May 1, 1991

Thousands of Kurdish refugees came pouring out of the mountains today, the vast majority of them rolling right past the new tent city built for them by the United States in a wheat field here and heading for their old homes in this city and surrounding villages. "The floodgates are open," said Maj. Carl Fisher, an Army civil affairs specialist known as the "mayor" of the tent city for his planning of the refugee center.

In senior centers, church basements and high school gymnasiums across the state, nonprofit groups are allowed to go crazy once or twice a year and pretend that old Connecticut is really wild Las Vegas. With play money and small prizes, "Las Vegas nights" are a way to raise money. But now, hoping to prevent an Indian tribe from using the state's charity-gambling laws as a legal basis to build a casino on its reservation, Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. wants to repeal those laws.

In an odd twist to the city and state's intertwined fiscal mess, the State of New York submitted a winning bid on $50 million in short-term city notes auctioned yesterday, effectively lending the city money that it needed because the state has failed to give the city aid that it owes. The city had been forced to sell $1.2 billion worth of notes only because the state, unable to pass a budget, had not paid the city money that would have come to the city under the new state budget. Now the city finds itself paying interest to the state to borrow money it should have already received.

When ABC announced next fall's schedule for Saturday morning children's programming, Jennie Trias, the network's vice president for children's programs, had some bad news for girls: their favorite Saturday morning show, "The New Kids on the Block," the cartoon adventures of the rock band with an enormous preteen-age following, would be canceled.

The Bush Administration, facing a critical vote in Congress next month over its authority to negotiate with other countries on trade, will make significant environmental and job-security commitments to accompany a trade pact with Mexico, Administration and Congressional aides said today. The commitments are intended to sway votes in a battle that has pitted the Administration and proponents of free trade against organized labor, textile interests and others who fear that greater trade with Mexico will result in the loss of jobs and a weakening of environmental and labor standards.