December 8, 1991

In this recession-dimmed holiday season, most people around the New York region have their own share of troubles. And many have become numbed to the suffering that has been so pervasive for so long. Alleviating it seems too daunting. But those who suffer - and the help they receive from The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund - are no abstractions. Their stories are as simple as the bond between an elderly woman and her home-care worker, as complicated as the assistance a woman with AIDS needs in preparing her daughter for her death, as stark as the slap of a child's face. Articles, page 87.

A THREE-YEAR campaign to win a place for the Peconic estuary in a national program appears to be in trouble. A failure would dash hopes for Federal money to protect the troubled bay waters from degradation. Despite petitions by Representative George J. Hochbrueckner, Democrat of Centereach, Suffolk County officials and East End citizens' groups, a Federal environmental official said last week that it appeared unlikely, although not impossible, that the bays would be added to the 17 estuaries in the program.

FOR the first time this season, Phil Simms will be the starting quarterback at Giants Stadium today, prompting several questions. Will he be greeted with cheers by all those who believed he should have been chosen by Coach Ray Handley as the starter instead of Jeff Hostetler when the season began?

HAWTHORNE, N.Y. On a hillside here in the heart of I.B.M.'s home territory, Abraham Peled, an I.B.M. computer scientist, is trying to recreate Silicon Valley. To the extent that he succeeds -- or fails -- he will be a bellwether for I.B.M. in carrying out ambitious plans to redefine itself, arrest its declining earnings and bolster its falling market share. Mr. Peled has taken a small group of engineers and programmers and spawned a start-up company inside the International Business Machines Corporation to create a new computer. Tucked away in a rented building within walking distance of I.B.M.'s computer science research laboratory, the group has worked in secrecy and outside the company's normal channels to translate basic research into a commercial product at a breakneck pace.

Union's Fiscal Shift A major municipal labor leader said it is time to consider letting the Financial Control Board oversee New York City's finances. Page 44. In Prisons, Double-Bunks Out of space and awash in inmates, New York State is installing 3,000 emergency bunks. Page 52. The Stone-Faced Prosecutor Many who know her describe Moira K. Lasch, the prosecutor in the Smith rape case, as brilliant, methodical and unemotional in court. Page 36.