January 2, 1991

In the five hours after the end of a year that set a record for homicides, seven people were killed in New York City yesterday. Six of them were shot in separate incidents and one was stabbed to death in an elevator, apparently during an argument. The police said bursts of gunfire broke out throughout the city on New Year's Eve, apparently in celebration of the holiday. It was not clear whether the random gunfire led to any of the deaths or injuries.

President Bush met with senior advisers tonight to discuss the military and political strategies for the final push leading to the Jan. 15 deadline for Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait, Administration officials said. "We are going to start to talk about what we are going to do," a senior Administration official said before the meeting. "This is the first time the whole team will be back together since Dec. 18 to compare notes and review the whole range of strategic issues."

Top Resorts to Be Sold The Palm Beach Polo and Country Club, Kiawah Island in South Carolina and La Quinta in California will be sold to a management group and several Japanese investors. Page D1. Big Bank Cuts Prime Rate The Bank of America reduced its prime lending rate to 9.5 percent, from 10 percent, the first of the 10 largest banks to do so. Page D1. Paradox on Black Studies Can black politics be taught outside a black studies department? A San Francisco State University course raises a paradox. Education, page B8. Refilling the Hourglass After a 20-year reign of an anorexic esthetic, a consensus is forming that the perfect woman is full-figured, but fit. The Living Section, page C1. Troubled Times on Wall St. After a difficult year in the markets, attention is focused on interest rates and the prospect of economic revival. A review of 1990 in charts and tables, and a look ahead, pages D1 and D7-14.

BITE by bite, American women dutifully serve the reigning image of body beautiful. Men have been almost blissfully immune from the vicissitudes of body style, but in the United States women have borne the burden with gusto. In the late 19th century, when the fleshy physique dominated, the generous Gibson Girl contours were sought with a flurry of forks. "The lean are restless and irritable in mind, rarely contented, never quiet," admonished "How to Be Plump: Or Talks on Physiological Feeding," an 1878 handbook by Dr. T. C. Duncan. "They form the complaining element of society, and are unstable as a nation." When thin came in, women used their forks to push food primly from one side of the plate to the other. "It makes me feel powerful to be hungry," an emaciated Ivana Trump told reporters in 1986.

Continental, Pan Am, T.W.A., Midway: The list of distressed airlines reduced to selling precious assets, courting merger partners or throwing themselves on the mercy of bankruptcy courts grows ever longer. The run-up in oil prices just as the economy was slouching toward recession has certainly compounded the industry's problems. But many economists, including some who were early champions of deregulation, now believe that the resulting cash squeeze merely hastened the inevitable trend toward consolidation.