December 24, 1991

Laura Lee Gossmann was an artist and a receptionist who had traveled the world but had come to fear her native New York. Yolanda Jacob was a Dominican immigrant who worked as a domestic in New Jersey and dreamed of becoming a lawyer and returning to her beloved homeland. Both women were 23 years old, and both died violently in the last three days.

While environmental and consumer groups have criticized the White House Council on Competitiveness as being anti-regulatory, some conservatives say the office, headed by Vice President Dan Quayle, has proved to have little muscle. In fact, there has been an unabated growth in Federal regulations during the Bush Administration. Conservatives note that nearly 4,900 Federal regulations are currently being written -- as against 4,000 being considered at any one time in the Reagan years -- and that a vast majority of them will never be examined by the council, a panel with six high-ranking members and only six full-time aides.

President Boris N. Yeltsin of Russia asked President Bush in a telephone call today to formally recognize the Russian republic, and Administration officials said recognition would come by Wednesday or Thursday after the expected resignation of President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The move follows the European Community's decision today to recognize the Russian republic as the de facto successor to the Soviet Union, which has now divided into an 11-republic Commonwealth of Independent States, three independent Baltic nations and an independent Georgia.

Oil prices have plunged deeply since OPEC last met at the end of November, bringing tension within the cartel to a crucial stage. With prices now down $5 a barrel since then, to around $17 a barrel, Algeria called today for an emergency meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Itwarned that if the group did not trim its production by at least two million barrels a day soon, prices could tumble further, to $10 a barrel, under the combined impact of worsening recession in the United States and other industrialized countries and the organization's runaway production.

A SCROOGE-LIKE SIGN OF RECESSION Economists can go cross-eyed studying dry statistics like housing starts, industrial production and the money supply in their obsessive search for telling signs on the economy. But next year they might want to consider a different indicator: the demand for Christmas trees is noticeably lower this year. B5. NEW YORK CITY MAXWELL QUITS THE DAILY NEWS Kevin Maxwell resigned as publisher and chairman of The Daily News, apparently bowing to the pressures created by the evidence of his role in the collapse of the media empire founded by his father, Robert Maxwell. His resignation signals the end of the Maxwell family's nine-month involvement in The News. A1. CITY JAILS CHIEF RESIGNS The head of New York City's jail system, Allyn R. Sielaff, resigned hours after his department was rebuked for its handling of a $1.9 million contract awarded to a firm that had been represented in negotiations by a close friend of Mayor David N. Dinkins. His resignation ends a 20-month tenure that began with high praise for his innovation. But after a prison riot that state officials said he mishandled, his management policies came under steady criticism. A1. GREEK ICON STOLEN IN QUEENS The "weeping icon" of peace, which drew hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to a Queens church earlier this year, was stolen at gunpoint, the police said. A1. REVERBERATIONS FROM KAHANE VERDICT Several Jewish leaders called for new investigations into the killing of Rabbi Meir Kahane and into the acquittal of an Egyptian immigrant who was the prime suspect. The Manhattan District Attorney's office, meantime, defended its handling of what had been regarded as an open-and-shut case. B3. CLOUDY ISSUES IN TRANSIT CONTRACT A vote last week on a huge Metropolitan Transportation Authority contract ended a bruising seven-month competition that reflected the nettlesome issues that arise when officials leave government office and work for private companies that do business with their old agency. B3. REGION ATTICA CHAPLAIN RECALLS RIOT In the war of 20-year-old memories at the Attica trial, the former prison chaplain put his word against that of former Attica inmates who are suing over what they say was the state's brutality in putting down their insurrection in 1971. Msgr. Eugene V. Marcinkiewicz remembered chilling details of the morning state forces took back the prison and left 10 hostages and 29 inmates dead and scores of others wounded. B5. A BRIEF HOLIDAY FOR SCHOOL CLOSING Students at the financially troubled University of Bridgeport have gone home for the holidays with assurances that classes "will in all probability" resume in January. But next semester will almost certainly be the university's last, as its trustees negotiate a merger with Sacred Heart University in the neighboring town of Fairfield. B5. Closing up shop on a time gone by. Our Towns. B5. Holiday Schedules B2 Neediest Cases B3