LEAD: Violent criminals have so overloaded jails, courts and the police here that city officials say they are routinely setting free thousands of other criminals who repeatedly burglarize houses, snatch purses, steal cars and sell drugs.

Philadelphia Justice System Overwhelmed

LEAD: The dollar fell yesterday to its lowest level against the West German mark in that currency's 42-year history, breaking through a significant barrier on a decline that economists said should bring it even lower against the mark and other currencies before the end of the year.

  Dollar In Plunge Vs. Mark

LEAD:    Tokyo Stocks Up 5.4% On Report From Iraq    The Tokyo stock market soared, with the Nikkei index climbing 1,439.59 points, or 5.4 percent, to close at 28,112.12. Analysts in Tokyo said that the rise was due in part to an unconfirmed report that Iraq was willing to negotiate a withdrawal. Page D8.

INSIDE

LEAD: Mayor Marion S. Barry Jr. ended speculation about his political future today, announcing that he would stick by his earlier decision not to run for a fourth term as mayor and would seek a seat on the City Council instead.

Barry to Seek Council Seat, Not 4th Mayoral Term

LEAD: A Delaware judge ruled yesterday that Home Shopping Network Inc., which made millions of dollars at the expense of its bondholders, did so by cheating those investors.

Market Place;   Judge Upholds Bondholders In Home Shopping Case

LEAD: Last week, Edna Lewis and her sister Jen Ellis drove the gentle thread of asphalt that weaves through the cornfields and pastures of rural central Virginia toward the grocery. The white-haired women puttered past the brick house where their grandmother had served as a slave, past the meadow where their childhood home once stood and where their brother Lue Stanley Lewis still keeps 18 head of cattle and a pair of pigs.

To Eat a Church Supper Is to Want to Cry 'Amen'

LEAD: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation moved today to raise the premiums banks pay for deposit insurance by $1.1 billion, or 30 percent, next year. The action reflects increased concerns about the safety of the deposit insurance system and about the effects of depressed real estate prices on commercial banks and the overall economy.

BANKS' PAYMENTS TO INSURE DEPOSITS MAY JUMP BY 30%

LEAD: The Bush Administration is considering the partial mobilization of reserve forces to help deter an attack on Saudi Arabia by Iraq, Pentagon officials said today.

Confrontation in the Gulf;   U.S. May Call Up Some Reservists To Ease the Strain on the Military

LEAD: Ivan Vargas and his wife, Iveliz Ruiz, sat nervously before the six women who would decide if they would get into one of five newly renovated city-owned buildings in the South Bronx. The couple met the first requirement: They were homeless. Now, the committee had some questions.

A 'Homeless Co-op Board' As Tough as Park Avenue

LEAD: THERE was a time, not long ago, when the dark clouds of misfortune settled on a middle-aged woman living in Manhattan.

  The Hard Lessons In Selling a Cookie

LEAD: Calvin Klein has updated the erotic and often surreal advertising for his Obsession fragrance by using the quirky romantic touch of David Lynch, the creator of the provocative television series ''Twin Peaks.''

THE MEDIA BUSINESS: Advertising;   A New Twist for Klein's Obsession

LEAD: As lower Manhattan began returning to normal after Monday's blackout, the emergency generator feeding power to New York Infirmary-Beekman Downtown Hospital shut down yesterday afternoon, plunging the hospital into total darkness and paralyzing its life-support systems for an hour.

Emergency Generator Fails at Hospital

LEAD: Times Square, which has been a near-wasteland for hotels since the Beaux-Arts splendor of the Astor met the wrecker's ball in the 1960's, is now at the center of a virtual tide of new hotels. Coming in the wake of a wave of high-rise construction on the West Side, two brand-new skyscraper hotels, the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza on Broadway at 49th Street and the Hotel Macklowe on West 44th Street just east of Broadway, have opened in the last few months.

Once a Hotel Desert, Times Square Blooms

LEAD: Sung Soo Kim, a native of South Korea, does not know Esther Cartagena, formerly of Puerto Rico, or Philippe Wilson Desir, formerly of Haiti. But in their adopted city, they each serve a similar role: helping to guide compatriots recently arrived from their homelands through the bureaucratic maze that governs social services, the education of their children and how they do business.

Immigrants Help Others Lost in Maze

LEAD: State officials told the ITT Hartford Insurance Group today that if one of its subsidiaries wants to cancel its automobile insurance policies in New Jersey, the giant insurer will be barred from doing any business in the state.

New Jersey Warns of Ban On Insurer

LEAD:    THE ECONOMY       The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation moved to raise the premiums that banks pay for deposit insurance by $1.1 billion, or 30 percent, next year. [Page A1.]      Sales of domestically produced cars and light trucks fell 18.8 percent in early August. [D2.]  Chrysler began production of its redesigned mini-van.

BUSINESS DIGEST: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST, 15, 1990

LEAD: John L. Weinberg, who has led Goldman, Sachs & Company through one of the greatest and most profitable expansions in the firm's 121-year history, announced yesterday that he would retire in November as senior partner and chairman.

Transition at the Top For Goldman, Sachs

LEAD: Because of the Feast of the Assumption, alternate-side parking rules will be suspended in New York City today.

Parking Rules

LEAD: New York, as a city, wears many hats, but none are in better taste than the toque, the high, white cylinder of headgear to be found in the best, if not the most expensive, kitchens in Manhattan and surrounding arrondissements. Unlike firefighters, police officers, baseball players, postal workers, waiters and bus drivers who work in full view of audiences, chefs are a backstage lot, only recently accustomed to coming out for a bow as the brandy serves as a coda for their caloric symphonies.

About New York;   For Caring Chefs, Crowning Glory Is the Headgear

LEAD: Seyyed Abdel Rizzak stirred fresh mint leaves into his small glass of steaming tea this afternoon as he said, ''If Hosni Mubarak was not popular among the Egyptians for all these years, now he is a hundred percent, a thousand percent popular among all the sects, left and right.''

Confrontation in the Gulf;   Mubarak's Stand Against Iraq Wins Praise From His People

LEAD: AH, to get away from it all: the faxes, the phones, the FedExes, the Filofaxes, the people. You remember what vacations used to be, before advanced technology made it easier to reach out and touch someone, wherever they may be. When the average workweek was 40 hours or less and employers wouldn't dream of interrupting your personal or private time, let alone a vacation, unless it were an emergency.

Nowhere Vacations: Beyond TV and Fax

LEAD: As truckloads of cargo rolled from the Jordanian port of Aqaba toward Baghdad today, King Hussein of Jordan arrived in Washington for a meeting with President Bush in an apparent attempt to mediate the worsening crisis in the Middle East.

Confrontation in the Gulf;   BUSH THREATENS A BLOCKADE OF JORDAN PORT AIDING IRAQ; KING COMES TO U.S. FOR TALKS

LEAD: In a ruling that gives Eastern Airlines some financial relief, a Federal Bankruptcy Court said yesterday that the beleaguered carrier could impose temporary wage and benefits cuts on pilots. At the same time, the airline reported a $35.6 million loss for the second quarter, an improvement from the period a year earlier.

Eastern Can Trim Pilots' Pay

LEAD: At least thirty-five inmates and 12 correction officers were injured last night when prisoners shut down most of a Rikers Island jail for two hours.

47 Are Injured as Inmates Rebel Just as Impasse Ends at Rikers I.

LEAD: Like purer hearts or thinner thighs, cleaner air is an unalloyed virtue. But like other virtues, cleaner air can only be attained through sacrifice. And according to Paul R. Portney, an environmental economist at Resources for the Future in Washington, Americans may be on the verge of giving up too much for too little: They are not likely to get their money's worth from the sweeping amendments to the Clean Air Act now being cobbled together by

Economic Scene;   What Price Cleaner Air?

Jennifer Shrader Lawrence is an American actress and producer. She is known for starring in both action film franchises and independent dramas, and her films have grossed over $6 billion worldwide. The world's highest-paid actress in 2015 and 2016, she appeared in Time's 100 most influential people in the world list in 2013 and the Forbes Celebrity 100 list from 2013 to 2016.

Jennifer Lawrence, American actress

Jennifer_Lawrence

Viktor Robertovich Tsoi was a Russian singer-songwriter and actor who co-founded Kino, one of the most popular and influential bands in the history of Russian music.

August 15, 1990

Headlines from August 15, 1990

Philadelphia Justice System Overwhelmed

Dollar In Plunge Vs. Mark

INSIDE

Barry to Seek Council Seat, Not 4th Mayoral Term

Market Place; Judge Upholds Bondholders In Home Shopping Case

Billboard 200

Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em

Flesh And Blood

Wilson Phillips

Mariah Carey

Step By Step

Notable Births

Notable Deaths

Historical Context for August 15, 1990