July 1, 1994

A group of Hong Kong investors stepped in yesterday with the money that Donald J. Trump needs to begin building the first towers of Riverside South, a project that could profoundly alter the Upper West Side of Manhattan by creating homes for thousands of wealthy residents on what is now an abandoned riverfront rail yard. Construction could start within a year, Mr. Trump said yesterday after he signed a financing deal and joint-venture agreement with a consortium that includes the New World Development Company Ltd., headed by Y. T. Cheng and his son, Henry, and the Shui On Group Ltd., headed by Vincent Lo.

Ross Perot, one of the worst enemies of the Republicans in the last Presidential campaign, may soon become a friend. Mr. Perot has offered the G.O.P. $1 million to produce a nationally televised program to critique President Clinton's health care plan, Republican officials said.

Starting July 1, thousands of people seeking mammograms, inoculations, prenatal care and other basic medical treatment in Des Moines and Waterloo, Iowa, have a new place to go: Deere & Company, the world's largest manufacturer of farm and construction machinery. The clinics, which Deere will own and operate for its employees and retirees and their families in the two cities, are patterned after a family care center Deere opened last year near its headquarters here. That center now provides basic medical care for more than 6,000 Deere people, including Hans W. Becherer, the company's chairman and chief executive.

SALVADOR DALI is one of the most popular artists of the 20th century, so no doubt many people who hear that a Dali show has opened at the Metropolitan Museum will expect nothing less than a full-dress retrospective. Fortunately, they will be disappointed. There is no sign here of the Dali of the last half-century (he died in 1989), when he so assiduously cultivated notoriety and fortune that his erstwhile Surrealist colleague Andre Breton famously rearranged the letters of his name to become Avida Dollars. Nor is this a show about the Dali whose work, increasingly a recycling of his youthful ideas, became more and more a matter of merchandising. And neither is it about the aging prankster who was said to have signed thousands of blank sheets of paper, later turned into factory-produced lithographs, that flooded the market and fueled the bitterness surrounding his already plummeting reputation.

Companies Shares of CBS and QVC soared, as the top executives of the companies confirmed that they had reached a tentative agreement to merge operations. [D1.] QVC's chairman, Barry Diller, promised to propel CBS into the forefront of the telecommunications revolution. [D1.] CBS's employees and some stars applauded the prospect of a company run by Mr. Diller. [D15.]