March 8, 1991

Robert Maxwell, the British publisher who wants to buy The Daily News, told its union leaders yesterday that he needed to trim more than 800 jobs, or more than a third of the work force, to go through with the deal. On the opening day of last-ditch negotiations for the strikebound tabloid, Mr. Maxwell said The News was "at death's door." But he and George E. McDonald, president of the Allied Printing Trades Council, an umbrella group representing the nine striking unions, sounded an encouraging note after several hours of talks.

The board of the Chrysler Corporation cut the auto maker's regular quarterly dividend in half today, to 15 cents a share from 30 cents. The action, taken at the board's regular monthly meeting in New York, was widely expected by financial analysts. It will save Chrysler roughly $33 million quarterly.

Most of the nation's largest store chains remained on a slow track in February, despite the end of fighting in the Persian Gulf late in the month. With consumers apparently showing little early interest in new spring clothing, many merchants yesterday reported declines or no gains in stores open at least a year. Sears, J. C. Penney, Woolworth, Dayton Hudson, May Department Stores and the Limited were among those reporting year-to-year declines in sales at stores open at least a year, or same-store sales. In fact, of 20 of the nation's largest retailers reporting their sales for last month, 11 had decreases or minimal gains.

Congress moved considerably closer today to providing $30 billion in new money to rescue the nation's troubled savings and loan industry. The Senate this afternoon passed a measure to provide an infusion of cash intended to get the rescue program through the rest of the fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30. The bill passed by a vote of 69 to 30.

For all the glamour and accolades that came with the allied victory over Iraq, overt references to the operation may never appear in advertising for the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines. Military marketing and advertising officials say they fear depictions of combat or even allusions to the reality of warfare could scare away more potential recruits than they would attract.

State Department officials said today that the United States did not expect peace initiatives to emerge quickly from President Bush's call for Israel to give up occupied lands in return for peace, but that it hoped to secure modest good-will gestures from the Israelis and Arabs to establish a measure of trust. The officials, speaking as Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d began his trip to the Middle East, said that Mr. Bush had been seeking in his speech Wednesday night to Congress to establish "ground rules" for a drawn-out effort to break the logjam in Middle East diplomacy after the military victory over Iraq.

The New York City Council, which lately has exercised its new powers sniping at the Mayor and other city officials, saw some members hurl charges of cronyism, demagogy and -- (gasp!) dullness -- at their own leader, Speaker Peter F. Vallone, yesterday. Reacting to the awarding of influential committee chairmanships, Council members accused Mr. Vallone of running the 35-member Council like a political clubhouse; stifling dissent and rewarding those who kowtowed to him.

George Bush will not need to visit a flag factory during his re-election campaign. In the heady aftermath of the Persian Gulf war, Republicans are wearing the flag like Caesar's purple mantle, and Democrats are desperately tugging at the hem. When the President spoke to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night, there was intense jockeying across the aisle to show support for the war and the way Mr. Bush had conducted it. When the lawmakers finished festooning themselves with patriotic symbols, one Congressional aide observed dryly, "There were 500 members of Congress that looked like flower arrangements."

When Lazaar's Stationers first opened for business here, there were no such things as ballpoint pens, computer paper or electronic calculators. They hadn't even invented World Wars back then. In just a few days now, there will be no such thing as Lazaar's.

Along with the gray-pleated skirts, knee socks, white blouses and sweaters that are the uniform for the all-girls Cathedral High School in Manhattan, many students now bear something that was once the sartorial mark of doctors and drug dealers: a beeper. In gyms in Harlem and billiard rooms on the West Side, in high school classes from Staten Island to the South Bronx, in the nightclubs that blare salsa in mid-Manhattan and in bodegas, pastry shops and Chinese restaurants from Astoria to Borough Park, teen-agers are tucking beepers into knapsacks, coat pockets and belts. There are beeper watches, beeper ties, beeper pens, blue, pink and red beepers, and plain old ordinary black and brown beepers.

Consumer credit fell at a 4 percent annual rate in January, the Government reported today. It was the steepest plunge in four years as recession and war curbed personal spending. The Federal Reserve said consumer installment debt dropped a seasonally adjusted $2.44 billion, the biggest percentage decline since it fell 5 percent in February 1987.

President Lech Walesa urged Parliament today to dissolve itself and make way for immediate elections to complete Poland's transition to democracy. He said the public was losing confidence in the present Assembly, dominated by ex-Communists and their former allies. New elections are not required until mid-1993.