January 30, 1992

The Bethlehem Steel Corporation, after reporting a loss of $638.1 million for the fourth quarter, said yesterday that it would cut its work force by 6,500 and stop paying its annual stock dividend. The job cuts at the nation's second-largest steelmaker will amount to about 25 percent of the work force. The reductions will be made over the next two years through layoffs, early retirement programs and sales of parts of the company.

The Cut in Tax Withholding The President's order lowering withholding will inject more than $2 billion a month into the economy. But analysts warn taxpayers to be wary of a trap. Article and table, page A17. Weapons Jobs at Risk . . .

"I'LL take it," a tall, elegant man whispered before slipping away into the crowd at the opening of the Winter Antiques Show in Manhattan. "He'll take it," Blanche Greenstein echoed to her partner, Thomas K. Woodard.

More than 60 American oil industry executives who came here seeking ways to invest in Russia's oil industry ran into a raft of obstacles this week. An essential obstacle lay in the struggle over control of the republic's crude oil. Another was the absence of some important people who were supposed to be there. Yet another was the lack of stable policies to govern foreign investments in oil, which Russian officials acknowledged might be difficult to achieve.

The budget that President Bush sent Congress today is essentially his campaign manifesto, and it delineates how starkly his views differ from those of his Democratic opponents, in Congress and on the campaign trail. With minor exceptions, the new budget underscores Mr. Bush's intention of maintaining the same course the country has been on for the last dozen years, one in which the Government uses tax and spending policy as little as possible to guide the nation's economic affairs.

Southern California's air-quality regulators said today that they planned a radical new approach to controlling air pollution, allowing companies to purchase the right to pollute if they could not or chose not to reduce emissions on their own. The new approach, which is still subject to formal approval, would supplant the current system of tight company-by-company regulation and would be the largest and most ambitious attempt yet to clean up the air by replacing regulatory fiat with free-market forces.

President Bush and President Boris N. Yeltsin made new arms control proposals this week that envision slashing American and Russian long-range nuclear arms by well over half and could eliminate the class of missiles considered the biggest threat to peace. But Mr. Bush's proposal, outlined in the State of the Union Address on Tuesday, asks Mr. Yeltsin to take a step that no Soviet leader ever entertained: give up his advantage in one area of nuclear arms competition, land-based missiles, in return for an important concession but not parallel cuts in the area of American advantage, submarine-based missiles.

Sharply criticizing a jury's acquittal on murder charges, a Manhattan judge sentenced an Egyptian immigrant to the maximum sentence of 7 1/3 to 22 years in prison yesterday for gun possession, assault and coercion charges arising from the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane. As hundreds of police officers kept chanting Arabs away from Jewish sympathizers outside the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building, State Supreme Court Justice Alvin Schlesinger said the jury's decision to acquit the immigrant, El Sayyid A. Nosair, of murder last month "was against the overwhelming weight of evidence and was devoid of common sense and logic."

The nation's economy all but came to a standstill in the final quarter of 1991 after two quarters of small advances, the Commerce Department reported yesterday. Neither fears of renewed recession nor the Administration's hopes of early recovery were confirmed by the report. "Economic activity was essentially flat in the fourth quarter," said J. Antonio Villamil, the Commerce Department's chief economist.

In an election-year budget of $1.52 trillion, President Bush called today for modest increases in a wide range of popular domestic programs, but he avoided any major change in spending priorities to fight the recession. Most of the President's proposed budget carries out decisions and commitments made in the past. Social Security overtakes military spending for the first time, as the Pentagon budget declines while cash payments to the elderly rise steadily.

Caught between the glories of its past and the uncertainties of its future, the haute couture industry has been presenting a fragmented image in the showings of its spring and summer collections this week. Forgetting that fashion is based on change, some couturiers are reliving their past successes and others are marching in place, while a few are showing eccentric clothes. Discussions are going on at every level as to whether the rules for acceptance to the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne should be changed, as if that will solve everything. Twenty-one designers are members of the government-supported group that organizes the haute couture industry and schedules its twice-yearly showings.

The Economy Southern California's air-quality regulators said they plan a radical new approach to controlling air pollution that will allow companies to purchase the right to pollute if they cannot or choose not to reduce emissions on their own. [ Page A1. ]