What was going on when I was born?

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10--President Carter today announced a plan to spend $2 billion more on programs to help unemployed youths prepare for and enter the work market. He termed it a "historic investment" in the future.

Telephone companies in New York State were ordered yesterday to further loosen their grip on equipment by allowing customers to purchase or install their own in-house telephone wiring, which they must now rent for a monthly fee.

BRUSSELS, Jan. 10--Western Europe offered hesitant and incomplete support today for President Carter's plan to cut off United States grain sales to the Soviet Union in retaliation for Moscow's intervention in Afghanistan.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10--The Labor Department's Producer Price Index, which measures what retailers pay for the goods they sell to consumers, rose eight-tenths of 1 percent in December, the smallest increase in six months, the Government reported today.

ASWAN, Egypt, Jan. 10--President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel ended a four-day meeting today with no sign of progress on setting up a self-administering authority for Palestinian Arabs.

THE hubbub of the holiday season tends to discourage art galleries from opening new exhibitions. The competition for money and attention is too great, and in the midst of so many cultural and social distractions--pleasant and otherwise--what is familiar in art easily triumphs over the unfamiliar. In the first weeks of January, therefore, it seems as if every gallery in town is mounting a new show. Here, then, is a critical sampling from current offerings.

UNITED NATIONS, N.Y., Jan. 10-- Asian nations backing a resolution calling for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan were reported to be confident that they could obtain the twothirds vote needed to pass the resolution as the General Assembly began its emergency debate on the issue today.

AT Holly Solomon, 392 West Broadway, a gallery that's fast becoming known as the art scene's entertainment strip, Ned Smyth and Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt each have mounted a flashy but undeniably seductive environment.

Three Federal prosecutors in New York and New Jersey, working with agents of an internal integrity unit of the United States Customs Service, are investigating widespread allegations of bribe-receiving, theft, fraud and smuggling on the part of high customs officials. The three-pronged inquiry, which has already led to several indictments and convictions, is expected to produce scores of cases when it is concluded.

The soaring price of silver--which has increased from just over $6 an ounce a year ago to about $35 now-- has proved to be a major headache for some industries but has developed into a bonanza for others.

LONDON, Jan. 10--The world's major oil exporters are embarking on a campaign to sell their oil in "package deals" meant to secure additional profits for them at the expense of the international oil companies and to win access to Western refining technology.

KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan. 10--Soviet military units appear to be concentrating their efforts on securing newly established bases and staging areas, and clearing highways and other land routes west toward Iran, according to Western diplomats and Afghan sources here.