June 3, 1992

Democratic voters in California nominated two women in separate Senate contests today, setting the stage for a first in American political history: an election with two women running for the United States Senate from the same state. The two women, Dianne Feinstein, a former mayor of San Francisco, and Representative Barbara Boxer, easily defeated their male opponents in races that many political experts called a historic watershed in a year of female political outrage and growing public demand for candidates who represent a break from the establishment politics of government in Washington.

A NEW breed of cheeses is filling the shelves of supermarkets and specialty shops: low-fat, no-fat and reduced-fat cheeses. They may not appeal to those who prefer rich, buttery varieties, but that has not prevented an explosion of versions that are more nutritionally correct, if less compelling. At Fairway Fruits and Vegetables on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, sales of some of these cheeses have more than doubled, according to David Grotenstein, the manager for cheese and specialty foods. "Two years ago we would sell two cases of Jarlsberg Lite a week," he said. "Now, we are selling 10 cases."

AUGUST WILSON needed a haircut. He moved from St. Paul to Seattle a year and a half ago, and the barber he found there seemed blind in one eye. "He always cuts my hair lopsided," the playwright said. So he intended, after breakfast, to leave the Edison Hotel, smack in the middle of Manhattan's theater district, the "four square blocks" where Mr. Wilson said he spends most of his time in New York, for West 125th Street and the West African Hair Groomers. He got a good haircut there on an earlier trip, and -- just as important -- the idea of the place caught his fancy.

Even for investors in church bonds, a brokerage firm can taketh away. According to a civil suit filed yesterday by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the AMI Investment Corporation of Amarillo, Tex., hoodwinked tens of thousands of investors into believing they had bought no-risk investments in what were often financially troubled churches and other not-for-profit organizations.

The Earth Summit, a vast environmental jamboree bringing together thousands of delegates from more than 170 countries, countless ecological watchdogs and the world press, gets under way tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro and it has already become mired in discord and suspicion between rich and poor nations. The central issues are: Who will pay the bill for the first comprehensive attempt to repair the environmental damage caused by industrialization? And who will insure that the poor nations of the southern hemisphere industrialize at a lower cost to the environment than the richer nations of the North did?