January 15, 2006

BIG hips are back. The swollen rear fenders that dominated car design in the late 1960's, the shape of oversize muscle and latent sensuality, are bulging from many of the dream machines at the North American International Auto Show. They were on the retro muscle cars from two Detroit automakers, the Dodge Challenger and Chevrolet Camaro, but even on design studies from foreign companies: the Hyundai HCD9 Talus, the Mazda Kabura and the Lamborghini Miura.

Forgotten Survivors of Abuse For every child killed in a notorious abuse case, there are usually several siblings, who usually vanish quickly from the public's consciousness. Yet what happens to them may say more about the child welfare system than the fatalities that capture so much outrage. PAGE 27 The Patriots' Reign Is Over The New England Patriots, winners of three of the last four Super Bowls, lost to the Denver Broncos, 27-13, and the Seattle Seahawks beat the Washington Redskins, to advance in the N.F.L. playoffs. SPORTSSUNDAY Coming Home From Iraq For part-time soldiers who have served in Iraq, the return home is often quiet and unheralded, and there is often little official notice given to the psychological problems some bring back with them. PAGE 25 Skaters Bound for Olympics Sasha Cohen and Johnny Weir won United States figure skating championships and will compete in the Turin Games. Michelle Kwan was named to the team despite missing the nationals with an injury. SPORTSSUNDAY Shelley Winters Is Dead A major movie presence for more than five decades, Ms. Winters turned herself from a self-described ''dumb blond bombshell'' in B pictures to a widely respected actress who won two Academy Awards. PAGE 30 The Oscars In a special section on Academy Awards season, the critics peer deep inside the year's most haunting scenes and pick who should really be on the Oscar ballot. ARTS & LEISURE

Pakistani Foreign Ministry condemns loss of life as result of American airstrike on village of Damadola in Bajaur district of northwestern tribal region; delivers note of protest to American Embassy; local officials say 18 civilians were killed, including six children, but Information Min Sheik Rashid Ahmed says toll is higher; senior Pakistani security official says he is confident that Ayman al-Zawahiri, targeted No. 2 Al Qaeda leader, was not in village when it was hit by remotely piloted Predator aircraft armed with missiles; map; photo (L)

WITH James Frey's admission last week that he fabricated many of the hardest knocks in his hard-knocks memoir, ''A Million Little Pieces'' -- followed by the news that neither his publisher nor his most prominent cheerleader, Oprah Winfrey, seemed to care -- maybe it's time to ask: Does anyone care anymore about the ratio of fact to fiction in the memoir? Taking the long view, a good argument could be made that nobody ever did, at least not much, and that recent debates over autobiographical accuracy are anomalies of an exposé-obsessed age. Whoever assumed, for example, that Casanova filled a dozen volumes by being as passionate about accuracy as he was about jumping into bed? Who held Benvenuto Cellini, the master Florentine sculptor and self-mythologizer, to account after reading his rollicking autobiography, or for that matter Benjamin Franklin or Mark Twain, whose tales often read like tall ones?

WHILE luxury automakers introduced titillating high-performance cars last week at the North American International Auto Show, it was mostly a reality show for real people who need real transportation. In a sobering contrast with recent Detroit shows, the new cars were often more affordable and more fuel-efficient. There was less emphasis on trucks, though there was an abundance of the car-based sport utility vehicles called crossovers.