FIRST OFF . . .

Meanwhile, Rep. Sidney Yates (D-Ill.) said a House-Senate conference committee will meet next week--possibly Tuesday or Wednesday--to put in final form an appropriation bill for the arts endowment. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) amended the bill to prohibit government financing of what he calls offensive or indecent art works. Yates said the conference committee will focus on the fate of the Helms language and other restrictive provisions inserted in the House. Other Senate-added restrictions would slap a five-year ban on federal grants to two private arts agencies that sponsored shows involving controversial works. And in yet another development, New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art said it would take out full-page advertisements today in the New York Times and Washington Post in the form of an open letter from the museum’s trustees to the Congress protesting provisions of the Helms amendment and other restrictions on the arts endowment.