar is a Slovenian professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Slovan.

Nejc Vidmar, Slovenian footballer

Nejc_Vidmar

Liu Zige is a world record-holding professional swimmer from China. She swam for China at the 2008 Olympics, where she won the women's 200m butterfly in a new world record of 2:04.18.

March 31, 1989

Headlines from March 31, 1989

Consumers Resist Price Rises, Putting Squeeze on Retailers

Cuomo Favors Building Ban Along Hudson

Condemned but Cozy, Board Goes On

WEEKENDER GUIDE

Long-Term Worries Over Fish

Billboard 200

Electric Youth

Don't Be Cruel

Traveling Wilburys

Forever Your Girl

Appetite For Destruction

Notable Births

Historical Context for March 31, 1989