March 2, 1992

From the pulpit of a Brooklyn Baptist church yesterday, Mayor David N. Dinkins announced a $28 million program to identify the 40 most dangerous public high schools and middle schools in New York City and to bolster security at them. Less than a week after two students were shot dead in a hallway at Thomas Jefferson High School in East New York, the Mayor responded to a plea from Schools Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez, who had asked on Thursday to expand the use of metal detectors at the city's 21 most troubled schools.

In the New York City neighborhoods where Rabbi Meir Kahane got his start 24 years ago, ideological successors to the slain rabbi's Jewish Defense League are once again seeking recruits for what they describe as militant Jewish self-defense. When a Soviet Jewish emigre was shot to death in January in a late night holdup in Brighton Beach, the Jewish Defense Organization was quickly at the side of his family. It held demonstrations and promised to create street patrols in an effort to reach out to Jewish Soviet emigres, insular and uncertain how to organize in America.

Led by a new generation of lesbians and gay men who view their homosexuality as a matter of pride rather than privacy, the gay press is emerging from the shadows to claim a place in the mainstream. After years of being distributed without charge in bars and being dependent on sexually oriented advertisements for revenues, gay publications are changing their images and aspirations.

Unbeknownst to most investors, many brokers complete trades of stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange at other exchanges or in the over-the-counter market at terms slightly less favorable to investors. In return for shifting the trades, the brokers receive payments -- in effect, bounties -- for diverting the business.

Based on a combination of his performance and his salary, Frank Thomas of the Chicago White Sox was the biggest bargain in baseball last season. Thomas, playing his first full season in the major leagues, clearly provided the most production for the least pay, pairing a penchant for getting on base with power production while earning only $120,000. Using a formula that combines on-base percentage, slugging percentage and salary, Thomas emerges with a dollars-per-production point rating of 119 (the lower rating the better). That put him well ahead of the ratings of players who earned millions more than the White Sox first baseman.

Rating baseball's bargains. A Steal At a salary of Thomas of the White Sox was the best buy in baseball last year. Overpriced? With a $3.8 million salary last year, the Dodgers' Darryl Strawberry was no bargain at all, ranking 175th out of 181 players rated. SportsMonday, page C1

In the dark of Monday night, long after gaggles of schoolchildren have clambered back onto tour buses and the last Congressional aide has disappeared into the subway, a scraggly line will form outside the Dirksen Senate office building for a pre-dawn vigil. Clad in sneakers, racing tights and zippered jackets, bicycle messengers will bide their time for hours, holding places in line for tax lobbyists in pinstripes and lawyers in tasseled leather shoes. The goal of this ritual, which will cost the lawyer-lobbyists $20 an hour for each messenger, will be a coveted seat in the Senate Finance Committee's cramped hearing room on Tuesday, when the panel begins drafting tax legislation.

They grew up in this suburb 12 miles west of midtown Manhattan as untouched by mean streets as Kansas corn. At 17, both were petty officers in a Navy cadet corps, seriously considering joining the real Navy after high school. Both wore varsity letters, played the piano, went to church and worked part time. Little wonder they were best friends. Now one is dead -- garroted from behind in his car with an electrical cord that had been rigged at the ends with shoelaces looped as handles. The other is charged with committing the murder in a conspiracy with four other teen-agers that sounds both like a deadly imitation of movie mobsters and a religious cult.

When the issue of new loan guarantees for Israel first came before Congress last September, American Jewish groups organized a national lobbying campaign replete with faxes, letter-writing and thousands of volunteers bused into Washington to press the Israeli case with lawmakers. But when the issue came up again recently after being postponed for four months, lobbying by Jewish organizations on Israel's behalf was so low-key it was almost invisible.

The Economy The collapse of natural gas prices is delivering the worst jolt to the weakened oil and gas industry since oil prices fell by more than half in early 1986. Many giant companies have announced layoffs or reduced spending. Hundreds of smaller companies are going out of business. And companies with foreign operations are raising their already substantial oil and gas investments overseas, increasing U.S. reliance on imported energy. [ Page A1. ]

NEW YORK CITY DINKINS INCREASES SCHOOL SECURITY Mayor Dinkins announced a $28 million program that would enhance security at the 40 most dangerous public high schools and middle schools in New York City. Speaking from the pulpit of a Baptist church in Brooklyn four days after two students were shot dead in a hallway at Thomas Jefferson High School in East New York, the Mayor said that the use of metal detectors would be expanded from a weekly to a daily basis at that school and that security would be tightened at 35 other schools. A1.

It was not a bad night to be Roger Neilson, unassuming coach of the very best National Hockey League team that ever saw March 1, 1992. The Rangers won again, 9-4, playing tic-tac-toe all over the woeful Hartford Whalers for their fourth straight victory and their 11th straight game at Madison Square Garden without a loss. The Washington Capitals lost, so the Rangers moved six points atop the Patrick Division with 15 games left to play.