February 14, 1992

Sales of domestically built cars and light trucks rose a robust 23.8 percent in early February, auto makers reported today. Although analysts had expected a gain over the sluggish period a year earlier, they said sales for the first 10 days of the month were the strongest sign of improvement in the auto industry since last summer. "We're off the bottom, and there seems to be genuine improvement in retail demand," said Maryann N. Keller, an automotive analyst with Furman Selz in New York.

THE bar in the Mark hotel is small, dimly lighted and as cozily intimate as a private club. So intimate that the Frenchman in aviator glasses, black jeans, and a jacket with Mickey Mouse stitched under a "Euro Disney" logo felt free to slide his chair to a corner table occupied by two women. "May I eat off your plate?" he murmured in a thick Parisian accent, smoke curling up from his Gauloise. He helped himself to a thick slice of goat cheese quesadilla and munched ingratiatingly. Even the nicest Upper East Side hotels are not safe from creeping Eurotrash. My friend and I had checked into the Mark for a quiet, self-indulgent girls' weekend of room-service folly, a kind of Thelma-and-Eloise adventure. Fortunately for the Frenchman, we had not packed firearms.

A Federal review panel has cleared the way for the first commercial test of gene therapy, a potentially revolutionary technique that could cure hereditary diseases and might also help in fighting diseases like AIDS and cancer. The Recombinant Advisory Committee of the National Institutes of Health, which oversees gene therapy experiments, on Tuesday gave permission to researchers associated with the Targeted Genetics Corporation of Seattle to implant genetically modified cells into patients with AIDS in hopes of helping them fight the disease. The test had already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Marking a Milestone

New York Sanitation Pact Mayor Dinkins reached an agreement with sanitation workers that grants a 3.5 percent raise but leaves productivity unresolved. Page B1. Ban Lifted on Pesticides The Environmental Protection Agency eased restrictions on pesticides it banned three years ago because they caused cancer in animals. Page A14. Orchids in Your Mailbox Calyx and Corolla, a three-year-old company that sends flowers by mail, is seen as one of the brightest spots in the mail-order business. Page D1.

Pauline Dowd swears it isn't The Draft or The Woman or even The Letter that makes her grimace when she sees Bill Clinton. It's not the The Health Question or The Massachusetts Greek Issue that irks her about Paul Tsongas, either. "These guys just aren't the ones," said the 55-year-old social worker with certainty and a little sadness. "You know it when you've seen a guy who can be President. And you know it when you haven't."