February 1, 1991

As Saudi troops backed by American marines drove Iraqi invaders from the deserted coastal town of Khafji near the Kuwaiti border today after a 36-hour struggle, allied bombers pounded a 10-mile Iraqi armored column apparently headed for Saudi Arabia. Almost two days after the fighting near Khafji began, Iraqi artillery was still shelling the area, and door-to-door searches were under way in the shell-pocked town in an effort to root out isolated Iraqi snipers. There were strong signs that another, bigger Iraqi assault might be in the making.

The Dinkins administration avoided a confrontation with the City Council yesterday by turning over several boxes of documents sought by a Council committee that is investigating the safety of the city's bridges and by promising to provide any other information the committee wanted, Council officials said. Some of the surrendered documents were found yesterday under a pile of papers on the desk of Transportation Commissioner Lucius J. Riccio, said Albert Scardino, press secretary to Mayor David N. Dinkins. They would have been provided earlier but could not be found, Mr. Scardino said. The Council had threatened Monday to subpoena the information, including some blanked-out portions of documents that had been turned over, if it was not made available by 5 P.M. yesterday. Limits on Information Mr. Scardino denied yesterday that the administration had withheld documents. He added that, if asked, it still would not provide information it considered privileged -- like personnel and medical records, documents on active contract negotiations and correspondence between the Mayor, deputy mayors and commissioners that expresses opinions or recommendations on policy.

Last year's disastrous Christmas sales season claimed its first big victim yesterday. The Tonka Corporation, the nation's third-largest toy company, agreed to be acquired by Hasbro Inc. for about $516 million. Analysts said they were not surprised by the announcement because Christmas sales were so dismal that companies like Tonka, saddled with heavy debt and a toy chest cluttered with duds, were bound to seek buyers.

Germany's central bank raised two leading interest rates today in a surprise move that is likely to slow global economic growth and further strain the country's relations with its main European trading partners. While higher interest rates were expected soon, no action was foreseen today. Karl Otto Pohl, the president of the central bank, the Bundesbank, said earlier this week that international political conditions were not right for such a move.

IF you missed the "High and Low" show at the Museum of Modern Art, there is still time to catch Hi and Lois at the World Financial Center. These well-known comic marrieds are just 2 of more than 100 characters appearing in almost 50 original drawings and vintage printed pages representing some of America's greatest newspaper comic strips from 1896 to the present. They are on loan through Feb. 15 from the Museum of Cartoon Art in Rye, N.Y. At first, the World Financial Center might seem an unlikely place for an exhibition of comic strips. But traditionally, in good times and bad -- bad, especially, like right now, in the widespread recession -- America's most popular native form of graphic humor has functioned as a kind of unrecognized economic indicator, reflecting, specifically, how much the nation needs a laugh. Remember how popular the funny pages were during the Great Depression, when they and their offshoots on the radio and in the movies helped keep people's spirits up. And then, of course, there was the celebrated newspaper strike in which the children of New York were suffering such miseries of comic-strip deprivation that Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia stepped in and read the funnies on his weekly radio show.