November 9, 1994

With Republicans in control of the Senate next year, the legislative schedule and the chairmanship of the committees where laws are written will be in the hands of a group of politicians much more conservative than the Democrats who have run the Senate for the last eight years. Bob Dole of Kansas, who is contemplating a run for the Presidency in two years, will become majority leader, a post he held in 1985 and 1986 and relinquished after Democrats took the Senate in the 1986 elections. His deputy will be Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming. Both are known for their tart tongues and their skill in debate.

SHE hovers, dark and forbidding. Dressed in black, moving in shadow, she watches, waits, while he sits in the light and laughs, beguiles. And then, inevitably perhaps, she strikes, rushing toward him, drawing back her arm. He faces her, gravely now. She lunges at his heart. With a lint brush.

For the first time in a generation, Connecticut elected a Republican Governor yesterday, John G. Rowland. His principal campaign promise was to repeal the 3-year-old state income tax, the legacy of Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr.

ONCE considered the wayward stepchildren of publishers, cookbooks have achieved the status of glamorous and highly visible offspring. Carefully priced, often elaborately packaged and sometimes aimed at specific audiences, they are no longer geared just to the kitchens of gastronomic strivers. Moved by every conceivable medium into the mainstream, they have become vehicles for celebrity and, sometimes, for mind-boggling sales. "There is no doubt that cookbooks are selling significantly better," said Pat Klein, the cookbook buyer for the 1,100 stores that Waldenbooks owns throughout the country. "As of this year, they became one of our top 10 best-selling categories."

The Republican Party seized control of the Senate and moved within a few seats of capturing the House yesterday, winning eight Democratic seats in the Senate and at least 38 in the House. The gains were the Republicans' strongest in decades and put them in position to thwart President Clinton and his legislative proposals for the next two years. The Republican tide also extended to the races for governor in several important states that will be critical to Mr. Clinton's hopes for re-election in 1996, including New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and California.