February 7, 1991

Some of the oldest and best-known American insurance companies have decided to abandon their all-things-to-all-people approach in favor of a narrower focus. The change could substantially affect rates for many kinds of insurance, the prices of insurance stocks and the economy in the Northeast, where the largest insurance companies are based. Stung by losses or shrinking profits in many of their businesses, the insurers are sharply cutting back on or abandoning entire areas of insurance, selling unrelated businesses, closing offices and laying off workers.

As smoke and flames filled the cabin of their jetliner after it crashed into a smaller plane last week, those aboard rushed to the six exits only to find one jammed shut, another blocked by flames and movement through a third impeded by two scuffling passengers, Federal investigators said today. The investigators said the fourth exit was damaged in the crash and the fifth could only be used with difficulty. Just one exit was clear. At least 17 of the 22 passengers and crew members who were killed in the crash had gotten up from their seats and were groping along the floor or climbing over seats in the smoky cabin but died before reaching safety.

Standard & Poor's downgraded the credit ratings of all three top domestic auto makers today, underscoring the rapidly unraveling conditions in the industry and raising the prospect of higher borrowing costs. Analysts said the impact of the downgrades would be minimal for the General Motors Corporation and the Ford Motor Company, although borrowing may become marginally more expensive for the No. 1 and No. 2 domestic auto makers.

Two or three undercover agents believed to be working for Israel in a Syrian-based terrorist group were unmasked and killed last fall, not long after the United States gave the Damascus Government information about terrorist activities in the country, several Bush Administration officials say. The link between the two events has not been proved. But officials said American experts believe that terrorists obtained the intelligence information given to Syrian leaders and used it to track down the agents within the terrorists' ranks.

IT sounded like a stampede, and the entire building began to shake. That is what happens in a restored farmhouse, built well over a century ago, when seven teen-age girls bound out of their rooms and gallop down the stairs to dinner. The girls were dressed in regulation adolescent attire: jeans, oversized T-shirts, running shoes and dangling earrings. Their fluffy hairdos were testimony to a collection of blow-dryers that was, in teen-age parlance, "awesome."