LEAD: Cynthia O.'s 15th birthday present came exactly one week early. It was a fat baby boy, her first. Seventeen months later, on a spring day rinsed in gray, she and the baby, Ronnell, are making their periodic visit to their pediatrician on wheels.

About New York;   Pediatrics Vans: House Calls For the Homeless

LEAD: Government experts on explosives presented new evidence today challenging the Navy's conclusion that the explosion on the battleship Iowa last year was probably an act of suicidal sabotage by a desperate young sailor.

Tests by Experts Challenge Navy Over Iowa Blast

LEAD: When a bomb went off here Thursday night in a car carrying two leaders of a radical environmental group, their supporters were quick to blame opponents of a protest aimed at stopping the logging of redwoods in northern California.

Environmentalists Hurt, Then Held, in Blast

LEAD: Yasir Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, urged the United Nations Security Council today to send a new international force to the Israel-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip to protect Palestinians and pave the way for eventual Israeli withdrawal.

Arafat, in Geneva, Calls on U.N. To Send Force to Occupied Areas

LEAD: Government plans to raise prices sharply set off panic buying and opposition in the country today, causing the Moscow authorities to order restrictions on food shopping in the city and prompting the Ukrainian Prime Minister to vow resistance.

Evolution in Europe;   RISING FOOD PRICES STIR PANIC BUYING IN SOVIET MARKETS

LEAD: Western analysts view the new Soviet economic plan as too little, too late. Some see it as an attempt to legitimize a rapid drive to free markets. News analysis, page 4.

Moscow and Market Theory

INSIDE

LEAD: Boris N. Yeltsin, a rival and fierce critic of President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, took the lead early this morning in the contest for the presidency of the Russian republic - a job that would give him an important power base.

Evolution in Europe;   YELTSIN IS AHEAD IN RUSSIAN VOTING

LEAD: A growing number of large health-care plans are asking patients to grade their doctors: How long are they kept waiting in the office? Can the doctor be reached at night and on weekends? Does the doctor listen as patients describe symptoms? How well is a treatment explained?

Patients' Grades Help to Set Pay for Health-Plan Doctors

LEAD: A Federal drug agent testified in court today that top officials of the Drug Enforcement Administration authorized plans, including a $50,000 reward, for the capture of a Mexican doctor who the agency believed was involved in the murder of an American drug agent in Mexico.

WITNESS SAYS U.S. OFFERED REWARD TO GET A SUSPECT

LEAD: ''I said you can get used to posh very quickly, and I did.''     -Edward I. Koch, on hid postmayoral apartment  

Quotation of the Day

LEAD: The chief bodyguard of Winnie Mandela, wife of the South African nationalist leader Nelson Mandela, was found guilty today of murdering a 14-year-old youth who had been abducted with three men and held in her home in late 1988.

Winnie Mandela Aide Guilty of Murder

LEAD: An obituary yesterday about Dr. Stanley J. Sarnoff, a cardiologist and inventor, misstated his age and the circumstances of his death. He was 73 and died of heart disease. He was not undergoing surgery.

Corrections

LEAD: Because of a production error, an article in Business Day yesterday about manufacturing innovations at General Motors appeared in some editions with paragraphs misplaced.

LEAD: Because of an editing error, an article on Wednesday about the effect of the savings and loan bailout on the Federal deficit described effects of accounting differences incorrectly in some copies. The deficit projected by the Bush Administration for the 1991 fiscal year would reach $199 billion if $61 billion in bailout costs were included in the deficit calculations.

LEAD: Prime Minister Li Peng said today that he welcomed President Bush's recommendation to extend most-favored-nation trading status to China for another year, and he suggested that Beijing would try to improve relations with Washington.

Chinese Thanks Bush on Trade

LEAD: The Governor of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, who oversaw the four-month crackdown against Muslim militants here, resigned today and is likely to be replaced by a top security official. The resignation of the Governor, Jagmohan, came as members of Parliament in New Delhi demanded his removal over the killing of at least 50 people by paramilitary troops on Monday after the assassination of a top religious leader here.

Governor of Kashmir Resigns

LEAD: The Advertising column of Business Day on May 11 misidentified the group that honored Richard V. Benson as Direct Marketer of the Year. It was Direct Marketing Day in New York Inc., a nonprofit organization, not the Direct Marketing Association.

LEAD: When Colombians vote for president on Sunday, their ballots will constitute a referendum on the nation's nine-month war with cocaine traffickers.

Drug War at Stake in Colombia Vote

LEAD: Organized violence and voting irregularities in favor of the ruling National Salvation Front marred but did not invalidate Sunday's elections in Romania, the State Department said today.

Evolution in Europe;   Romanian Election Is Valid Despite Flaws, U.S. Declares

LEAD: After briefing Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d on his talks with the Soviet Foreign Minister, the West German Foreign Minister predicted today that conventional weapons would be a major topic at next week's Washington summit meeting.

Evolution in Europe;   Talk on Arms Seen as Summit Focus

LEAD: The Serbian authorities have ordered the expulsion of 17 Albanian refugees accused of provoking ethnic unrest in the troubled province of Kosovo, official news reports say. The Albanians, mostly the offspring of defectors who escaped Albania's harsh Stalinist rulers after 1945, were given 30 days to leave Yugoslavia and find a new country in which to settle, the official reports said today.

Evolution in Europe;   Serbs to Expel 17 Albanians

LEAD: President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said today that the Soviet Union would review its policies on European arms control and security negotiations if a reunited Germany was a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Evolution in Europe;   Gorbachev Issues New Vow Against Germany in NATO

LEAD: At a time when everyone in the Soviet Union from President Mikhail S. Gorbachev on down is bracing for the conversion to a market-oriented economy, Ramiz Shabanov sits in jail, serving a 15-year term for ''private entrepreneurial activities.''

Evolution in Europe: Moscow Journal;   His Only Crime Was Being the First

LEAD: The Kremlin's latest proposals to rejuvenate the Soviet economy, unveiled to an incredulous citizenry this week, are widely viewed by Western analysts as too little, too late. The Government's concept of a ''regulated market economy,'' they believe, will exact much of the political pain of more radical approaches without generating much economic gain.

May 26, 1990

Headlines from May 26, 1990

About New York; Pediatrics Vans: House Calls For the Homeless

Tests by Experts Challenge Navy Over Iowa Blast

Environmentalists Hurt, Then Held, in Blast

Arafat, in Geneva, Calls on U.N. To Send Force to Occupied Areas

Evolution in Europe; RISING FOOD PRICES STIR PANIC BUYING IN SOVIET MARKETS

Billboard 200

I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got

Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em

Brigade

Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814

Soul Provider

Historical Context for May 26, 1990