LEAD: The Jets, who lost to Pittsburgh, 13-0, have reportedly asked permission to talk to Dick Steinberg of New England about becoming their general manager. Steinberg is the Patriots' director of player development. Articles, page C4.

Jets Are Said to Seek Patriots' Steinberg

LEAD: For about 50 cents apiece this year, New Yorkers contributed a measure of probity to political campaigning.

Metro Matters; Cost of Probity In Mayoral Race: 50 Cents a Voter

LEAD: The powerful East German sports system has been shaken by revelations of corruption and of greater privileges for elite athletes than were known. SportsMonday, page C1.

An Upheaval in Sports, Too

LEAD: The Eagles didn't have to play dirty against the Cowboys today. In fact, they didn't even have to play hard as they won by 20-10, under the watchful eye of the new commissioner, Paul Tagliabue.

Eagles Top Cowboys in an Emotional Contest

LEAD: The 1989 Christmas shopping season is not exciting either retailers or consumers, as sales run even with or slightly ahead of last year, despite a wave of price-cutting.

Lackluster Season for Retailers

LEAD: To Nina Wu, a junior at the University of Connecticut, the handmade poster she hung on her dormitory room door a year ago was just a joke. It listed the types of people who were ''welcome,'' ''tolerated,'' ''unwelcome'' and ''shot on sight.'' The last category included ''bimbos,'' ''preppies,'' ''racists'' and, some students say, ''homos.

Campus Slur Alters a Code Against Bias

LEAD: Two prominent business and civic groups, in a message to Mayor-elect David N. Dinkins, urged the new administration to stimulate the city's flagging economy.

Spur Economy, 2 Civic Groups Urge Dinkins

LEAD: Last June, Geneal Fengier, a mother living in a weathered block on the South Side of Milwaukee, expected to get the usual welfare check of $700 for her disabled husband and three teen-age children. Instead, she got a notice that her family would get no check at all.

Wisconsin Makes Truancy Costly By Tying Welfare to Attendance

BUSINESS DIGEST

LEAD: The Government takeover of New Jersey's largest savings institution last Friday could cramp the state's already ailing real-estate market by making other lenders more cautious about backing large housing developments and office projects, experts said today.

New Jersey Bank Takeover May Imperil Other Realty Lending

LEAD: In the first attempt in Latin America to free a central bank from Government control, Chile's central bank will begin functioning autonomously on Monday under a five-member board. The governing panel was named last week in a surprisingly harmonious agreement between the departing Government of Gen.

Chile Is Getting Independent Central Bank

LEAD: On a cold, nasty day on which at least 8 inches of snow fell on Mile High Stadium, the Giants warmed the hearts of supporters who had almost given up on them.

Giants Plow Past Broncos in Snow, 14-7

LEAD: For East Europeans, the economic transition from a Communist system is likely to prove difficult.

Eastern Europe: Economies Ripe for Change

LEAD: President Francois Mitterrand of France, the host of the weekend summit meeting of the European Community, is crowing that the meeting was a resounding success because it took steps toward setting up a European central bank and increasing workers' rights.

European Talks Called A Success

LEAD: Nine months into a strike by the vast majority of its work force, Eastern Airlines is close to emerging from bankruptcy protection as the low-cost carrier Frank A. Lorenzo has been trying for three years to create. But the airline's survival remains uncertain, depending largely on whether it can successfully reach beyond the bargain-hunting passenger on which it has relied since spring, before the cash from its asset sales runs out.

The Airline Lorenzo Dreamed Of

LEAD: The first Czechoslovak Cabinet in 41 years without a Communist majority was sworn in today by President Gustav Husak, the Communist hard-liner, who resigned immediately afterward.

NEW CZECH CABINET PUTS COMMUNISTS IN MINORITY ROLE

LEAD:  Deng Wants Warmer Ties  China's leader, Deng Xiaoping, told Americans in Beijing that the two countries must improve ties in the interest of world stability. Page A9.  Chile's Central Bank  Chile became the first Latin American country to free its central bank from Government control, in a step intended to stabilize its monetary policy and deter inflation.

INSIDE

LEAD: The mild capitalism emerging in Eastern Europe, though unthinkable in these Communist nations just a few years ago, is a far cry from the free-market economics practiced in the West - and will probably remain so for a long time.

East Europe Tries a Mild Capitalism

LEAD: Near the edges of Times Square, new office towers and hotels are climbing toward the gray winter sky - an image of progress wrapped in glass and steel.

Raw and Bawdy, 42d St. Awaits a Big Change

LEAD: An ambitious Federal program to register volunteers who can donate bone marrow needed by dying patients is falling far short of the need, forcing the vast majority of patients to raise huge sums of money to conduct their own, generally fruitless, searches.

Program to Find Marrow Donors Is Falling Short

LEAD: If you want to know what is really hot in discotheques, supper clubs and other late-night entertainment, just ask Victor Rosen, chief of violations of New York City's tow services.

Seeking the Hot Night Spots? Ask a Tow Truck Driver

LEAD: As the trial of John M. Poindexter nears, it is clear that the former national security adviser is adopting a defense strategy that portrays Ronald Reagan as a knowing and active participant in the Iran-contra affair, not the disengaged President depicted by Mr. Poindexter in his testimony before Congress.

POINDEXTER AIMING TO SHOW REAGAN KNEW OF IRAN PLOT

LEAD: Until the current wave of political reform began sweeping across Eastern Europe, East Germany nudged its way into Western consciousness about once every four years. In the Olympic Games, this small country of 16 million people and modest means would prove itself a superpower.

E. German Perquisites Draw Fire

LEAD: Two decades after the New York City school system was decentralized to encourage local participation, many school boards are allied with neighborhood political clubs and exploited by politicians seeking power and patronage.

SCHOOLS AND POLITICS: CHANNELS OF POWER - A SPECIAL REPORT: New York Schools and Patronage: Experience Teaches Hard Lessons

LEAD: The people who steal long-distance calls are increasingly using the telephone switchboards of large corporations to place the calls at no expense to themselves.

Phone-Call Thieves Hitting Corporations' Switchboards

Kellie Anne Harrington OLY is an Irish retired amateur boxer. During her career she was double Olympic gold medalist, winning at Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, and 2018 World champion. Harrington also won gold medals at the 2023 European Games and European Championship.

Kellie Harrington, Irish boxer

Kellie_Harrington

Louise Emma Augusta Dahl-Wolfe was an American photographer. She is known primarily for her work for Harper's Bazaar, in association with fashion editor Diana Vreeland. At Harper's Bazaar she pioneered a new standard in color photography.

December 11, 1989

Headlines from December 11, 1989

Jets Are Said to Seek Patriots' Steinberg

Metro Matters; Cost of Probity In Mayoral Race: 50 Cents a Voter

An Upheaval in Sports, Too

Eagles Top Cowboys in an Emotional Contest

Lackluster Season for Retailers

Billboard 200

Girl You Know It's True

Storm Front

Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814

Forever Your Girl

Hangin' Tough

Notable Births

Notable Deaths

Historical Context for December 11, 1989