February 13, 1987

LEAD: Driving a station wagon with tinted windows, Timothy O'Brien recently carried the corpse of a man who had died of AIDS from a funeral home in East Harlem to another in Queens where a wake would be held.

LEAD: THE bald eagle, an endangered species, is at roost all around Manhattan - in stone, in bronze, in paint, in stitchery, on sidewalks and rooftops, canvas and quilts, on monuments and office buildings, in parks and museums.

LEAD: A Texas appellate court today upheld a historic judgment by a lower state court, agreeing that Texaco Inc. illegally persuaded the Getty Oil Company to back out of a merger three years ago with the Pennzoil Company.

LEAD: A new program of Federal health benefits for elderly people became virtually certain today when President Reagan proposed expansion of Medicare to cover the costs of catastrophic illnesses.

LEAD: The United States and its four principal economic allies may be edging toward agreement on stabilizing their currencies but they are still a considerable distance from an accord, American and foreign officials said here today.