LEAD: House and Senate negotiators agreed today on a bill that would authorize $875 million next year to provide health care to people with AIDS in cities and states hardest hit by the epidemic.

Congress Authorizes $875 Million To Fight AIDS in Hard-Hit Areas

LEAD: As Congress moved closer to a monthlong recess, the House of Representatives today approved a major civil rights bill despite threats by President Bush to veto the measure, which he contends would lead to job quotas.

House Approves Civil Rights Bill; Veto Is Weighed

LEAD: Oil prices rose again yesterday and the stock market fell sharply in unusually volatile trading as investors feared that higher energy prices brought on by the turmoil in the Middle East could push an already weak American economy into recession.

  PRICE OF OIL RISES; STOCKS IN RETREAT

LEAD: Powerful Iraqi forces wheeled into position for a possible attack on Saudi Arabia today, while the United States and its allies continued to search, without discernible success, for a way to force Iraq to pull back from its rapid conquest of Kuwait on Thursday.

  IRAQIS MASS ON SAUDI FRONTIER; ARABS AGREE TO MEET ON CRISIS; BUSH IS READY TO HELP IF ASKED

LEAD:    2 Germanys Agree To Rush Unification

INSIDE

LEAD: With Iraq having overrun Kuwait, the crisis in the Persian Gulf appears to be turning into a struggle between the United States and Iraq for influence over Saudi Arabia and its vast oil reserves.      The Iraqi takeover of

  Battle for the Saudi Soil

LEAD: In a mostly grim report that took many analysts by surprise, the Labor Department said today that the nation's unemployment rate climbed three-tenths of a point in July, to 5.5 percent, in the biggest increase since early 1986.

U.S. JOBLESS RATE CLIMBS THE MOST IN NEARLY 4 YEARS

LEAD: New York City transit police officers will be allowed to carry a more powerful handgun that has long been resisted by officials here because of its possible danger to the public, transit police officials announced yesterday.

Transit Police Dept. Will Let Its Officers Carry 9-mm. Pistols

LEAD: Contemplating the grand sweep of Subic Bay, recognized for hundreds of years as one of the best-protected natural harbors in Southeast Asia, it is easy to see why the United States Navy wants to keep its access to the huge naval base here.

Subic Bay Journal;   Where American Might Is a Bit High and Mighty

LEAD:    International    2-7       Iraqi forces wheeled into position for a possible attack on Saudi Arabia, while the U.S. and its allies continued to search without success for a way to force Iraq to pull back from its rapid conquest of Kuwait.    Page 1       Iraq has deployed armored brigades close to the Saudi border and poured reinforcements into occupied Kuwait, Pentagon officials said.

News Summary

LEAD: ''Governments that engage in blatant aggression must know that the international community cannot and will not acquiesce in nor facilitate aggression.''     - An American-Soviet statement. [6:3.]

Quotation of the Day

LEAD: A book review on Wednesday about ''The Bomb,'' by Makoto Oda, misidentified another novel about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It is Masuji Ibuse's ''Black Rain,'' not ''Hard Rain.''

Corrections

LEAD: At a time when the whole of Eastern Europe is changing, some political leaders in India continue to hold fast to socialist ideals.

As India Opens Its Economy, Some Cling to Socialist Ideals

LEAD: A music review on Thursday about a performance by the Philip Glass Ensemble on July 27 at Alice Tully Hall misidentified a children's choir whose recorded music was used in presenting Mr. Glass's score for the film ''Powaqqatsi.'' It is the Hispanic Young People's Chorus from Brooklyn, not a South American group.

LEAD: Because of an editing error, a music review in Weekend yesterday about Monday's opening of the New York Philharmonic's season of free concerts in parks gave incorrect information for subsequent concerts.

LEAD: Japan and the Soviet Union, in their most intense round of diplomatic activity in recent years, tried and failed this week to narrow their differences on a 45-year territorial dispute that has stood in the way of improved relations.

Island Feud Slowing Japan-Soviet Thaw

LEAD: Because of an editing error, a front-page article yesterday about the indictment of Representative Floyd H. Flake incorrectly described Jamaica, Queens. It has a mix of low- and middle-income residents.

LEAD: Faced with an undeclared ethnic war in her home province of Sind and a tense standoff with India over the disputed territory of Kashmir, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto heads next week into a confrontation with her political opponents on Pakistan's most volatile issue: religion.

Bhutto Must Now Confront Foes on Volatile Issue of Religion

LEAD: Tamil separatists stormed two mosques in eastern Sri Lanka and sprayed Muslim worshipers with machine gunfire, killing at least 93 people and wounding 70, military officials said today.

Sri Lanka Says Rebels Killed At Least 93 at Two Mosques

LEAD: An obituary on Tuesday about Jimmy DeSana, a photographer, omitted the name of his companion.

LEAD: Government troops and guerrillas loyal to one of Liberia's two rival rebel leaders fired rockets and shells today in block-by-block fighting for the Liberian capital.

FIGHTING WORSENS IN LIBERIA CAPITAL

LEAD: Amnesty International said today that it had received reports that Iraqi forces in Kuwait had arrested hundreds of Iraqi exiles opposed to the Government of Saddam Hussein.

  Rights Group Says Baghdad Has Seized Exiles in Kuwait

LEAD: Fourteen American oil workers are missing in Kuwait, and there are reports that at least some of them may have been taken into custody by invading Iraqi troops and moved across the border into Iraq, Bush Administration officials said today.

  14 U.S. Oil Workers Missing; Some Believed to Be in Iraqi Hands

LEAD: Iraq has deployed armored brigades close to the Saudi Arabian border and poured reinforcements into occupied Kuwait, Pentagon officials said today.

  Iraq Bolsters Invasion Force, Adding to Worry on Saudis

LEAD: The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson called on the Bush Administration today to move quickly, diplomatically and militarily if necessary, ''to secure an end to the military aggression by Iraq.'' In a telephone interview, Mr. Jackson assailed the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, and said, ''He must know he has pushed us over the line and that his insistence on the occupation of Kuwait and the threat against Saudi Arabia is an extreme act of provocation that would be met with force.

  Jackson Urges U.S. Diplomacy

Ettore Maserati was an Italian automotive engineer, one of five brothers who founded the Maserati firm in Bologna 1914. He was born in Voghera.

August 4, 1990

Headlines from August 4, 1990

Congress Authorizes $875 Million To Fight AIDS in Hard-Hit Areas

House Approves Civil Rights Bill; Veto Is Weighed

PRICE OF OIL RISES; STOCKS IN RETREAT

IRAQIS MASS ON SAUDI FRONTIER; ARABS AGREE TO MEET ON CRISIS; BUSH IS READY TO HELP IF ASKED

INSIDE

Billboard 200

Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em

Wilson Phillips

Step By Step

I'm Breathless: Music From And Inspired By The Film Dick Tracy (Soundtrack)

Pretty Woman

Notable Deaths

Historical Context for August 4, 1990