November 2, 1990

As recently as a week ago, the McDonald's Corporation was preparing to respond to public pressure for a cleaner environment by announcing that it would extend its limited plastics-recycling program to all of its 8,500 restaurants nationwide. But then the fast-food chain changed course, announcing yesterday that it would do away with its plastic foam "clamshell" hamburger box and switch to paper packaging. That abrupt decision came largely as a result of an unusual alliance forged in August with the Environmental Defense Fund, people involved in the discussions said.

The first week of the strike at The Daily News was also the first week of a new era of newspapering in New York City. Inside newspaper offices and among outside experts who study the industry, there was wide agreement this week that, whatever the fate of The News, the strike could reshape all of the city's newspapers and leave a mark that would be felt for years in the country's largest news market.

R. H. Macy & Company, seeking to repay its debt, said yesterday that it planned to sell up to $150 million of its equity to its outside investors. Four large investors have agreed to buy about $100 million of equity. They are General Electric Capital Corporation, the largest outside investor, which already owns 24.6 percent of Macy's preferred stock; the Loews Corporation, which has 14.8 percent; Mutual Series Fund Inc., which owns 12.8 percent, and Taubman Investment Company, which has 5 percent.

After months of scrambling to find financing for one of the most complex deals in Hollywood's history, the Pathe Communications Corporation today completed its $1.3 billion acquisition of the MGM/UA Communications Corporation. The deal brought to an end years of attempts by Kirk Kerkorian, the financier who controls MGM/UA, to find a buyer for the film and television studio. And it represented a vindication of sorts for Pathe's chairman, Giancarlo Parretti, the Italian investor, whose ability to raise the money to complete the transaction had been widely doubted in the entertainment industry.

The commander of the American forces facing Iraq said today that his troops could obliterate Iraq, but cautioned that total destruction of that country might not be "in the interest of the long-term balance of power in this region." "President Bush has stated again and again, our argument is not with the Iraqi people, and that would cause thousands and thousands of innocent casualties," the commander, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, said in an interview. "I do think there are other alternatives to having to drive on to Baghdad and literally dig out the entire Baathist regime and destroy them all in order to have peace and stability in the area." [ Excerpts, page A8. ]