April 20, 1991

Gasoline prices are likely to rise by 10 cents to 15 cents a gallon at the pump by the middle of May, to an average of $1.20 to $1.25 a gallon, according to several energy analysts. The nation's gasoline stocks have fallen to the lowest level in 16 years, and gasoline imports this month remain below normal levels with the summer driving season approaching. As a result, nervous traders have added 8 cents this month to the price of gasoline for May delivery.

A Florida appeals court upheld the conviction of a woman charged with giving cocaine to her newborn baby through the umbilical cord. Page 6.

The slide that began three years ago on Wall Street has now ricocheted throughout the city's economy, claiming jobs in everything from banking to auto repair. As the recession continues to deepen, tens of thousands of New Yorkers are discovering its pain, finding themselves in unemployment lines that are growing longer and ever-more democratic. More than 100,000 people lost their jobs in New York City in the last three years, government analysts say. And the number of people who were laid off and applied for unemployment insurance reached an eight-year high in the last month.

Riddled with dysentery and typhoid after days of foul and fruitless waiting to enter Iran, some Kurdish refugees at this checkpoint on the Iran-Iraq border today abandoned their flight from Saddam Hussein's army and began heading back into Iraq. They said they would walk 11 miles to Halabja, a Kurdish stronghold twice destroyed by Mr. Hussein's army and the scene of an infamous 1988 massacre in which 5,000 or more civilians died from mustard gas and cyanide.

In the face of strong opposition from the White House and small businesses, an effort by leading corporations and civil rights groups to draft a job discrimination bill collapsed today. The man who initiated the effort, Robert C. Allen, chairman and chief executive of American Telephone and Telegraph, said his company was pulling out of the negotiations because his efforts at compromise were being undercut by "all sides of the issue."