July 23, 1992

For months, Silicon Valley has waited, and today it discovered it would have to wait a bit longer. The Intel Corporation said it would take three months longer than expected to formally introduce the computer chip that is expected to dominate the industry through the middle of the decade. The chip, which had been due this fall, will not be introduced until early next year, Intel said. The company hopes the delay will enable it to make a bigger splash with the chip when it does become available.

THEY stood in the doorways of the Stop 1 Supermarket, the Red Hook Chinese Kitchen, Freddy's Fast Cleaners and other small businesses, smiling, waving and looking delighted and puzzled as the 28-piece marching band strutted and danced along Van Brunt Street in Brooklyn at noon on Saturday. They waved, too, at the matriarch sitting in the horse-drawn carriage that followed, who acknowledged their greetings with a gracious nod and a flutter of a hand reminiscent of Britain's Queen Mother. Most of the crowd had no idea what the woman, the people marching behind the carriage or the black and gold uniformed band from the Jackie Robinson Center in Brooklyn were doing on their street. But before the entourage had reached the entrance to Coffey Park, word had spread among the curious. The procession was a prelude to what was believed to be the biggest African-American family reunion ever held in Red Hook.

The General Electric Company pleaded guilty yesterday to four Federal criminal fraud charges for its role in a scandal involving the sale of military jet engines to Israel. General Electric entered the guilty pleas at a hearing in United States District Court in Cincinnati as part of an agreement with the Justice Department calling for the company to pay $9.5 million in fines for the criminal charges and $59.5 million to settle a related civil case.

In the face of threatening demonstrations, the United Nations today withdrew the teams of arms inspectors who have been parked in jeeps outside the Agriculture Ministry for 17 days, seeking entry to search around the clock for ballistic missile plans believed to be hidden inside. The United States, Britain and France, which have indicated increasing exasperation with President Saddam Hussein's refusal to cooperate with the Security Council's gulf war cease-fire terms, have issued vague threats to use military force against him again if the inspectors continue to be barred. But with their withdrawal today, the Iraqi leader appeared to have faced down the Council's threats.

K. D. LANG is the type of politically radical vegetarian lesbian defender of wildlife you'd want to bring home to mother. Wholesome, endearing, strident and polemical, she has a golden voice that could fill the Grand Canyon. So could some of her opinions. Quiet but not shy, she was sickened when she learned that a baboon's liver had been used to save the life of a man.