May 16, 1991

The leadership of Serbia plunged this volatile country into a constitutional crisis today by blocking the installation of a Croat as federal President, a position that in the decade since the death of Tito has automotically rotated each year among the six republics. The maneuver by Serbia, the largest of the country's six republics, was seen as a last-minute attempt to maintain dominance over the fragile federation. It left the country without a head of state or a commander of the armed forces as of midnight tonight, as members of the federal presidency, the supreme constitutional body, adjourned to resume talks on Thursday.

MY grandfather would be proud. I am carefully sewing bias tape to a neckline, guiding the fabric under the pulsing needle, cursing when my foot presses too hard on the pedal and the needle rushes ahead of my skills. I am making a dress for my daughter. My grandfather spent half a lifetime tailoring pants and making hemlines using a mechanical treadle; I am using a $3,000 New Home Memory Craft 8000 sewing machine with an electronic touch screen, four memory cards and 108 decorative stitches. It can darn, baste and make buttonholes; it can embroider roses, sailing ships, zodiac signs and eagles; it can stitch rows of hearts, or lines of ducks, penguins or alligators.

In a setback for the Dinkins administration, Felix G. Rohatyn, the chairman of the Municipal Assistance Corporation, yesterday abruptly dropped his plan to give the city $1 billion after a bond rating agency said the plan could lead to an immediate downgrading of city bonds. Mr. Rohatyn canceled a meeting of the M.A.C. board scheduled for today after learning that the Standard & Poor's rating agency had warned that his plan would probably hurt the city's credit rating. The corporation would have provided the city with $1 billion over four years by cashing in M.A.C. bonds, giving the city the proceeds and issuing new bonds that the city would have to pay off later.

A 1986 internal White House computer message suggests that Robert M. Gates, President Bush's nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency, may have been given an earlier and fuller account of covert efforts to arm the Nicaraguan rebels than he has acknowledged. The White House memorandum, which was mentioned in an article by The Associated Press and a broadcast on National Public Radio today, does not directly contradict any specific statement by Mr. Gates about what he knew. But it raises questions about whether he was more familiar with some details of the affair -- and learned about them earlier -- than his comments in Congressional testimony would suggest.

Conceding that it has been unable to sell its growing inventory of assets taken over from failed savings and loans, the Government said today that it was giving up marketing them piecemeal and would bundle them in a new program intended to attract big investors. The sale of these assets is supposed to hold down the already astronomical cost of the savings and loan bailout, which by some estimates could ultimately reach $500 billion over 40 years. But some lawmakers immediately criticized the new plan for terms it offers potential buyers that they said could actually increase the cost of the bailout for taxpayers.