LEAD: In a stunning defeat for President Bush and the Democratic leadership in Congress, the budget compromise they announced in the Rose Garden last weekend failed its first test early today in the House of Representatives.

  BUDGET PLAN FAILS FIRST HOUSE TEST BY 254-179 MARGIN

LEAD: In a stark indication of New York City's worsening fiscal condition, Mayor David N. Dinkins said yesterday that he was considering the possible layoff of at least 15,000 city workers and cuts in services to save $800 million and help close growing budget gaps in the current and next fiscal years.

Dinkins Says He Is Considering Laying Off 15,000 City Workers

LEAD: New York City's overburdened court system is emerging as a major impediment to the crime-fighting strategy outlined by Mayor David N. Dinkins this week.

Lack of Judges Could Impede Crime Strategy

LEAD: Once again, Michael S. Ovitz, Hollywood's top talent agent and deal maker, is right where he likes to be: at the center of the action, trying to put together another of the complicated packages for which he is renowned. This time, though, much more than a movie's success or an actor's career is at stake.

Agent's Starring Role: Corporate Go-Between

LEAD: FOR many months and several reasons, ''High and Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture,'' which opens Sunday at the Museum of Modern Art, has been widely anticipated. Coming after a decade in which fine artists have mixed references to popular culture in new and provocative ways, this show could not have been better timed.

Review/Art;   High and Low Culture Meet on a One-Way Street

LEAD: After more than a year of contentious deliberations, American computer companies and the makers of semiconductors that power computers have resolved their differences on a major issue of trade policy. The result is expected to be continued pressure on Japan to open its $20 billion-a-year market in semiconductors to foreign competition.

U.S. Computer Groups Join In Policy on Japanese Trade

LEAD: The Nynex Corporation today settled charges by the Federal Communications Commission, which had accused the company of padding its expenses and overcharging its telephone customers. Nynex agreed to pay a $1.4 million fine and to lower its interstate access charges for one year by $35.5 million.

Settlement For Nynex And F.C.C.

LEAD: The section on environmental protection in Gov. Mario M. Cuomo's first State of the State message, in 1983, was barely a page long and included proposals to modernize fish hatcheries and build more boat launches.

On Environment, Cuomo Goals Still Elusive

INSIDE

LEAD: The House of Representatives voted today to cut off many of the Federal appeals processes available to inmates on state death rows, to expand the number of Federal crimes punishable by death and to reduce the amount of evidence needed for a Federal judge to impose the death penalty.

Stringent Rules on Death Penalty Added to Anti-Crime Bill in House

LEAD: Market researchers are discovering that if you ask a simple question these days, you might not get any answer at all.

Surveys Proliferate, but Answers Dwindle

LEAD: Three years ago, the six Kayulu children -Henry, Elode, Patrick, Nadine, Sondra and Natasha - lived in a hovel in Kinshasa, Zaire. It had no kitchen or bathroom; they cooked on an open fire next to the outhouse.

Our Towns;   Hovel to Hilton: 6 Young Africans Search for Home

LEAD: Already struggling with declining economies and a hardening resistance to new taxes, many state officials around the nation say the proposal to reduce the Federal deficit that was defeated early this morning would have only made matters worse by expanding a decadelong shift of Federal responsibilities to state and local governments.

  Governors Say Budget Plan Shifts More Burdens to States

LEAD: The lowest August inventory of propane in 20 years, an increase in demand for the fuel and bad memories of last winter have left some government and propane-industry officials predicting shortages in certain regions, including the Northeast.

Newest U.S. Fuel Worry: Propane

LEAD: In only four days, Mayor David N. Dinkins gave the city's teachers a 5.5-percent pay increase, proposed a sweeping expansion of the police force and then said he was considering 15,000 layoffs.

Dinkins's Leadership: Strategy or Reaction?

LEAD: If, as planners predict, New Jersey continues to become more suburb than city, Edison is what much of the state may look like in years to come.

  No Downtown in Town: New Jersey of the Future?

LEAD: Columbus Day is Monday. Here are holiday schedules.       NEW YORK

Holiday Weekend Schedules

LEAD: The Republican nominee for the United States Senate in Louisiana pulled out of a primary election today as part of an extraordinary Republican effort to promote the victory of the Democratic incumbent, Senator J. Bennett Johnston Jr., over State Representative David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader.

Republican Quits Louisiana Race In Effort to Defeat Ex-Klansman

LEAD:    COMPANIES       Nynex settled F.C.C. charges that accused the company of padding its expenses and overcharging its telephone customers. It agreed to pay a fine of $1.4 million and to lower its rates for interstate calls for one year by $35.5 million. [Page D1.]      G.M. announced pricing and warranty strategy for its Saturn line of compact cars.

BUSINESS DIGEST

LEAD: The Sudan, Africa's largest country, faces its third famine in six years. But this time the United States has warned the Islamic fundamentalist Government that because it has blocked or diverted aid intended for the hungry in the rebellious south, any pleas for more help will be ignored.

U.S. BARS NEW AID IN A SUDAN FAMINE

Immigrant Jews in Baltimore. Fond, overflowing family album.

Review/Film;   In 'Avalon,' a Journey to Baltimore and a Family's Dissolution

LEAD: Federal rules taking effect on Friday will restrict airline seats near exits to people in good physical condition who speak and read English and are otherwise able to help evacuate the plane in an emergency.

Strict Rules Imposed for Sitting in Airline Exit Rows

LEAD: The General Motors Corporation announced an ''aggressive pricing and warranty'' strategy today for its Saturn line of compact cars, which will be shown publicly for the first time next week.

G.M. Plans To Cut Cost Of Saturn

LEAD: THE impression unfolds by the time a viewer has passed the colossal sculptures on either side of the museum's lobby and admired the Olmec seated figure who presides over the entranceway to the exhibition. By the end of the show - after the rooms of Mayan and Aztec sculptures and carvings and jewelry and the hundreds of paintings and objects spanning the period from the Spanish conquest in the 16th century to the middle of the 20th century - there can be no doubt: ''Mexico: Splendors of 30 Centuries,'' at the Metropolitan Museum of

Review/Art;   The Genius of Mexico, Before Its Long Sleep Under Spain and After

LEAD: Arguing that too many students were entering the City University of New York unprepared, the system's new chancellor, Dr. W. Ann Reynolds, said yesterday that she would seek to bar many students from most courses until they had completed new general education requirements.

CUNY Head Weighs Requiring New General-Education Courses

Nathan Peats is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played as a hooker for Tugun Seahawks in the Gold Coast Rugby League.

Nathan Peats, Australian rugby league player

Nathan_Peats

The Herald was a morning – and later – evening broadsheet newspaper published in Melbourne, Australia, from 3 January 1840 to 5 October 1990. It later merged with its sister morning newspaper The Sun News-Pictorial to form the Herald-Sun.

After 150 years The Herald newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, is published for the last time as a separate newspaper.

October 5, 1990

Headlines from October 5, 1990

BUDGET PLAN FAILS FIRST HOUSE TEST BY 254-179 MARGIN

Dinkins Says He Is Considering Laying Off 15,000 City Workers

Lack of Judges Could Impede Crime Strategy

Agent's Starring Role: Corporate Go-Between

Review/Art; High and Low Culture Meet on a One-Way Street

Billboard 200

Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em

Wilson Phillips

Mariah Carey

Blaze Of Glory/Young Guns II

Listen Without Prejudice; Vol. 1

Notable Births

Historical Events

Historical Context for October 5, 1990