LEAD: Gold prices plunged yesterday in New York in near-panic selling on reports of unexpectedly large sales by Middle Eastern interests. Statisticians at the Commodity Exchange in New York said the decline of more than $23 an ounce was the biggest one-day drop since Feb. 28, 1983, when bullion plunged by $42.50, to $400.50.

  Gold Falls As Mideast Sales Jump

LEAD: In a rebuke to the state's political leaders, the Standard & Poor's Corporation today lowered New York's credit rating by two notches, leaving the state with the third lowest rating in the nation.

NEW YORK IS GIVEN CUT IN BOND RATING BY CREDIT AGENCY

LEAD: Given their first chance to elect a government freely in 45 years, Hungarian voters split their vote between two newly formed parties from the anti-Communist opposition that are now battling over how quickly the country should complete its transition to a free-market economy.

OPPOSITION LEADS IN HUNGARY'S VOTE

LEAD: Armed Soviet troops stormed a psychiatric hospital early this morning and arrested a group of Lithuanian deserters from the army who had taken refuge there since the republic's proclamation of independence on March 11, witnesses said.

Upheaval in the East;   Soviet Troops, Storming Hospital, Seize Lithuanian Army Deserters

LEAD: The auto industry is closely watching a dispute between the Mazda Motor Corporation and the United Automobile Workers union over the use of temporary employees.

U.A.W. Faces Test at Mazda Plant

LEAD: DOCTORS have long suspected that colossal doses of chemotherapy and radiation could triumph over a number of otherwise fatal cancers. The only hitch was that doses large enough to overcome the tumor frequently killed the patient as well, generally by destroying the bone marrow, the body's crucial factory for making cells for the blood and immune system.

Patient's Marrow Emerges as Key Cancer Tool

LEAD: The Daily News yesterday offered to raise the salaries of its largest union - the Newspaper Guild - by about 30 percent over three years.

Daily News Offers 30% Pay Raise to a Union

LEAD: Mayor David N. Dinkins yesterday announced details of the city's latest budget cuts for the current fiscal year, a $75 million reduction that he said would cut ''to the very marrow of city services.''

Dinkins Details Additional Cuts In City Budget

LEAD: Per Jensen's landlord cracked most of the walls in his loft on Bond Street in lower Manhattan while trying to install a restaurant in the basement in 1982. Huge holes appeared in the hallways and ceilings. The landlord refused to fix them.

Loft Law Keeps Tenants Chic but Not Safe

LEAD: Days before she and the rest of her family were slain in 1971 in their house in Westfield, 16-year-old Patricia List tearfully told a teacher that her father, John E. List, had threatened to kill them, the teacher, Edwin Illiano, testified today.

Murder Threat Is Described In List Case <

LEAD: Japan has a few ideas how President Bush can move quickly to tighten up the American economy. To start with, he should strictly limit every American to just a couple of credit cards. Then he should build a network of bullet trains across America, impose a stiff gasoline tax and get rid of low-interest car loans, all to get gas-guzzlers off the road.

Japan to U.S.: Tighten Up. U.S. to Japan: Loosen Up.

LEAD:    Supreme Court to Rule On Busing and Job Safety    The Court agreed to decide when desegregated schools may abandon court-ordered busing. It also agreed to decide whether women can be barred from jobs that might endanger a fetus. Page A22.       German Migration Abates    Since East Germany's election last week, emigration to West Germany has dropped markedly.

INSIDE

LEAD: The American Telephone and Telegraph Company yesterday introduced a combination telephone-calling card and general-purpose credit card affiliated with Visa and Mastercard International.

Multi-Use Credit Card Is Offered by A.T.&T.

LEAD: FUTURISTIC projects that the space agency once pursued half-heartedly are now soaring to prominence as NASA struggles to cope with a threat to the success of the proposed $30 billion space station Freedom, the centerpiece of the nation's program for the manned exploration of the solar system.

Wanted on the Space Station: Better Suits, Robots and Parts

LEAD: FORGET the old maxim that memory deteriorates with age. The new wisdom, emerging from recent studies, is that there are several kinds of memory, only one of which worsens in old age.

Studies Offer Fresh Clues To Memory

LEAD: Long Island's two suburban counties each have 15,000 homeless people, according to the Coalition for the Homeless. In response, Suffolk County has opened or is developing over a dozen sites to permanently house homeless families. Nassau County has yet to open one.

Our Towns;   Sensitivity Ebbs, And Often Flows, In Homeless Plan

LEAD: In an effort to protect the last Stone Age tribe in the country from devastation, Brazil's new President has ordered the authorities to dynamite all illegal landing strips built by gold miners in the northern Amazon.

BRAZIL IS MOVING TO RESCUE TRIBE

LEAD: The man who the police say has admitted starting the fire that killed 87 people in a Bronx social club Sunday morning was described yesterday as a Cuban Army deserter and street hustler who had lost both his job and his girlfriend in recent weeks.

Fire in the Bronx;   Portrait Emerges of Suspect in Social Club Blaze

LEAD: Care of the frail and chronically ill elderly, long a private burden of families, is fast becoming a public obsession and a volatile political issue as the older population increases and members of the baby boom generation face the aging of their own parents.

An Aging Nation Grapples With Care for Old and Ill

LEAD: The savings and loan industry had its worst year ever in 1989, with losses soaring to $19.2 billion, Federal regulators said today.

Losses at Savings and Loans In 1989 Were the Biggest Ever

LEAD:    THE ECONOMY       The savings industry had its worst year ever in 1989, with losses soaring to $19.2 billion, regulators said. Although a record loss had been expected, the amount surprised experts. Indeed, losses from operations for 485 troubled institutions amounted to $2.6 billion in the fourth quarter, equivalent to a taxpayer loss of $29 million a day as long as the institutions stayed open in that period.

BUSINESS DIGEST

LEAD: Bankers knew their problems with real estate loans were mounting, but Federal examiners now suggest that the problems are far more serious than the bankers have admitted.

Quicksand For Banks

LEAD: Avon Products Inc. agreed yesterday to include two directors nominated by Chartwell Associates L.P. on its board, ending the threat of a proxy fight by the investor group.

Avon Agrees To Give Seats To Chartwell

LEAD: WITHOUT waiting for Congress, which seems reluctant to act on important health insurance issues in an election year, insurers in a number of states are testing new types of coverage for at least some of the 31 million Americans who lack health insurance.

Business and Health;   Insurers Testing Basic Coverage

LEAD:       International    A3-15       Armed Soviet troops in Lithuania stormed a psychiatric hospital in Vilnius and arrested about two dozen Lithuanian deserters who had taken refuge there since the republic's proclamation of independence March 11, witnesses said.    Page A1       News analysis: Lithuanians are on their own.

March 27, 1990

Headlines from March 27, 1990

Gold Falls As Mideast Sales Jump

NEW YORK IS GIVEN CUT IN BOND RATING BY CREDIT AGENCY

OPPOSITION LEADS IN HUNGARY'S VOTE

Upheaval in the East; Soviet Troops, Storming Hospital, Seize Lithuanian Army Deserters

U.A.W. Faces Test at Mazda Plant

Billboard 200

Forever Your Girl

Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814

...But Seriously

Soul Provider

Cosmic Thing

Historical Context for March 27, 1990