October 28, 1997

Dow Plunges 554 Points; Exchanges Close Early Stocks tumbled around the world, and on Wall Street, markets were forced to end trading earlier than planned. The Dow industrials lost 554.26 points, or 7.2 percent, closing at 7,161.15, but no one knew just how far stocks might have skidded had not market rules -- adopted in the wake of the crash 10 years ago -- required markets to close at 3:30 P.M., half an hour early. The Dow's drop in percentage terms was the biggest ever in terms of points, but only about a third as large as the 22.6 percent on Oct. 19, 1987, in percentage terms. [Page A1.]

Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization establishes Web site featuring every musical in Rodgers & Hammerstein Theater Library Catalogue, with production details and orchestrations, as well as articles, statistics and other information; Doubleday publishing company releases list of 10 most influential books it has published; lifetime achievement award is presented to cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, who is 70 this year, in ceremony at Alexandra Palace in London; annual Gramophone Awards are presented; Kiri Te Kanawa presents award to Luciano Pavarotti for raising $8.2 million for children of Bosnia; Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, pulls four nudes from exhibition of sculpture by Auguste Rodin (M)

Jury in evidence-tampering trial of Dr Claus P Speth remains deadlocked after seventh day of deliberations in State Superior Court (New Jersey Daily Briefing) (S)

Article on organized chaos of New York City Marathon, which winds its way through city's five boroughs for 26.2 miles in procession that is equal parts race, fitness celebration, street festival and sociological statement; tables; graphs; photos (special section, Preview of New York City Marathon) (L)

Green Bay Packers defeat New England Patriots, 28-10; photo (M)

Article on Florida Marlins winning World Series over Cleveland Indians in seven games; players, coaches and team officials comment; photo (M)

New Jersey Devils defeat Philadelphia Flyers, 5-0; photo (M)

Charles Dutoit conducts Montreal Symphony at Carnegie Hall; Martha Argerich is piano soloist; photo; Bernard Holland review (M)

Scientists from five nations allow icebreaker to be frozen into floe drifting in Arctic Ocean, where they will gather gigantic treasury of data during coming year; hope their measurements will settle some disagreements among theorists about interaction of Arctic climate with that of rest of world and eliminate some major uncertainties in global climate forecasting; photo of icebreaker Des Groseilliers, now frozen into ice (M)

New technological tools enable civilian public to break Government's hold on secret intelligence on military issues and nuclear weapons; commercial spy craft are about to let anyone with credit card peer down from heavens onto battlefields, military bases, arms factories, missile fields and nuclear test sites; first of dozen or so satellites is scheduled to be launched into orbit in December; trends point to new age in which civilians and independent analysts are destined to play increasingly important role in in national security debates (M)

United Food and Commercial Workers Local 56 asks Federal officials to let about 400 New Jersey and Pennsylvania doctors join it as bargaining unit in negotiations with Philadelphia health maintenance organization called Amerihealth Organization (New Jersey Daily Briefing) (S)

Intel Corp and Digital Equipment Corp end five months of bitter legal wrangling over patent infringement suit brought by Digital; Intel agrees to buy Digital Equipment's semiconductor manufacturing operations for $700 million and to pay royalties as part of broad settlement of suit; Digital will retain ownership of its proprietary Alpha microprocessor, which Intel agrees to manufacture, but Digital also commits itself to developing computers built around next generation of Intel chips, which will compete directly with Alpha; two sides enter into 10-year cross-licensing agreement that would allow them to use each others' design patents, although only Intel will pay royalties; antitrust experts doubt that Federal Trade Commission will approve accord, noting that agency is already investigating Intel's near monopoly of microprocessor market (M)