May 8, 1992

Hoping to influence the outcome of next month's Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, a group of powerful international business leaders, including top American executives, called today for greater environmental awareness from governments and private businesses. The group said business executives had to start addressing environmental issues to survive.

OFFICERS HELD ON DRUG CHARGES Five New York City police officers and a retired colleague were charged with running a cocaine ring in which drugs from Brooklyn were sold in bars and restaurants on Long Island. At least one of the officers also used cocaine, officials said, and two of the officers' wives were accused of helping in the cocaine business. A1. Residents of the 73d Precinct react. B5. NEW YORK CITY FERNANDEZ PRESSES FOR STATE AID Schools Chancellor Fernandez joined state legislators and the education unions in an attack on the Dinkins administration aimed at winning back $67 million in state aid that they say is being diverted to other city agencies. The statements added to the tensions between Mr. Fernandez and aides to Mayor Dinkins earlier this week over how to spend a $200 million surplus expected by the state's Municipal Assistance Corporation. B3. THANKS FROM THE MAYOR Riding a wave of praise for his handling of tensions after the Rodney G. King verdict, Mayor Dinkins broadcast a message thanking New Yorkers for the restraint that they showed last week amid rioting in Los Angeles and other major cities. B3. 3 DIE ON STATEN ISLAND A man crashed his car through the garage door of a house on Staten Island, killed his estranged companion and her 30-year-old daughter and set their bodies on fire before killing himself. B3. NEW SUSPECTS IN SLAYING OF OFFICER Three people accused of killing a New York City police sergeant in December were released from jail after four other people were charged in the same case. B3. REGION TOUGH RULES FOR BUSES In response to a bus accident that left two Long Island students dead last month, Governor Cuomo proposed legislation that would require new charter buses to have seat belts and would require bus drivers with bad driving records to be recertified. Officials with national highway safety organizations said they believed the new legislation would be the toughest in the nation. B6. RANSON DEMAND FOR EXECUTIVE Investigators have received a ransom demand for the safe return of Sidney J. Reso, an Exxon official who disappeared from his home in Morris Township, N.J., a law enforcement official said. But he said investigators had not been able to confirm whether the demand was genuine and had not disclosed its existence for fear of jeopardizing Mr. Reso's return. B6. A REFERENDUM ON THE FUTURE New Jersey has a $342 million budget gap with just seven weeks left in the current fiscal year, the State Treasurer said the gap, a result of a drop in revenue from the state income tax, will further complicate efforts by the Legislature's Republican majority to roll back the sales tax from 7 percent to 6 percent. B6. A FINALE IN HARTFORD The Connecticut General Assembly ended its regular legislative session with most budget-related bills completed and a handful of major proposals, including the legalization of video slot machines and an overhaul of the income-tax code, languishing as the clock ran out. B6. Our Towns by Andrew H. Malcolm B7 Chronicle B7

Signaling that the race to develop a standard for American high-definition television is in its homestretch, two of the four rival groups agreed in principle today to hedge their bets by splitting royalties if either of them wins the Government-supervised competition. The new alliance will unite two groups, one consisting of the General Instrument Corporation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the other consisting of the Zenith Electronics Corporation and the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.

New Shuttle Launched The nation's newest space shuttle, Endeavour, roared aloft with seven astronauts to save a stranded communication satellite. Page A16. Ex-Police Chief Convicted William Hart was found guilty of helping to embezzle $2.6 million from a fund set up to finance Detroit police undercover investigations. Page A12. Senator's Award Under Fire John Cardinal O'Connor says Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's abortion views make him a poor choice for an award from Notre Dame. Page B1. New Jersey Budget Gap Lower-than-expected tax revenue has left New Jersey facing a $342 million deficit seven weeks before the end of the fiscal year. Page B6. Olympia & York Offer Canada's troubled Olympia & York, seeking cash and relief from its $12 billion debt, offered stock to its creditors at talks in London. Page D1.

"ANDREA MANTEGNA," at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is a dense exhibition about this early Italian Renaissance master that includes some truly staggering works of art. Mantegna may be unfamiliar to many people. He spent most of his career not in a cultural center like Florence or Venice but in small-town 15th-century Mantua. His works are deeply cerebral and tough as nails in their hard-edged exactitude, and these qualities diminished him in the eyes of influential modern critics like John Ruskin and Bernard Berenson, who accused him of painting people "as if they were made of colored marble rather than flesh and blood." Berenson wasn't entirely wrong, but the show demonstrates that Mantegna could also be a profoundly affecting artist, as in his "Ecce Homo," where the gnarled features of the accusers serve to make more intense Christ's ethereal beauty. His "Virgin and Child," from the Gemalde galerie in Berlin, with its swaddled, sleeping baby tucked under the chin of His pensive mother, is no less touching an image of intimate emotion. And in "The Man of Sorrows With Two Angels," Mantegna's depiction of land and sky can even bring to mind the Romantic vistas of Caspar David Friedrich.

The 10-day strike by public employees in Germany ended today, having made one thing clear: Germans may be united in fact, but they are far from it in spirit. Western Germany's 2.3 million public employees settled for a 5.4 percent pay increase and a lump sum payment of up to $650, down from the 9.5 percent raise they had originally sought. [ Page A6. ]

Olympia & York Developments Ltd., the cash-short real estate giant, today offered its lending banks equity stakes in both its huge Canary Wharf development here and the parent company in return for debt-payment relief and new funds. The meeting with 15 of Olympia's largest lenders on restructuring $12 billion in debts continued into the night and how the banks would respond was not clear.

What could be the 27th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified by the necessary 38th state today. But it is unclear whether the measure, which won its first state ratification in 1789, will ever take effect. The vote by the Michigan Legislature, on an Amendment to prevent Congress from voting itself an immediate pay raise, stunned members of Congress and stumped scholars, who debated whether a proposal written 203 years ago by James Madison could still become part of the Constitution.

THE hottest ticket in New York this weekend is actually free. But there's no point in asking what line you can stand in to try to get one. You had to get in line last August. And you had to have the luck of Sky Masterson. About 200 people have free tickets to see Bruce Springsteen perform three songs tomorrow night. They'll also see Tom Hanks doing comedy for no extra charge.

Five New York City police officers and a retired colleague were charged yesterday with running a cocaine ring in which drugs from Brooklyn bodegas were ultimately sold in bars and restaurants on Long Island. At least one of the officers and perhaps others in the group also used cocaine, Deputy Chief Robert J. Beatty said. Two of the officers' wives were accused of helping in the cocaine business and a sixth active-duty officer was charged with conspiring to sell anabolic steroids, which are used by athletes to increase power and speed. Bought Drugs in Bodegas The arrests, made by Suffolk County police officers, represent the most flagrant charge of drug corruption in the city's police force in six years. For at least a year, the officers, sometimes in uniform and sometimes also working out of their patrol cars, bought drugs in bodegas in the 73d Precinct in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville section and the 94th Precinct in the Greenpoint section and took them back to Long Island, where they lived, selling out of their homes or meeting dealers and distributors throughout Suffolk County, law-enforcement officials in New York City and Long Island said. The authorities said the accused officers referred Long Island drug dealers to their sources in Brooklyn and financed a mid-level dealer in the city who shared profits with them.

Companies In the race to develop a high-definition TV standard for the U.S., two of four rival groups agreed in principle to split royalties if either wins the Government-supervised competition. The alliance will unite two groups, one with General Instrument and M.I.T., the other with Zenith Electronics and A.T.& T. [ Page D1. ]

The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, said today that the ill effects on the economy from bankers' reduced willingness to extend new loans was abating. While standing by his comments earlier this year that weakness in the financial system, including banks, was hurting the economy, Mr. Greenspan said the regulators were not to blame. He said the tougher financial standards for banks did not cause banks to reduce business lending and instead to increase their holdings of government securities sharply. Rather, he said, that trend "reflects mainly weak loan demand."