April 24, 1991

In a surprise to analysts, RJR Nabisco announced a small profit for the first quarter yesterday, its first since going private in 1989 in history's largest leveraged buyout. It posted net income of $5 million, compared with a loss of $222 million in the comparable period last year. Despite sluggish domestic cigarette sales, quarterly sales for the company over all rose 8.4 percent, to $3.47 billion from $3.2 billion, largely because of foreign cigarette sales and higher sales of food, like Oreo cookies and Grey Poupon mustard.

These are difficult times for New York State. And so it is difficult to be a state legislator -- difficult to watch the state's tax-base erode, difficult to see so many important programs being cut and especially difficult to find something to do. Sure, there are lots of meetings going on about the state budget, now 23 days overdue, and plenty of decisions to be made before a new spending plan can be put in place. But rank-and-file lawmakers are not invited to those meetings, and they certainly are not allowed to make decisions. Indeed, by their own acknowledgement, they have about as much impact on the process as extras on the set of "Ben Hur."

In one fell swoop, J. Terrence Murray, Rhode Island born and Harvard bred, is turning the Fleet/Norstar Financial Group into New England's biggest bank at a time of one of the region's worst economic downturns. His $625 million bet for the assets of the failed Bank of New England will give his operation hundreds of new branches, billions in new deposits and loans and a presence in Massachusetts, where Fleet does not operate. It will also make Fleet, based in Providence, R.I., the clear banking leader in New England -- toppling the venerable Bank of Boston and putting Fleet among the 10 biggest banks in the nation.

Ask Mario Rodriguez, a 36-year-old father of four from the Bronx, why he became a student leader at the City University of New York and he talks about what would happen if student aid was cut and tuition was raised by $500 a year. A lot of students -- poor New Yorkers, many of them single mothers -- would have to leave school, he says. With protests against the proposed tuition increases and budget cuts in their third week and no solution in sight, there is a growing sense of frustration and tension among the students throughout the 21-campus system.

On its third day, the strike by 30,000 building service workers in the New York City region settled into a pattern yesterday. Deliverers, repairers, cable television workers and city garbage collectors generally honored picket lines, forcing hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to devise creative ways to perform ordinarily simple tasks like having a package delivered or taking out the trash. Even so, striking workers at dozens of buildings in Manhattan said residents had remained cordial and even supportive. Striking porters, handymen and doormen outside several buildings on the Upper West Side were treated to homemade cookies, doughnuts, coffee and other goodies from tenants in what, superficially at least, may be among the most amiable strikes in the city's recent history. Difference Over Wages "The strike had better stop soon or I'm going to gain weight," said Danny Rodriguez, a striking concierge at Sofia condominium apartments at 43 West 61st Street. He had received coffee, bagels and cookies from sympathetic condo owners by early afternoon.