April 19, 1993

The official 1992-93 televison season ended last night, and ABC was the only network to gain ground, moving into second place behind CBS. The final results will be tabulated tomorrow and will show that CBS was the highest-rated network for the second year in a row, while NBC suffered the biggest losses and slid deeply into third place.

Five black prison guards, claiming that an atmosphere of racial bias dominates a New Jersey State prison in Avenel, say that white officers and commanders in recent years placed a photograph of a Ku Klux Klan member on the prison bulletin board, scrawled "go back to Africa" signs on sentry boxes and uttered racist slurs. The guards detail their charges in a suit that their lawyers said would be filed today in Federal District Court in Newark against the New Jersey Department of Corrections and 16 department officials and officers. In the suit, the officers contend that their civil rights have been violated through "a continuing pattern and practice of race discrimination, racial harassment and retaliation against African-American corrections officers and their white supporters." A copy of the suit was given to The New York Times by lawyers for the officers.

The Economy Consumers are flocking back to the nation's stores as the weather improves, and business executives and economists are breathing easier. Early April cars sales werealso up, and mortgage applications remain at a high level. [ Page D1. ] Business pledges to help revitalize poor neighborhoods in Los Angeles have so far done little to change the bleak economic conditions of the inner city. [ A1. ]

Just one month before President Clinton is scheduled to send Congress an ambitious proposal to guarantee comprehensive health care for all Americans, Administration officials are beginning to realize that it may involve huge costs and tax increases bigger than any previously proposed. The White House has spent 12 weeks developing ideas for guaranteeing all Americans a rich package of health benefits. But only recently has the task force sorting through the ideas begun to focus on the costs.

More than a year and a half after Prof. Anita F. Hill's accusations against Judge Clarence Thomas gripped the nation, the state and law school where she teaches remain trapped in a painful argument over whether she was a courageous law professor or a perjurer who should leave Oklahoma. Hardly a week goes by without a protest on the campus and at the State Capitol over a plan to honor her with an endowed chair to research sexual harassment and women's rights issues.