Summary: It was a judgement day and it took four and a half years to bring Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling to trial, but only a day to pick the jury that would decide whether the two former Enron chief executives lied to investors about the company's finances as it careered toward the largest corporate collapse in American history. In their opening statement, prosecutors told jurors that Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling ignored warnings from subordinates and hid financial problems at Enron from the public while they were taking home tens of millions of dollars a year and watching the value of their Enron shares soar.


Summary: The world's biggest investor-owned oil company, Exxon Mobil, posted the largest profit, a record $36.13 billion on revenue of $371 billion. Exxon's profit surge, which came even as worldwide production declined by 1 percent, may renew Congressional interest in the company and the oil industry in general, particularly since Exxon said its profits climbed more than 40 percent last year while its tax bill rose only 14 percent.


Summary: It took four and a half years to bring Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling to trial, but only a day to pick the jury that would decide whether the two former Enron chief executives lied to investors about the company's finances. In their opening statement, prosecutors told jurors that Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling ignored warnings from subordinates and hid financial problems at Enron from the public while they were taking home tens of millions of dollars a year. Lawyers for Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling said their clients planned to testify in their own defense at the trial.


Summary: Alan Greenspan presided over his last meeting as chairman of the Federal Reserve at the same time as the Senate was voting to confirm his successor. The Federal Open Market Committee headed by Mr. Greenspan once again raised interest rates by one-quarter of a percentage point, characteristically brushing aside signs of slower economic growth to focus on keeping a lid on inflation.


Summary: Both Yahoo and Amazon said that their profits were not as large as analysts had expected. Amazon's results were depressed by disappointing sales abroad and the cost of its free-shipping policy.


Summary: Kraft Foods took another cut out of its overhead, saying it would eliminate another 8,000 jobs and about 20 more factories. The reductions came after Kraft pared 5,500 jobs and shut 19 plants in a previous cost-cutting campaign. Its revenue rose 10 percent in the last quarter, to $9.7 billion, and its profit increased 28 percent, to $773 million. Its problem is that sales growth is slowing and its profit margin is shrinking.


Summary: The two most senior former executives of Enron went on trial for conspiracy and fraud. It took four and a half years to bring Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling to trial, but only a day to pick the jury that would decide whether the two former Enron chief executives lied to investors about the company's finances. The first prosecution witness, Mark E. Koenig, the former head of Enron's investor relations, testified that both Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling publicly proclaimed the company's strong performance even after being told of large trading losses.


Summary: Cobra, which the Internal Revenue Service never considered valid for deductions, is a variation of another abusive shelter known as Son of Boss. The I.R.S., which banned Son-of-Boss-style transactions in 2000, persuaded more than 1,200 people to come forward last year and pay $3.7 billion in taxes owed.


Summary: Paul M. Daugerdas, the tax lawyer at the heart of a broadening federal investigation into questionable tax shelters, has long had an interest in space exploration. The year he established the Chicago office of Jenkens & Gilchrist, he had his name engraved on two microchips inside an unmanned spacecraft named Stardust. In connection with the investigation of Mr. Daugerdas, federal prosecutors have already contacted individuals at several banks, including Deutsche Bank and several accounting firms, including Ernst & Young. According to a lawsuit filed by an Indiana investor, Henry N. Camferdam, Mr. Daugerdas used Deutsche Bank for transactions underlying a shelter known as Cobra for scores of clients. He took home $93 million from 1999 through 2003, putting part of it in a private firm he set up, with Jenkens' blessing, called Treasurex. Thanks to Mr. Daugerdas, Jenkens became one of the fastest-growing law firms in revenue.


Summary: Mr. Daugerdas took home $93 million from 1999 through 2003, putting part of it in a private firm he set up, with Jenkens' blessing, called Treasurex. Thanks to Mr. Daugerdas, Jenkens became one of the fastest-growing law firms in revenue.


Summary: In connection with the investigation of Mr. Daugerdas, and his two colleagues, federal prosecutors have already contacted individuals at several banks, including Deutsche Bank and several accounting firms, including Ernst & Young. Mr. Daugerdas participated in a conference call with four Ernst & Young employees and others about the fees and workings of the Cobra shelter. Cobra is one of Mr. Daugerdas' claims to fame, though the accounting firm Ernst & Young also takes credit for creating the shelter, according to an allegation in a lawsuit in a dispute between Mr. Daugerdas and a former business partner, James Haber.


Summary: In 1999, the year Paul M. Daugerdas established the Chicago office of the Dallas law firm of Jenkens & Gilchrist. Now, the people and firms in his own orbit are of interest to federal prosecutors in Manhattan who have been investigating Mr. Daugerdas and two former colleagues at Jenkens & Gilchrist. In 1999 and 2001, Jenkens & Gilchrist offered him two unusual indemnification agreements in which it agreed to support him and foot his legal bills should he or the firm be sued over tax shelters. Seeking to ramp up its growth, Jenkens & Gilchrist hired Mr. Daugerdas and a team of four from Altheimer & Grey. Thanks to Mr. Daugerdas, Jenkens became one of the fastest-growing law firms in revenue.


Summary: As a Danish citizen of Pakistani descent, a onetime television anchor, and now a prominent author married to a Dane, Rushy Rashid has led what could be depicted as a high-profile life. She said nothing forced her to define her attitude to fellow Muslims quite so much as Denmark's bitter dispute with much of the Islamic world over a newspaper's decision to print unflattering cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. Her sentiments reflected the nuances of immigrant societies across Europe, where the cartoons have produced raw anger among some and more complex feelings among others. At the same time, she felt pulled to the argument of those who published the cartoons, that this was an issue of Denmark's vaunted freedom of expression, which has been possibly the most entrenched in Europe.


Summary: As these extremists have come to dominate Congress, the State of the Union address has been looking more and more like the Super Bowl.


Summary: To understand what's wrong with politics, take a good look during the Super Bowl at the Steeler fans with their Terrible Towels. The police spokeswoman wasn't sure about Terrible Towels, but after the Steelers win the Super Bowl, look for red and blue rags waving during next year's speech.


Summary: This is the level of rational deliberation measured by Emory researchers who scanned the brains of devout Republicans and Democrats contemplating statements by George Bush or John Kerry.


Summary: Addressing the nation, President Bush said the United States must move to wean itself from foreign oil. And on that particular day of Mr. Bush's speech, the State Senate passed a bill that would grant a tax cut to giant oil companies, even as they are reporting record profits, as well as to independent distributors that bring oil into the state. Such tax breaks not only encourage continued dependence on fossil fuels, but may make it harder to accomplish what Mr. Bush, along with Gov. George E. Pataki.


Summary: State Senator Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat, said when we all agree we should be decreasing our dependence on foreign petroleum, why we continue to give tax expenditures, exemptions, credits, and refunds for the use of petroleum and even have bills coming to the floor that would expand those. It seems to be a net lose-lose proposition to use the tax code to encourage alternative fuels while also allowing the same tax code to encourage the expanded use of petroleum. Krueger, who voted against the bill the Senate passed said that this was not a tax return to consumers this was a reduction in taxes to the wholesalers with no ability to hold them accountable to pass those savings along to the consumer.


Summary: Mike Albronda of Long Island said that with the price of fuel the way it is, which is killing him, he is a captain of the charter boat Montauk. The measure passed by the Senate would help considerably, he said, because fuel taxes typically cost him about $900 a year.


Summary: Governor George E. Pataki is calling for wider development and the use of alternative fuels. More than $1 billion in tax breaks that New York grants for conventional fuels plain old gasoline and diesel have been built up over Mr. Pataki's nearly dozen years in office. The governor's budget proposal includes $30 million for projects aimed at promoting the use of alternative fuels, including giving money to gas stations as incentives to offer such fuels to consumers. Mr. Pataki also seeks a $2,000 tax credit for people who buy hybrid gas and electric cars, costing the state $10 million.


Summary: The State Senate passed a bill that would grant a tax cut to giant oil companies, even as they are reporting record profits, as well as to independent distributors that bring oil into the state. The measure passed by the Senate would help considerably because fuel taxes typically cost about $900 a year. The bill passed by the State Senate would cut sales taxes on gasoline at prices above $2 a gallon, or by about 4 cents a gallon at current prices.


Summary: Cindy Sheehan, the antiwar protester who has dogged Mr. Bush from his Texas ranch to the White House. Capitol Police arrested her before the speech began, ejecting her from the gallery after they discovered her wearing an antiwar T-shirt. Ms. Sheehan was charged with unlawful conduct, a misdemeanor.


Summary: President Bush invited ordinary people a teacher, a physicist, an Afghan politician, the family of a fallen soldier to the State of the Union address. The State of the Union address is often as much symbolism as substance, an occasion for the president to use his invited guests to put a human face on his domestic and foreign policy priorities.


Summary: And Council Speaker Christine Quinn's complaints were more about the budget negotiation process, not so much the content of the mayor's plan.


Summary: The Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who says he has no interest in elected office after his term ends, proposed loading away those unexpected billions for long-term fiscal challenges like rising pension and health care costs and the stormy fiscal weather Mr. Bloomberg said was as certain to come as April rain. Laying out his budget, which includes a plan to place $2 billion in a trust fund for retirees to cover their future health care costs, as he  said he was putting away money in the good times for the bad times. And he lectured reporters by saying that he can't, when you all of the sudden have better-than-expected revenues, rush out and spend it.


Summary: N.A.A.C.P. officials said that they were trying to be involved in a lawsuit over the No Child Left Behind Law on the side of the Bush administration and against the State of Connecticut because of a core principle that states do not have the right to ignore federal legislation that aims to help minorities. As the assistant general counsel for the National Association said that one can't help but remember back in the Dixiecrat period when certain Southern states asserted that they were not required to comply with certain federal civil rights laws designed to protect people's rights. The Connecticut State N.A.A.C.P. filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit filed by the State of Connecticut against Margaret Spellings, the secretary of education.


Summary: N.A.A.C.P. officials said that they were trying to involve themselves in a lawsuit over the No Child Left Behind Law on the side of the Bush administration and against the State of Connecticut because of a core principle that states do not have the right to ignore federal legislation that aims to help minorities. Victor L. Goode who was the assistant general counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said that the issue goes beyond the specifics of No Child Left Behind to potentially affect other federal statutes designed to protect civil rights. The state contends that the federal government came up about $50 million short in funding for education and testing required under No Child Left Behind, and that Connecticut should not be asked to spend its own money to comply with the law.


Summary: N.A.A.C.P. officials said that they were trying to intercede in a lawsuit over the No Child Left Behind Law on the side of the Bush administration and against the State of Connecticut because of a core principle that states do not have the right to ignore federal legislation that aims to help minorities. The judge did not address the N.A.A.C.P.'s motions and at the same time, N.A.A.C.P. representatives held a news conference outside the courthouse announcing the organization's decision to intercede. The N.A.A.C.P. said in its filing that Connecticut is failing its most disempowered children, and included three minority students in the motion to intervene.


Summary: N.A.A.C.P. officials said that they were trying to intercede in a lawsuit over the No Child Left Behind Law on the side of the Bush administration and against the State of Connecticut because of a core principle that states do not have the right to ignore federal legislation that aims to help minorities. Scot X. Esdaile is the president of the Connecticut branches of the N.A.A.C.P., which is said by the organization which was aligned itself with the Bush administration on this particular issue and only this particular issue. He said he had received approval to intervene from the N.A.A.C.P.'s national leadership.


Summary: Lawyers for I. Lewis Libby Jr., who was the former chief of staff to Vice President whose name is Dick Cheney, offered a detailed outline on the mentioned day of Mr. Libby's likely defense to charges that he lied about his role in exposing the identity of a C.I.A. operative. Wilson's role with the C.I.A. in a column by Robert D. Novak, produced a wide-ranging which is investigated by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who was named special prosecutor by the Justice Department.


Summary: Lewis Libby Jr., who is the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, offered a detailed outline for Mr. Libby's likely defense to charges that he lied about his role in exposing the identity of a C.I.A. operative. In papers filed in federal court, the lawyers strongly suggested they would argue that if Mr. Libby's statements to investigators were false, it was a case of innocent confusion or faulty memory because of his preoccupation with weightier national security matters at the time. Mr. Libby was indicted on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice last October in what a special prosecutor had charged was his willful misleading of investigators about his role in the exposure of Valerie Wilson's connection to the Central Intelligence Agency.


Summary: Critics of the Bush administration have suggested that the disclosure of Ms. Wilson's identity and the destruction of her undercover status was an act of political retaliation against her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. Mr. Wilson, who had been sent on an official fact-finding mission to Niger, had written in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times that the Bush White House lied when it generated information that Saddam Hussein had been engaged in trying to import uranium from that country.


Summary: Mr. Fitzgerald is the chief federal prosecutor in Chicago, issued subpoenas to reporters which includes Judith Miller, who was the employee of The New York Times by then and served 85 days in jail before agreeing to cooperate. Miller and another reporter from Time magazine had come to him from Tim Russert, who is the head of the NBC News Washington bureau.


Wilson
Valerie Wilson
Joseph C. Wilson IV

Summary: The identity of Wilson and the destruction of her undercover status was an act of political retaliation against her husband, whose name is Joseph C. Wilson IV.


Summary: Wilson's role with the C.I.A. in a column by Robert D. Novak, produced a wide-ranging investigation by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who was named special prosecutor by the Justice Department. Mr. Fitzgerald is the chief federal prosecutor in Chicago, issued subpoenas to reporters including Judith Miller, who was then employed by The New York Times and served 85 days in jail before agreeing to cooperate.


Summary: Lawyers for I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, offered a detailed outline on Tuesday of Mr. Libby's likely defense to charges that he lied about his role in exposing the identity of a C.I.A. operative. In a pleading filed in United States District Court, Mr. Libby's lawyers asked the judge to order the special counsel to obtain and turn over to them a large number of records, some of them classified, that demonstrate the kinds of issues he was involved in as both the chief of staff and national security adviser to Mr. Cheney. They also asked for more of Mr. Libby's notes during his service with Mr. Cheney than those they already have.


Summary: According to a settlement disclosed yesterday, the New York attorney general's office found that the leader of the World Jewish Congress, Israel Singer, violated his fiduciary responsibilities and barred him and a former executive from any financial role in the organization. The attorney general's office wrote in the agreement that these shortcomings did not compromise the core mission of the W.J.C. nor its effectiveness. Nor did they result in other identifiable losses of charitable assets. The congress is a small nonprofit agency that is known for recovering billions of dollars in restitution for Holocaust victims.


Summary: Stephen E. Herbits, secretary general of the congress, said that the organization began an overhaul more than a year ago and that many of the remedies sought by Mr. Spitzer were already in place. He said that the attorney general said the first and most important remedy is to continue doing what we have now put in place. Mr. Herbits and Israel Singer said that the transfers were part of a failed plan to create a pension system for employees and that the money never left the group's control.


Summary: Attorney General Eliot Spitzer began his inquiry after Isi Leibler, a former senior official at the congress, complained that an odd series of money transfers totaling $1.2 million from New York to a Swiss account and then to a London account demonstrated lax financial controls and suggested abuse of the organization's money by Israel Singer. Mr. Leibler, who was sued this week in Israel by the congress for defamation, among other things, said that the office has forced the W.J.C. to institute the reforms he had been calling for.


Summary: According to a settlement disclosed yesterday, the New York attorney general's office found that the leader of the World Jewish Congress, Israel Singer, violated his fiduciary responsibilities and barred him and a former executive from any financial role in the organization. Mr. Spitzer began his inquiry after Isi Leibler, a former senior official at the congress, complained that an odd series of money transfers totaling $1.2 million from New York to a Swiss account and then to a London account demonstrated lax financial controls and suggested abuse of the organization's money by Mr. Singer. Mr. Herbits and Mr. Singer said that the transfers were part of a failed plan to create a pension system for employees and that the money never left the group's control.


Summary: According to a settlement disclosed yesterday, the New York attorney general's office found that the leader of the World Jewish Congress, Israel Singer, violated his fiduciary responsibilities and barred him and a former executive from any financial role in the organization. The office of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer also identified shortcomings in the organization's financial controls, record keeping and fund-raising, but said it found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Mr. Spitzer began his inquiry after Isi Leibler, a former senior official at the congress, complained that an odd series of money transfers totaling $1.2 million from New York to a Swiss account and then to a London account demonstrated lax financial controls and suggested abuse of the organization's money by Mr. Singer.


Summary: John Spencer, a former mayor of Yonkers, was left as the party's most likely candidate to challenge Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mr. Spencer entered the race in the summer, and he has never wavered, even though Republican leaders made it clear that they were interested in other candidates. His campaign reported that he had raised $571,000 in the final quarter of last year, leaving him with nearly $244,000 on hand after expenses.


Summary: Last week, Edward F. Cox, a Manhattan lawyer and a son-in-law of President Richard M. Nixon, declared that he would not run for the Senate this year, even though Republicans had been urging him to take on Hillary Rodham Clinton.


Summary: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has pressed ahead with an aggressive fund-raising campaign by taking in $6 million in the final three months of 2005, even as her Republican opposition in New York has plunged into disarray. Her campaign reported on Tuesday that she began the current year with $17.1 million in the bank. Fairly or not, there is a sense within political circles that Mrs. Clinton may have a goal in mind beyond her own re-election this year: that she may be starting to amass cash to run for president in 2008.


Summary: Late yesterday, a separate civil rights suit was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, charging that school officials were acting out of petty jealousy and issues of control and were attempting to destroy the Choir Academy. A spokeswoman for the Board of Education, Kelly Devers, said it had not received a copy of that suit and declined to comment. In a statement late yesterday, the Department of Education said that they have been willing to meet with them and discuss future options, but each time they came to the table, the leadership of the Boys Choir of Harlem sought various avenues to undermine these discussions. Ms. Kelly said Dr. Trumbull and his staff were expected to vacate the Harlem school, with their files and equipment, by the end of the day yesterday.


Summary: Representative Charles B. Rangel, who participated in the conference call last night, said that school officials had suddenly withdrawn from negotiations that appeared to be making progress and that there are no big issues that separate them.


Summary: Following days of bitter negotiations, school officials said late yesterday that they had ordered administrators of the Boys Choir of Harlem to vacate their offices and storage space in a Harlem school building by the end of the day, effectively ending a troubled partnership that had given the world-renowned choir its home in a public high school. In a statement late yesterday, the Department of Education said that they have been willing to meet with them and discuss future options, but each time they came to the table, the leadership of the Boys Choir of Harlem sought various avenues to undermine these discussions.


Summary: The new retailing czar, Michelle Mooney, will assist neighborhood organizations in their efforts to attract and retain a diversity of businesses that serve local residents. Focusing attention on the boroughs outside Manhattan, Ms. Mooney will also oversee two programs already in existence: improving storefronts and helping neighborhoods create retail identities to attract shoppers. Before taking the job with New York City, which pays $73,000 a year, Ms. Mooney, who says she is in her mid-30's, worked as the leasing officer for the Port of Long Beach in California, which bills itself as the second-largest seaport in the United States.


Summary: Bob Yari, a producer who worked on the film, has already sued his former production partner over the credits issue and is contemplating suing the Producers Guild of America, which this year took the trouble of assigning credit off the hands of the academy by making eligibility determinations that the Oscars will honor. For his part, Mr. Yari, who owns the Yari Film Group in Los Angeles, believes that the stigma belongs to the guild, and by proxy the academy, for ignoring his role in "Crash." The guild and the academy have both credited the writer-director Paul Haggis and Mr. Yari's former producing partner Cathy Schulman with producing the film. He said that he is absolutely thrilled and overjoyed with the recognition the film is getting, and I am equally dismayed with how things are turning out with recognition on the producer's side.


Summary: The men arrested were Nelson Rodriguez, Edwin Rivera, 25, of Spofford Avenue and Daryl Massey. Luz Morales and Edwin Rivera Sr., 58, Mr. Rivera's parents, said their son was being treated unfairly. He said that his son did not shoot that police officer then why should he have to pay for it?


Hernandez
Officer Hernandez
Eric Hernandez

Summary: Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said yesterday that a preliminary investigation has indicated that a police officer was justified in shooting an off-duty colleague who was pointing a gun at another man. The determination came as the police arrested three men who they said attacked the off-duty officer, Eric Hernandez, inside a White Castle in the Bronx on Saturday, touching off the sequence of events that led to the shooting. Officer Hernandez was shot by another officer while he held his gun over a man who he may have believed was among those who had just beaten him.


Summary: Mr. Kelly said that an initial review of witnesses' accounts, among other evidence, indicated that the officer who fired, Alfredo Toro, followed departmental rules. And a spokesman for the Bronx district attorney said it appeared that Officer Toro had committed no crime. Mr. Kelly said doctors could not fully ascertain the extent of Officer Hernandez's injuries from the assault because of the need to take care of his much more serious problem of arterial bleeding. The shooting occurred after Officer Toro and his partner responded to a 911 call about the fight at the restaurant, at 1831 Webster Avenue.


Summary: Jordan Barowitz, a spokesman for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, said that it's a matter of using resources from those times when revenues are relatively strong to mitigate the impact of economic downturns, and the invariable budget cuts and tax increases that accompany them.


Summary: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg expects to announce today that his administration will seek to set aside $2 billion over the next two years to create a trust fund to pay health benefits for retired city employees, as part of a plan to prepare the city for choppy fiscal waters on the horizon, his aides said yesterday. In releasing his preliminary budget proposal for next year, the mayor is also expected to say today that total revenue will be even higher this year than his estimate in November of a surplus of $1.7 billion this fiscal year. Mr. Bloomberg's budget proposal for the 2007 fiscal year is also expected to include previously announced additions of staff and training programs at the Administration for Children's Services.


Summary: About 40 business-side employees were notified yesterday that they were losing their jobs, as were 26 editorial employees who are not in the Newspaper Guild. About three dozen other editorial employees who are protected by the Guild are being offered buyouts and will have until Feb. 13 to decide whether to accept them. Executives said if not enough Guild-protected people take the buyouts, there will be layoffs.


Summary: A spokeswoman, Dawn Bridges, said that the company does not plan any other job cuts in the near term and that the current round of cuts is largely because of reallocation of resources as the company increases its online presence and consolidates some of its business functions. She said the cuts had less to do with any sluggishness in advertising and that, in fact, the financial picture to be reported tomorrow for Time Warner, the parent company, would be relatively bright.


Carlson Wagonlit Travel North America
Carlson Wagonlit
Carlson Wagonlit Travel

Summary: The top peeve, according to a survey by Carlson Wagonlit Travel, is a passenger who lumbers on board with a bulky suitcase that would have had the courtesy to check. The annoyance is aggravated when that person decides to stow the bag in an overhead bin well forward of his or her seat to allow for a quick getaway, unmindful that overhead space is supposed to be used by the passengers sitting closest to it. Carlson Wagonlit Travel North America surveyed 2,100 business travelers and 650 corporate travel managers in the United States and abroad. It also found that 60 percent of travel managers expect their budgets to increase this year and that business travelers are overwhelmingly opposed to relaxing bans on the use of cellphones on planes.


Summary: United's main competitor on the route is the American Eagle, a subsidiary of American Airlines, which flies small regional jets with all-coach seating.


Summary: Last Thursday at Westchester County Airport in White Plains, United Airlines, which is scheduled to leave bankruptcy protection tomorrow, showed off one of the new, roomy 70-seat E-170 jets that it has begun using to replace smaller regional jets on its flights from White Plains, a big corporate center, to its hub in Chicago. The new planes, operated under still another new United brand, Explus, have six first-class seats with 38 inches of legroom, 16 economy plus seats with 34 inches and 48 economy seats with 31 inches. United Airlines, which has been a tough negotiator with its regional jet suppliers in the past, made the decision on how to configure the new E-170's, said Warren R. Wilkinson, a Republic spokesman.


Summary: Martha Sherrill had the subject of her memoir: her father, Peter, a well-known polling expert and software company founder; she had the book contract, with Random House, which paid her a healthy advance. Though she received an advance for the novel from Penguin Press, it was only about two-thirds the size of the advance from Random House several years earlier for the memoir. Because she jumped from one publisher to another, following her editor, Ann Godoff, from Random House to Penguin Press, she has to pay back the original advance.


Martha
Peter Sherrill
Martha Sherrill
Peter
Sherrill

Summary: Martha Sherrill was ready to write a memoir. She had the subject: her father, Peter, a well-known polling expert and software company founder; she had the book contract, with Random House, which paid her a healthy advance. At a time when the publishing business is struggling with the meaning of truth and memoir, Ms. Sherrill, 47, is in a way the anti-James Frey: an author who turned her back on a lucrative memoir not because she could not handle the truth, but perhaps because the truth was too important to let go.


Summary: Dr. Juan Lubroth, senior animal health officer for the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, said he would like to have at least 20 more veterinarians right now to send to Indonesia and Turkey simply to train brigades of cullers and would need more for each country the disease reaches. The total cost would depend on whether he can borrow government veterinarians from wealthy countries or has to hire privately and whether he sends a few to lead workshops in the capital or dozens into small villages to supervise culling. He is also negotiating with a Dutch company to bring its portable chicken-killing machines to southeast Asia. In Turkey, farmers get up to $3.50 a chicken, which Dr. Lubroth, said was about 60% of market value. He favored paying market value for birds from infected flocks, slightly more for those from healthy flocks nearby, and nothing for dead birds.


Summary: The United Nations is looking for some professional assassins. Dr. Juan Lubroth, senior animal health officer for the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, said he would like to have at least 20 more veterinarians right now to send to Indonesia and Turkey simply to train brigades of cullers and would need more for each country the disease reaches. Dr. Wantanee Kalpravidh, the regional head of flu surveillance for the United Nations agriculture agency, said that in Thailand cullers pack chickens into the backs of trucks and run in a hose from the tailpipe.


Summary: Dr. Peter Roeder, a veterinarian for the United Nations agriculture agency who normally works out of Rome fighting rinderpest, a cattle virus, recently found himself fighting avian flu in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, which the disease took by surprise. Large producers protected their own flocks quickly but the flu became entrenched in "kampong chickens," the millions of free-roaming household birds that roost in trees. But in Indonesia, Dr. Roeder said that cullers kill in the traditional fashion, cutting their throats. That is risky as cut hands can be infected by chicken blood, although there have not yet been any confirmed cases of avian flu among cullers. By contrast Indonesian government teams often arrive in villages at midday when birds are running all over the place. Also, farmers will not cooperate without compensation, and most countries are paying relatively little.


Summary: Indonesia had no response plan or clear chain of command for veterinarians, and it has endemic Newcastle disease, which mimics flu in chickens. Dr. Peter Roeder said in a telephone interview that the virus got away before the first cases were detected. When even one bird with the A(H5N1) virus is found on a farm, its flock and those in a large circle around it must be exterminated. In the California Newcastle outbreak, Dr. Richard Breitmeyer said, valuable fighting cocks were often found in Hispanic neighborhoods, and federal appraisers paid market value.


Summary: Dr. David Nabarro, special representative for avian flu for the United Nations secretary general, said that they need an international culling task force, a reliably robust, incorruptible public service to go around killing chickens.


Summary: The state veterinarian, Dr. Richard Breitmeyer, who oversaw the California culling, said that people love their animals and in many cases, they were pets. He said that although he had the legal right to enter properties without owners' permissions and to kill every bird, they needed to treat the owners and birds with respect. In the California Newcastle outbreak, Dr. Breitmeyer said, valuable fighting cocks were often found in Hispanic neighborhoods, and federal appraisers paid market value.


Summary: Dr. Tony Forman, a United Nations veterinarian consulting there, said in Vietnam that cullers have begun collecting chickens in large plastic bags and gassing them with carbon dioxide, which is available from any soda bottling plant. Shallow graves and composting are discouraged, though Dr. Forman said he had seen farmers piping methane out of compost piles and boiling tea with it. Furnace incineration is fine, but expensive.


Summary: Ayed Abu Ramadan, the executive manager of the Gaza Agriculture Project said that their production is peaking right now, and it is critical for us to export.


Summary: Jibril Rajoub, a security adviser to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, though he is also a leader of the younger Fatah generation, told the crowd there would be no such coalition. So far, the young Fatah members have largely directed their criticism at the overall faction leadership, and not specifically at Mr. Abbas, the top Fatah leader.


Summary: Gunmen and police officers affiliated with the defeated Fatah movement staged angry protests on Saturday, firing rifles into the air outside the Palestinian presidential compound in Ramallah and marching on the parliament buildings in Gaza and the West Bank. Hundreds of Fatah members marched outside the presidential compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, with some firing automatic rifles skyward. They demanded the resignation of Fatah's Central Committee and rejected any alliance between Fatah and Hamas in the new Palestinian government.


Summary: Jibril Rajoub, a security adviser to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, though he is also a leader of the younger Fatah generation, told the crowd there would be no such coalition. He said that they are not going to be in partnership with Hamas, letting them rule alone, letting their people see if Hamas can manage. Mr. Rajoub lost in his bid for a parliamentary seat in the West Bank town of Hebron.


Printers Alley
Printers Alley Merchants Association

Summary: David A. Collins, a lawyer who heads the Printers Alley Merchants Association, recalls that when he was a boy, his mother shielded his eyes from the alley. Jack Norman Jr., 78, a lawyer who is moving from the alley, where he has lived and practiced for more than 30 years, said that Printers Alley's always been a little naughty.


Summary: David A. Collins, a lawyer who heads the Printers Alley Merchants Association, recalls that when he was a boy, his mother shielded his eyes from the alley but when he grew older he just drew to it like a moth to a flame. Now, with hundreds of downtown lofts and condominiums being built on adjacent streets, he said the days of strip clubs in the city's center were numbered. He said that just because it was once there a long time ago doesn't mean it should survive.


Summary: Frank Duncan, who sold newspapers near the alley as a boy, is adamant that adult entertainment should always have a place there. As Mr. Duncan, now 86, walks the alley, he points to the original site of the strip club's predecessor, the Brass Rail, where Andrew Jackson tied up his horse behind his law offices. Mr. Duncan then pauses in front of a billboard touting the "World Famous Printers Alley." Cabaret dancers flank the fading text, which proclaims that millions of visitors have been entertained here by time-honored guests.


Summary: George E. Barrett, a lawyer for the Brass Stables, said the club would do just that. Mr. Barrett says Nashville has capitalized on the alley's legacy, even as its regulations threaten the club's existence and says that to try to close it is just hypocritical paragraph.


Summary: As Frank Duncan, now 86, walks the alley, he points to the original site of the strip club's predecessor, the Brass Rail, where Andrew Jackson tied up his horse behind his law offices.


Summary: Roy M. Dale, a former city councilman who tried to exempt the Brass Stables from the city's adult ordinance in 1997, said the regulations were tamping out city history. He said that it's having a negative impact on the one street within the city that, since the 1800's, has been a place where people could go and enjoy a different lifestyle.


Summary: After revisions, Judge Todd J. Campbell of Federal District Court dismissed the lawsuit last year, clearing the way for the ordinance to take effect that December. He dismissed that suit last month but left room for the club to continue its challenge in state court.


Summary: The club's fate has been uncertain since 1997, when the City Council passed the original entertainment ordinance.


Summary: When night falls over Nashville the Brass Stables opens for business. Lawyers for the Brass Stables say the club is too narrow to comply and may be forced to close. The possibility that the last strip club in the city's historic entertainment district may close is a source of both dismay and relief in Nashville, where a downtown renaissance is creating a new urban neighborhood around the alley.


Summary: Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist at the center of a widening influence-peddling investigation, used a contact in the federal government to give an early warning to Tyco International, one of his clients, that its subsidiaries were about to be suspended from doing business with the government, according to a court filing. The internal deliberations were the basis of suggestions made to Tyco by Mr. Abramoff about how company officials might argue against the suspension. The information appears to be a result of the government's arrangement with Mr. Abramoff, who has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors as part of his guilty plea to conspiracy and fraud charges.


Summary: Barbara Van Gelder, Mr. Safavian's lawyer, said in an interview on Saturday that the incident involving Tyco was irrelevant to the charges about the golfing trip, which occurred more than a year earlier. She said that this shows that Jack Abramoff is talking, and this is him trying to climb out of jail. She said that there had been nothing illegal or improper about Mr. Safavian's conversations with Mr. Abramoff about Tyco, but that they were being used as a nasty little trial tactic by prosecutors to damage her client.


Terwilliger
George Terwilliger III
Mr. Terwilliger

Summary: George Terwilliger III, a lawyer for Tyco, said company officials had first learned of the impending suspensions from Mr. Abramoff, who had represented them in another matter. But he said that the information had been unsolicited and that the government had been about to formally notify company officials in any event. He said in an interview on Saturday that any benefit to Tyco was incremental at best, because company officials were due to get a formal notice from G.S.A.


Summary: Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist at the center of a widening influence-peddling investigation, used a contact in the federal government to give an early warning to Tyco International, one of his clients, that its subsidiaries were about to be suspended from doing business with the government, according to a court filing. The document, filed Friday by federal prosecutors, asserts that David H. Safavian, the former chief of the General Services Administration who is under indictment, learned in November 2003 that four subsidiaries of Tyco were about to be suspended from obtaining government work. These internal deliberations were the basis of suggestions made to Tyco by Mr. Abramoff about how company officials might argue against the suspension.


Summary: The document, filed Friday by federal prosecutors, asserts that David H. Safavian, the former chief of the General Services Administration who is under indictment, learned in November 2003 that four subsidiaries of Tyco were about to be suspended from obtaining government work. The filing, which was reported on Saturday by The Washington Post, said Mr. Safavian told Mr. Abramoff of the impending suspensions, along with some of the confidential discussions within his agency involving the issue. Prosecutors included the information in a filing in the case against Mr. Safavian, who has been charged with making false statements to investigators about a 2002 golf trip to Scotland with Mr. Abramoff.


Summary: In 2003, Mike Huckabee, the governor of Arkansas, learned he had type 2 diabetes and that terrified him to lose 110 pounds. But when he looks at their state budget, and sees that every year their Medicaid budget is increasing by 9-10%, and looks at state employees' health plans and sees that those costs are escalating at double digits and twice the rate of inflation, as a fiscal manager, he has the right and responsibility to see what they can do to improve this bottom-line cost. Repeatedly, he came back to the same argument: Obesity is reducing not only the quality of life of Americans, but also the fiscal soundness of their government and the competitiveness of their businesses. He argues that it would be worth paying small sums, for a session with a fitness trainer or a diet counselor, to avoid paying for heart disease and diabetes later.


Summary: Mr. Bush says that Congress gave him the authority to do anything he wanted when it authorized the invasion of Afghanistan. Congress has failed, on several occasions in the last five years to rein in Mr. Bush and restore the checks and balances that are the genius of American constitutional democracy.


Summary: President Bush and his men promised to provide the legal, constitutional and moral justifications for the sort of warrantless spying on Americans that has been illegal for nearly 30 years. And the second was that the Bush team could have prevented the 9/11 attacks if only they had thought of monitoring without a warrant. He made himself the judge of the proper balance between national security and Americans' rights, between the law and presidential power.


Summary: The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act simply required the government to obey the rules of Constitution in doing so. And FISA was amended after 9/11 to make the work much easier than before. In fact, FISA was enacted in 1978 to avoid just this sort of abuse.


Bertuccioli
Eva Bertuccioli-Krapfenbaur
Claudio Bertuccioli

Summary: Eva Bertuccioli-Krapfenbaur, who is 65, and from Belgium was killed instantly. Her sister, Margot Krapfenbaur, aged 63, of Austria, was seriously injured and remains in a rehabilitation center. Her son, Claudio Bertuccioli, and his wife, Rebecca G. McMillin.


Summary: Mr. Kalmus's sister, Margot Krapfenbaur, who is 63, and from Austria, was seriously injured and remains in a rehabilitation center.


Summary: Jon S. Corzine and state Republican lawmakers the freeholders agreed to extend pension benefits to domestic partners of local government employees.


Summary: Laurel Hester has been fighting two almost intractable foes like lung cancer and the Ocean County freeholders, who had refused repeatedly to let her leave her domestic partner the pension she has earned in two decades of local police work. State Senator Andrew R. Ciesla, who is a Republican from Ocean County, agreed to sponsor legislation that would fix the state rules that allow those in the public employee retirement system to name anyone as beneficiary for their benefits, while those in the police and fire retirement system must designate a spouse. Until Ocean County's decision, 7 of the state's 21 counties had passed such resolutions like Bergen, Hudson, Mercer, Union, Monmouth, Passaic and Camden.


Summary: State Senator Andrew R. Ciesla, a Republican from Ocean County, agreed to sponsor legislation that would fix the state rules that allow those in the public employee retirement system to name anyone as beneficiary for their benefits, while those in the police and fire retirement system must designate a spouse. Senator Ciesla said that his legislation, to be introduced on Thursday, would end the difference between the state's two pension systems, allowing anyone to be named as a beneficiary. He said that in light of the Laurel Hester matter, he thought it was the right thing to do.


Summary: Lieutenant Hester, whose age is 49, in a wheelchair pushed by her partner, Stacie Andree, who is 30, told the freeholders that she had rejected her doctors' orders and had come to witness the vote and to thank everyone individually for what they have done. Ad said that they had made themselves an example of what democracy is all about, and she said by detaching her oxygen tube to make a statement.


Summary: Laurel Hester has been fighting two almost intractable foes that are lung cancer and the Ocean County freeholders, who had refused repeatedly to let her leave her domestic partner the pension she has earned in two decades of local police work. Lieutenant Hester, aged about 49, in a wheelchair pushed by her partner, Stacie Andree, who is 30, told the freeholders that she had rejected her doctors' orders and had come to witness the vote to thank everyone individually for what they have done. She said that he had made himself an example of what democracy is all about, and she said by detaching her oxygen tube to make a statement.


Summary: David M. Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice which is in Manhattan said that the Mexican meth could change the fact. He also said that the stage is set to move meth into urban markets in a way that has never happened before, through existing cocaine networks. He also notes, that some drugs never generate universal appeal, and that this could be one of them.


Summary: Richard A. Rawson who is the associate director of the Integrated Substance Abuse Programs at U.C.L.A. said that he has tracked it 20 years, and it keeps going another 500 miles east. He used to go to Atlanta and talk about other drugs.


Third Council District
Council
City Council

Summary: The City Council's new speaker, whose name is Christine C. Quinn, has already become a familiar figure across the five boroughs, but New Yorkers are not likely to hear from her by mail unless they happen to live in her Manhattan district. Quinn's predecessor, was widely criticized last year for spending $1.6 million in Council money on mailings that were seen as thinly veiled political ads for his failed mayoral campaign.


Quinn
Chris
Christine C. Quinn
Christine Quinn

Summary: Christine C. Quinn is the City Council's new speaker, has already become a familiar figure across the five boroughs, but New Yorkers are not likely to hear from her by mail unless they happen to live in her Manhattan district. Quinn plans to ban the longstanding practice of sending taxpayer-financed mailings from the council speaker to millions of households citywide. Instead of that, she will continue to mail newsletters only to her own district, which covers Greenwich Village, Chelsea, Hell's Kitchen/Clinton and parts of SoHo and Murray Hill.


Summary: In 2000, Peter F. Vallone, then the speaker, spent slightly more than $1 million on mailings, council aides said by Ms. Quinn.


Summary: The group also proposed that the bank's planned acquisition of another bank, Atlantic Bank of New York, be held up until New York Community Bank compels its clients to maintain their buildings, which the group said the bank has the power to do under a so-called good repair clause in its mortgage agreements. The acquisition is being reviewed by the Federal Reserve.


Summary: Julie Miles, director of the group said New York Community Bank is one of the fastest-growing businesses in New York.


Summary: Conservative House Republicans bluntly warned their leaders against any immigration compromise that would allow temporary foreign workers and assailed a Senate proposal that would open the way for illegal immigrants to earn citizenship. Worried that their party's leadership was weakening in its opposition to plans that would allow illegal workers to remain in the United States, more than a dozen House members staged a ''Say No to Amnesty'' event after Speaker J. Dennis Hastert suggested that the House might consider a temporary worker program. Representative John A. Boehner, the majority leader, said the House would await a bill from the Senate before making firm decisions.


Summary: With the Senate considering a worker and citizenship plan starkly at odds with the House approach, Tom Tancredo, who is the Representative of Republican of Colorado and a leading advocate of tough immigration laws, said that the House conservatives wanted to make clear their resistance to any worker program.


Summary: Some of the biggest names in documentary filmmaking have denounced a recent agreement between the Smithsonian Institution and Showtime Networks Inc. that they say restricts makers of films and television shows using Smithsonian materials from offering their work to public television or other non-Showtime broadcast outlets. The Showtime agreement began attracting widespread attention this week. A Showtime executive, Tom Hayden, said the deal was not intended to be exclusionary but was intended to provide filmmakers with an attractive platform for their work.


Smithsonian Business Ventures
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian
Smithsonian Networks
Smithsonian on Demand

Summary: Jeanny Kim, a vice president for media services for Smithsonian Business Ventures said it was not their obligation to help independent filmmakers sell their wares to commercial broadcast and cable networks.


Summary: A state investigation into the firing of Alan S. Plofsky, who is the onetime executive director of the State Ethics Commission and a critic of former Gov. The board concluded the accusations were without merit and said Mr. Plofsky's rights were denied when the ethics commission conducted an illegal closed-door meeting for discussing the complaints against him. Mr. Plofsky, who once called Mr. Rowland a liar in a speech to the Litchfield League of Women Voters, in an intense manner denied the accusations and said his firing was politically motivated.


Summary: A state investigation into the firing of Alan S. Plofsky, the onetime executive director of the State Ethics Commission and a critic of former Governor. Mr. Plofsky, a 24-year veteran of the commission, was fired after he was accused by a whistle-blower of working less than his required hours and by colleagues of ordering a subordinate to lie in response to a federal subpoena. The board concluded the accusations were without merit and said Mr. Plofsky's rights were denied when the ethics commission held an illegal closed-door meeting to discuss the complaints against him. The Review Board said that Mr. Plofsky must be rehired to a comparable position and salary of about $120,000 per year, and must be compensated for 18 months of lost salary totaling about $180,000.


Summary: As 27-page decision said, Connecticut's Employees' Review Board said that Mr. Plofsky was fired without reasonable cause. The board concluded the accusations were without merit and said Mr. Plofsky's rights were denied when the ethics commission held an illegal closed-door meeting to discuss the complaints against him. The Review Board said that Mr. Plofsky must be reselecting a comparable position and salary of about $120,000 per year, and must be compensated for 18 months of lost salary totaling about $180,000.


Army Corps of Engineers
Corps of Engineers

Summary: The sense of just how much the world had changed for the Army Corps of Engineers struck Daniel Hitchings in a tense conference call which occured last month. Mr. Hitchings, director of the hurricane response task force for the Corps of Engineers, was on a call with representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Flood Insurance Program.


Summary: The sense of knowing that how much the world had changed for the Army Corps of Engineers struck Daniel Hitchings in a tense conference call last month. Mr. Hitchings is the director of the hurricane response task force for the Corps of Engineers, was on a call with Federal Emergency Management Agency' representatives and the National Flood Insurance Program. He explained that the levees and floodwalls around New Orleans, both existing and new, had been designed to be tall enough to hold back storm surges, but would allow about two feet of a six-foot wave to splash over the top.


Summary: Mayor Philip J. Trifiletti of Mamaroneck has changed his mind. He says that neither the original site nor the proposed alternative site is needed anymore. Mr. Trifiletti insisted that the whole problem, has been resolved.


Summary: Thomas A. Murphy, the lone trustee who voted in favor of the county's hiring-site proposal, said the only thing the shutdown had accomplished was to turn a quiet village into something of a police state. He said that they chased the guys out of the park, the board's only Democrat, and currently they are up and down Mamaroneck Avenue.


Summary: Village of Mamaroneck shut down its day-laborer hiring site, village leaders said the closure was temporary. Deputy Mayor William J. Paonessa said his village needed help with the problem which he deemed of regional if not national significance. A strong police presence along Mamaroneck Avenue, enforcing laws already on the books aggressively ticketing the day laborers and the contractors who hire them has driven the day-laborer trade out of the village, Mr. Trifiletti said.


Summary: One man who isn't waiting to hear back any longer is Cesar Perales, president of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, a pan-Latino civil rights organization. He says that he believes the village is violating the immigrants' civil rights, met with day laborers in Mamaroneck this week for the second time to prepare a lawsuit. He has had success with similar suits.


Summary: The trial of Slobodan Milosevic generated about 120 DVDs, 46,000 pages of transcripts, and more than 300,000 pages of oral and written evidence. Two days after Mr. Milosevic's death, the international war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ended the case, leaving lawyers and court officials, witnesses, and victims abruptly bereft. Mr. Milosevic devoted almost his entire defense to charges related to the 1999 war in Kosovo. Mr. Milosevic wrote very little, so over the four-year trial, prosecutors painstakingly reconstructed events, drawing on testimony of witnesses and insiders.


Summary: One United States military dog handler was recently convicted of abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib, which is the prison in Iraq, and the court-martial of another is to start in May. But for Ibrahim Turkmen and Akhil Sachdeva, the image calls up something closer to home: the dogs used inside the Passaic County Jail. But currently in Toronto, as Mr. Sachdeva, a Canadian citizen born in India, gives his first deposition for the class-action lawsuit, the spotlight will shift to the New Jersey jail.


Summary: When Omers, a pension fund, began a legal challenge of the appraised value for Ford Canada's shares in the 1990s, it came across an internal memo from Roy Bennett, a Ford Canada director and former chief executive. Ford Canada's sales operation, had consistently lost money since 1977 after paying its American parent for goods and services it received. When Ford Motor bought out Ford Canada, it paid 185 Canadian dollars a share.


Summary: Hunter Applewhite, a spokesman for Dominion, a big electric utility in Richmond, Va., that scored 27, said the company had no comment on its ranking.


Summary: Art Larson, a Sempra Energy spokesman, took exception to Sempra's score of 24, said that Sempra, based in San Diego, had been aggressive in promoting energy efficiency and procuring renewable energy sources and that in the area of environmental responsibility, Ceres seems to give more weight to words over action.


Summary: American companies are playing catch-up with international competitors like BP, Toyota, Alcan, Unilever and Rio Tinto.


Summary: The study gave General Electric, American Electric Power and Cinergy among the highest scores in their industries. Many companies including Dow Chemical, Anadarko Petroleum and Cinergy have board committees that oversee the curbing of greenhouse gases.


Summary: The study concluded that American companies are playing catch-up with international competitors like BP, Toyota, Alcan, Unilever and Rio Tinto. The top-scoring company, with 90 points, was BP, a British company that has said it will invest $8 billion in solar, wind and other clean-energy technologies in the next decade. Mindy S. Lubber said that BP understands that all companies must work to reduce their carbon footprint, starting with fossil fuels.


Summary: The study gave General Electric, American Electric Power and Cinergy among the highest scores in their industries. It was said that when Cinergy and American Electric Power are tackling this issue, and Sempra and Dominion Resources are not, that should be a red flag to investors. Ceres notes, Chevron Texaco has invested $100 million in developing cleaner fuels, Ford Motor introduced the first American hybrid car, American Electric Power has committed itself to "clean coal" technologies and G.E. has introduced its Ecomagination program stressing "green" products.


Summary: Airlines ranked the lowest, with a score of 16.6; UAL, the parent of United Airlines, received just 3 points.


Summary: There are two conclusions from "Corporate Governance and Climate Change: Making the Connection," a report that Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmentalists, expects will influence investment decisions. Connecticut's state treasurer, Denise L. Nappier, who administers a $22 billion investment fund, lauded the report as an "unprecedented window into how companies most affected by climate risk are responding at the board level, through C.E.O. leadership and strategic planning." The report does show progress since 2003, when a much smaller Ceres study concluded that most American companies were ignoring the threat of climate change. Since then, Ceres notes, Chevron Texaco has invested $100 million in developing cleaner fuels, Ford Motor introduced the first American hybrid car, American Electric Power has committed itself to "clean coal" technologies and G.E. has introduced its Ecomagination program stressing "green" products.


Summary: Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn also said yesterday that Paul F. Coughlin, a former stock broker for Merrill Lynch, and William B. Deakins, a former Watley day trader, both pleaded guilty earlier this month to charges of conspiracy to commit securities fraud. Mr. Coughlin worked out of Merrill Lynch's office in Rockefeller Center, where Peter E. Bacanovic had once worked as Martha Stewart's stockbroker.


Summary: Espen Andersen, associate professor at the Norwegian School of Management and an editor of Ubiquity, a magazine published by the Association for Computing Manufacturers, writes that students see math as hard, boring and irrelevant, and do not respond to motivational factors such as easier admission to higher education or interesting and important work. In an effort to convince students, Mr. Andersen's essay at acm.org/ubiquity points out that taking high school math will make one smarter and will help in making more money by making one lose less money, and refers to maths as cool.


Summary: Li writes that he frankly thought that they won't be seeing a mass migration of people from other finance sites to Google anytime soon.


Summary: The City of New Rochelle, which owns the property and is renovating the house, is preparing to turn the building over to the Abusches as a home for a nonprofit theater company, named Play Group Theater, meant for children and teenagers that the couple founded in 1994. Play Group was recommended to the City as Wildcliff's new occupant after the group submitted a plan for the building to the city in 2003. The theater will have to be rebuilt entirely, anyways, the city recently demolished it after a January windstorm blew in a wall.


Summary: The City of New Rochelle, owns the property and they are renovating the house, is preparing to turn the building over to the Abusches as a home for the Play Group Theater, which is a nonprofit theater company for both children and teenagers. The group, which provides classes and puts on plays that involve 150 children each fall and spring, is now based in the White Plains Mall and gives performances around the county. Play Group was recommended to the City as Wildcliff's new resident after the group submitted a plan for the building to the city in 2003.


Summary: The City of New Rochelle owns the property and they are renovating the house, preparing to turn the building over to the Abusches as a home for a nonprofit theater company, named Play Group Theater, for children and teenagers that the couple. But a recent tour of the three-story house with the Abusches and a senior project manager of the city's development department, named Suzanne D'Amato, held a sense of promise. She said that leading the way up a narrow staircase to the sunny second floor, where the Abusches she is the artistic director, he is the executive director envision a lobby and acting studios.


Summary: The theater and the house, had been vacant since Fleetwood Stage moved out last spring after presenting plays at Wildcliff since 1997. Fleetwood was one of the six organizations that had submitted proposals to the city for the house. Last winter the pipes froze and water flooded the floors of the building, where Fleetwood operated without heat for many months before moving to Willow Towers, an assisted-living complex in New Rochelle.


Summary: Steven and Jill Abusch were hugging like newlyweds as they gazed at their dream house. Both of them saw past the boarded-up windows and the damaged roof to an imagined scene of children singing, dancing and rehearsing in a historic 19th-century house made whole again.


Summary: Play Group is also looking for a 30-year lease for the building, which Mr. King said that would need special legislation by the New York State Legislature.


Summary: In 2002, the exterior of Wildcliff was added to the National Register of Historic Places.


Summary: Steven and Jill Abusch were hugging like newly married couple as they gazed at their dream house. They saw past the boarded-up windows and the damaged roof to an imagined scene of children singing, dancing and rehearsing in a historic 19th-century house made whole again. She held her husband's hand as they discussed their plans for the house, which she confessed her love for its nooks and crannies and character.


Summary: On a recent tour of Wildcliff, a once-glorious Gothic Revival house on a windy bluff overlooking Long Island Sound, the newly wed couple talked about their vision, which may not be a stretch. Play Group was recommended to the City as Wildcliff's new occupant after the group submitted a plan for the building to the city. The theater, and also the house, had been vacant since Fleetwood Stage moved out last spring after presenting plays at Wildcliff since 1997.


Summary: Henry A. McKinnell, the chief executive, has received munificent pay for presiding over the destruction of shareholder value. Even though the stock has lost 43 percent of its value since he became Pfizer's chief, Dr. McKinnell has received $65 million in salary, bonus, restricted stock, and incentive pay. Dr. McKinnell's pension swelled partly because, from 1993 to 2001, the value of Pfizer shares he received under long-term incentive arrangements were included in calculating the benefit.


Summary: Pfizer, the New York-based drugmaker is set for its annual meeting. Even though the stock has lost 43 percent of its value since Dr. McKinnell became Pfizer's chief in January 2001. Pfizer shareholders could pay even more than $83 million. The Pfizer situation makes an interesting test, not only of Pfizer's commitment to listening to shareholders but also of whether money managers will side with Pfizer or their investor customers who have lost money in the company's shares.


Summary: It's $6.5 million a year for as long as he lives and the biggest pension benefit for a chief executive of a company at any of the 500 companies in the Standard & Poor's stock index.


Summary: Frederick E. Rowe Jr., who is the chairman of Greenbrier Partners, is the maker of the foundation, which is an investment fund in Dallas. He is also chairman of the Texas Pension Review Board, and in that designation, he said, he has seen the sacrifices that firefighters, police officials and other municipal workers have had to make as their pensions' returns have fallen. One reason those returns have disappointed, Mr. Rowe said, is executive pay.


Summary: Lucian A. Bebchuk, a professor at Harvard Law School, and Robert J. Jackson Jr., a fellow at Harvard's program on corporate governance, calculate that shareholders would have to pay an additional $16.7 million if, under the annuity option, Dr. McKinnell married a 50-year-old.


Summary: Representative John Boehner, Republican of Ohio and the new House majority leader. But rather than support the sensible notion of a simple seven-year catch-up period, Mr. Boehner championed a super-slow phase-in that is now part of the House bill. Mr. Boehner, a darling of the securities industry, wants to remove the ban.


Summary: The pension reform bill which is now being worked on by a House-Senate conference is swing on the verge of being worse than worthless. Firstly,  Representative John Boehner, Republican of Ohio and the new House majority leader. But rather than support the sensible notion of a simple seven-year catch-up period, Mr. Boehner championed a super-slow phase-in that is now part of the House bill.


Summary: In general, Congress has skillfully devised new rules for computing pension obligations. But Congress should also reject provisions that would weaken current protections. But an analysis of the bills released by Congress's own Joint Committee on Taxation also shows lower contributions through 2010.


Summary: Of the 1.5 million residents of Dubai, as many as a million are immigrants who have come here to work in some capacity, with the largest subgroup being construction workers, said Hadi Ghaemi, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who covers the United Arab Emirates, citing government statistics. Only 80 government inspectors oversee about 200,000 companies and other establishments that employ migrant workers, Mr. Ghaemi said, citing government figures.


Summary: Jodi Robbins and her family were on a grim dinnertime. She cooked, it was spaghetti or tuna casserole over and over, with rarely enough time to make a salad. Their routine was expensive, fattening and boring.


Summary: Muhammad Suleiman, the manager of food and beverage, wanted to show a visitor the Orient Express, a Chinese restaurant with booths made to look like little railroad cars. He said that it was once the greatest Chinese restaurant in the Middle East. First he said pointing to a red velvet alcove, that it was the place where where the people waited.


Summary: Taja Saleh began working at the hotel in 1984, it was the biggest in Baghdad, 17 floors of five-star luxury, albeit with a special, Arab-mod feel. Ms. Saleh gaily remembered her old French friends, like Mademoiselle Dominique, in charge of housekeeping, and Monsieur Granier, the dapper manager.


Summary: Andrzej Lepper, a pig farmer who heads the stridently populist Self-Defense Party said that they think the conditions under which Poland joined the European Union are not good for Poland's economic development.


Summary: Leszek Balcerowicz, the president of the National Bank of Poland,  who was finance minister is the highest-profile target during the 1990's is credited with engineering Poland's economic metamorphosis. Because he is the chief banking regulator and has had a hand in many of the privatizations of banks, the inquiry is essentially of his conduct. Given Mr. Balcerowicz's iconic status, the campaign against him has become a sort of referendum on Poland's path to Europe.


Summary: Andrzej Lepper, a pig farmer who heads the stridently populist Self-Defense Party, said that they thought the conditions under which Poland joined the European Union are not good for Poland's economic development.


Summary: The Polish government has blocked the deal, precipitating a bitter clash with the European Union and stirring a broader debate about economic nationalism and Poland's place in a united Europe. Behind the politics is a genuine dispute: European officials say that when Poland joined the single market, it ceded authority to veto such mergers to Brussels. Whatever misgivings they may have about Italian bankers, they value Poland's brisk growth, not to mention the aid from the European Union, which has brought prosperity, even if unemployment and rural poverty persist.


Summary: Charles J. Hynes, yesterday announced the arrest of 10 men in three boroughs who were charged with running betting operations that brought in more than $45 million a year. Mr. Hynes said that the crackdown on bookmakers, code-named ''Kings Flush,'' netted some people with connections to either the Gambino crime family or to a Chinese street gang. He added that his office would file civil lawsuits against those who ran the gambling operations and seek to seize their assets. Mr. Hynes said, his office has served 150 warrants, arrested 250 people and seized $10 million in profits from organizations that reaped $1.2 billion in profits.


Summary: The Party of Regions, led by Mr. Yushchenko's rival, Viktor F. Yanukovich, so far has the largest number of votes, at 28 percent. Instead, Mr. Yushchenko's office announced in a terse statement that he would meet with the leaders of all the major parties on Tuesday, leaving open the possibility of a coalition that could include Mr. Yanukovich but exclude his erstwhile ally.


Summary: Ukraine was in political gridlock on Monday as the parties that led in parliamentary elections jockeyed for advantage to appoint a newly empowered prime minister and government under President Viktor A. Yushchenko. Mr. Yushchenko, who led the protests in 2004 against a fraudulent presidential election, appeared to have been stunned by the election results, which showed his party trailing in distant third place. Instead, Mr. Yushchenko's office announced in a terse statement that he would meet with the leaders of all the major parties on Tuesday, leaving open the possibility of a coalition that could include Mr. Yanukovich but exclude his erstwhile ally.


Summary: Yulia V. Tymoshenko, his former partner and prime minister whose bloc outpolled Mr. Yushchenko's, said that she remained confident that an alliance could still be formed among what she called the democratic forces that rode the popular uprising of 2004 to power. Ms. Tymoshenko, whose party received 23 percent of the votes, according to the partial results said that the coalition had and continues to have a chance to be formed.


Summary: Ismail Haniya presented his cabinet to the legislators on Monday, with the expectation that its members will be sworn in by Wednesday. Hamas, however, has refused to recognize Israel's claim on any land in the region, saying only that it might consider a long-term truce if Israel withdrew to its 1967 borders. Hamas has always rejected negotiations with Israel, though Mr. Haniya told his legislators on Monday that Hamas was willing to hold talks with the so-called quartet: the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.


Summary: Mahmoud Abbas, is the Palestinian Authority president, and his secular Fatah movement have sought a Palestinian state on all the land that Israel captured and occupied in the 1967 war Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem as its capital.


Summary: As with all previous Israeli governments, Kadima faces the prospect of building a coalition with other parties. While the final shape of a new government probably will not be clear for weeks, a Kadima victory on its platform of unilateral territorial concessions would signal a major political realignment. Ehud Olmert, who was the acting Prime Minister and his centrist Kadima Party, the overwhelming favorite, say they are prepared to fix Israel's eastern border in the next four years in what would be a wrenching process involving the removal of tens of thousands of Jewish settlers from the West Bank.


Summary: Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his centrist Kadima Party, say they are prepared to fix Israel's eastern border in the next four years in what would be a wrenching process involving the removal of tens of thousands of Jewish settlers from the West Bank. While the final shape of a new government probably will not be clear for weeks, a Kadima victory on its platform of unilateral territorial concessions would signal a major political realignment. Kadima will need partners for a coalition, and Labor, which supports the evacuation of Jewish settlements, is considered the most likely one. Dan Schueftan, a leading proponent of that policy and a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, said that the Kadima idea of unilateral action had popularity because it allowed Israel to be proactive.


Summary: Israel has already halted most of its dealings with the Palestinian Authority after the January election victory by Hamas, the radical Islamic movement, and that policy is expected to be further entrenched in the coming days. Likud has won past elections, including the last one, in 2003, with tough security policies toward the Palestinians and calls for Israel to retain its settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, and his secular Fatah movement have sought a Palestinian state on all the land that Israel captured and occupied in the 1967 war -- Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem as its capital.


Summary: Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian prime minister-designate and leader of Hamas, presented his cabinet to the legislators on Monday, with the expectation that its members will be sworn in by Wednesday. Hamas has always rejected negotiations with Israel, though Mr. Haniya told his legislators on Monday that Hamas was willing to hold talks with the so-called quartet: the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.


Summary: Dan Schueftan, a leading proponent of that policy and a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, a private research organization, said that the Kadima idea of unilateral action had popularity because it allowed Israel to be proactive.


Summary: Amnon Danker, the editor in chief of Maariv, a leading Israeli daily, asked how one could explain eschewing voting in a country like ours, in which the issues on the table were nothing short of life and death.


Summary: The Labor Party is counting on strong organization to help it gain a few extra seats. Kadima will need partners for a coalition, and Labor, which supports the evacuation of Jewish settlements, is considered the most likely one. Labor's vision of a negotiated peace settlement with the Palestinians crumbled after peace talks during the 1990's failed to produce an agreement.


Summary: If the vote remains at that level a loss of 23 seats since the last election Mr. Netanyahu could face a challenge for party leadership from a former foreign minister, Silvan Shalom.


Summary: Amnon Danker, the editor in chief of Maariv, a leading Israeli daily.


Summary: The hawkish Likud, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, is hovering around 15 seats. If the vote remains at that level -- a loss of 23 seats since the last election -- Mr. Netanyahu could face a challenge for party leadership from a former foreign minister, Silvan Shalom.


Summary: The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, and his secular Fatah movement have sought a Palestinian state on all the land that Israel captured and occupied in the 1967 war -- Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem as its capital.


Summary: The nearest rival, the dovish Labor Party, led by a former trade unionist, Amir Peretz, is expected to win around 20 seats.


Summary: Talya Eluz said that it did not matter who would be in power, it won't change anything for them and part of a group of evacuated settlers who have been protesting for months by living in a roadside tent camp in Yad Mordechai, just outside Gaza.


Summary: A low turnout could hurt Kadima, the party formed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who suffered a major stroke and remains comatose. Both positions have been pushed aside by the idea of Israel's unilaterally separating itself from the Palestinians, which has become the dominant theme in Israeli politics since Mr. Sharon first proposed the Israeli pullout from Gaza at the end of 2003.


Summary: The hawkish Likud led by Benjamin Netanyahu is hovering around 15 seats. Since Israel's founding in 1948, one of two parties -- Labor on the left or Likud on the right -- has won every election. Likud has won past elections, including the last one, in 2003 and calls for Israel to retain its settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.


Summary: Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his centrist Kadima Party say they are prepared to fix Israel's eastern border in the next four years in what would be a wrenching process involving the removal of tens of thousands of Jewish settlers from the West Bank. Mr. Olmert has not said exactly where he would like to set a border, though he indicated he would take Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank as a starting point.


Mr. de Villepin
de Villepin
Dominique de Villepin

Summary: Dominique de Villepin, the country's embattled prime minister, was targeted by the students and trade unions and they planned strikes and protests for Tuesday represent a test of wills. Mr. de Villepin on Monday made a new offer to meet with student and union leaders on Wednesday. He said that to advance and get out of the current crisis. But ultimately no progress was made at an earlier meeting with union leaders, and it was not clear what the prime minister could offer that would persuade the protest leaders to back down.


Summary: Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., then a member of the appeals court, was the dissenter on the three-judge panel. He left the Supreme Court bench when the argument began, and will not take part in the case. A 4-to-4 tie, in Justice Alito's absence, would have the effect of affirming the appeals court's ruling.


Summary: Jere Krakoff, a lawyer from Pittsburgh representing the inmates who had brought the lawsuit, was making his first Supreme Court argument. Mr. Krakoff got into a discussion with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. about an exception in Pennsylvania's policy that permits inmates to have religious newspapers and law-related reading matter in their cells. Seeking to summarize as the red light came on to signal that his time was up, Mr. Krakoff observed that some of the hard-core inmates in the special prison unit under discussion would eventually complete their sentences and go back into society.


Summary: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg interceded currently at this moment, noted by addressing Mr. Krakoff that he thought Mr. Krakoff were saying that as a security concern, it doesn't hold up, because the materials they are allowed to have in their cells could be put to the same end. Later, at the end of his30 minutes, Mr. Krakoff told the justices that he would sit down rather than continue.


Summary: Mr. Krakoff got into a discussion with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. about an exception in Pennsylvania's policy that permits resident to have religious newspapers and law-related reading matter in their cells. Mr. Krakoff, trying to show that, given the exceptions, the policy made little sense, observed that as the Chief Justice Roberts said that The Jewish Forward can burn as quickly as The New York Times. So now he is the only person who makes his clients' situation worse.


Summary: Pennsylvania went before the Supreme Court to defend its policy of denying most newspapers, magazines, and photographs to its most incorrigible prison inmates against claims that the restriction violates the First Amendment. The appeals court's 2-to-1 ruling set aside a federal district court's judgment for the state, leading to Pennsylvania's Supreme Court appeal. The argument in the Supreme Court was more lopsided than the eventual decision might be.


Summary: A group of American citizens, armed with a $300 million court award against the government of Iran, has brought actions against the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago as well as other museums holding Iranian artifacts. In the 1930's, the Oriental Institute, like conducted extensive excavations at sites like Persepolis, bringing back thousands of artifacts. Mr. Stein said it took decades for scholars at the Oriental Institute to decipher the tablets and begin to publish whatever they had learned about the history of ancient Persia.


Summary: Some of those objects were granted to the institute by the Iranian government for their role in the excavation, were lent to the museum for study, with the understanding that they would eventually be returned, said Gil Stein, the institute's director. Mr. Stein said it took decades for scholars at the Oriental Institute to decipher the tablets. When Mr. Stein went to work a few days later he got a surprise.


Summary: Civil rights of the organizations estimate that there were fewer than 300 black elected officials in the United States present before the act, with virtually nobody in the South, said Daniel Levitas, who works with the Voting Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union in Georgia.


Summary: Mr. Lewis's district, the Fifth Congressional, encompassing much of urban Atlanta, would look quite different had there been no act, he said, and he is certain that someone besides himself would have represented it for the last 20 years. The Republican Congressional leadership has shown their little interest in battling to reverse it, other than many conservatives' concerns that the act has led to unconstitutional redistricting based on race.


Summary: Representative Lynn Westmoreland, a former builder, acknowledges that the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a cornerstone achievement of the civil rights movement, was necessary in its day to register blacks and overturn decades of laws preventing them from voting. The Voting Rights Act, a follow-up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, was intended to break down barriers that had kept blacks from registering to vote. Before the act, civil rights organizations estimate, there were fewer than 300 black elected officials in the United States, with virtually none in the South.


Summary: Of the sections that require reauthorization, the two that have drawn the most attention are Section 5, which requires some jurisdictions to apply to the Justice Department before changing voting laws, and Section 203, which requires jurisdictions with high numbers of foreign-speaking voters to provide multilingual help at polls.


Summary: Joseph L. Bruno, a Republican, said that the budget division should go back to kindergarten and learn how to count. John McArdle, who is the spokesman of Mr. Bruno, said that it was the same budget division that has been wrong every year on its projections of the deficits and on its projections of revenue. There are surely wide differences in the $110.6 billion budget which Mr. Pataki proposed in January and the budget that the Legislature agreed to on Tuesday night.


Summary: Mr. Joseph L. Bruno's spokesman, John McArdle, said, it was the same budget division that has been wrong every year on its projections of the deficits and on its projections of revenue. There are certainly wide differences in the $110.6 billion budget Mr. Pataki proposed and the budget that the Legislature agreed to. Mr. McArdle, the spokesman for Mr. Bruno, said there were plenty of other options besides new taxes to pay for health care. One, he said, is the future conversion of public health insurers, like the Health Insurance Plan of New York, into profit-making companies.


Summary: Gov. George E. Pataki's staff claimed that the Legislature's new budget understates spending by as much as $2.6 billion and would create deficits totaling at least $10 billion. But the Pataki administration's criticisms focused mainly on Medicaid, the program that has increasingly accounted for the state's growth in spending. The governor's staff also expressed concern that the Legislature was rejecting Mr. Pataki's plan to increase cigarette taxes, which provide money for a variety of health care initiatives through the Health Care Reform Act, known as H.C.R.A.


Summary: ''Small Torn Campbell's Soup Can (Pepper Pot),'' an early hand-painted work from 1962, will be auctioned at Christie's sale of postwar and contemporary art. Only 20 by 16 inches, ''Small Torn Campbell's Soup Can (Pepper Pot)'' was made before Warhol discovered silk screening, when he traced outlines from photographs and stencils, often altering the size and shape of the original can.


Summary: Another Serving of Warhol, the Museum of Modern Art acquired Andy Warhol's 32-panel of Campbell's Soup Cans from Irving Blum. Small Torn Campbell's Soup Can (Pepper Pot) was made before Warhol discovered silk screening, when he traced outlines from photographs and stencils, often altering the size and shape of the original can.


Summary: Finally, both a trial court and an appeals court upheld the Omers view that Ford had improperly siphoned off about three billion Canadian dollars from 1985 to 1995, when Ford Motor bought out the Canadian operation. Paul M. Pugh, the senior vice president for public investments at Omers said that it was not something that you could tell from the publicly reported financial information.


Summary: Sears Holdings increased its bid to take full control of Sears Canada by 7 percent, to 899 million Canadian dollars. When Sears Holdings, which is based in Hoffman Estates, Ill., announced its intention to buy out the minority shares of Sears Canada, it owned about 53.8 percent of the company. Its offer of 16.86 Canadian dollars a share, however, ran into trouble when an appraisal by Genuity Capital Markets, commissioned by the Canadian operation's board, valued Sears Canada at 19 to 22.25 Canadian dollars a share.


Summary: Sears Holdings and Ford Motor are finding, attempts to streamline increasingly global operations by taking Canadian subsidiaries private. Sears Holdings increased its bid to take full control of Sears Canada by 7 percent, to 899 million Canadian dollars. Sears Holdings said that Genuity should have reduced its appraisal because the Canadian company did not own the rights to its name or product trademarks like Kenmore.


Summary: The Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, which caters to wealthy homeowners, said it had begun offering the coverage in Arizona, Colorado and Illinois. Chubb said it expected to find a strong market among owners of expensive homes after the Hurricane Katrina. By the end of the year, Chubb said, it expects to be selling flood insurance in 15 states, including Florida. Chubb's approach is to continue to refuse coverage in the riskiest situations.


Summary: Representative Tom DeLay's decision to resign his House seat came as federal prosecutors continued to investigate the aides who once made up his inner circle. Mr. DeLay said his announcement was unrelated to a former senior aide's guilty plea last week to corruption charges. Mr. DeLay is also under indictment in Texas on charges that he broke campaign finance laws, and he faced the prospect of an inquiry by the House ethics committee into travel arranged by Mr. Abramoff.


Summary: Democrats cheered the departure of Mr. DeLay, who said he would leave Congress by the middle of June. They said that he had only himself to blame for the abrupt end to his public career and that his decision to quit the House would not spare Republicans from a voter backlash. Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee said that in Richard Nixon terms, that he don't have Tom DeLay to kick out anymore.


Summary: President Bush, who spoke with Mr. DeLay, said he wished him all the best, but added that Republicans would continue to flourish. Administration officials said the White House had not pushed Mr. DeLay to step down.


Summary: Mr. DeLay said his announcement was unrelated to a former senior aide's guilty plea last week to corruption charges, the latest admission of wrongdoing in the Jack Abramoff scandal by onetime staff members. Mr. DeLay is also under indictment in Texas on charges that he broke campaign finance laws, and he faced the prospect of an inquiry by the House ethics committee into travel arranged by Mr. Abramoff. Senior Republicans said Mr. DeLay should have acted months ago when Mr. Abramoff entered his guilty plea.


Summary: The third former aide to be caught up in the investigation, Edwin A. Buckham, was among Mr. DeLay's closest associates, and the Justice Department is seeking to build a conspiracy case against him. Another close associate said that Mr. DeLay had been consistent in telling friends he had done nothing wrong, but many of his former aides and closest friends were becoming targets of the Justice Department.


Summary: The third former aide to be caught up in the investigation, Edwin A. Buckham, was among Mr. DeLay's closest associates, and the Justice Department is seeking to build a conspiracy case against him. Mr. Buckham, Mr. DeLay's former chief of staff, was under scrutiny, federal law enforcement officials confirmed that he was the person referred to as ''Lobbyist B'' in court documents released as part of Mr. Rudy's plea agreement.


Summary: The Nassau County executive, Thomas R. Suozzi, said on Tuesday, that New York State's Medicaid system has continued paying health insurance premiums for some patients even after they have been dead for several months, costing the state as much as $1 million. Mr. Suozzi, a Democratic candidate for governor, has made Medicaid fraud and waste the centerpiece of his "fix Albany" campaign. Mr. Suozzi said a review of records in Nassau found Medicaid had paid managed care companies for at least 47 patients for six months, on average, after they had died and that statewide such mistakes could cost $1 million a year.


Summary: Thomas R. Suozzi said that they are having a hard time affording to pay for Medicaid for people who need care without paying for dead people and that the problem is especially embarrassing because the state's Department of Health, which operates Medicaid, is also the agency that keeps death records. According to Mr. Suozzi, the solution is a simple technological fix of coordinating the Health Department's computer files.


Summary: A professor at the University of Oklahoma, Steven M. Gillon is also the author of a companion book published this month. He said that the massacre at Mystic is a way to get into the relationship between native people and the settlers. In the words of his book, it became the model for how whites would treat natives across the country. He said that Antietam is about so much, the role of race in the Civil War among them.


Summary: The episode "Einstein's Letter (July 16, 1939)" opens with two men driving on a lonely Long Island road in search of Albert Einstein, who they hope will lead an appeal to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to develop an atomic bomb. The story is told mostly from the perspective of one of the men in the car, the Hungarian-born physicist Leo Szilard, who wrote the letter sent over Einstein's signature. The date reflects how the meeting of Szilard and Einstein set off events that led to the bombing of Hiroshima and the dawn of the nuclear age.


Summary: Since the process was created, the president has ordered divestiture in only one case: in 1990, the first President Bush ordered a Chinese aerospace company to end its ownership of an American aircraft parts maker.


Summary: The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or Cfius, led by the Treasury secretary, includes representatives from 12 agencies and departments from the White House as well as a variety of economic, law enforcement and national security offices.


Summary: Senator Richard C. Shelby, the Alabama Republican who heads the Banking Committee, said that the Dubai deal showed that neither the president, nor the Treasury secretary knew anything about the deal. Mr. Shelby sponsored what has emerged as the central Senate bill on the subject. Dismissing the concerns that his bill could result in too much transparency and create a chilling climate for foreign investment, he said the legislation was carefully written to encourage foreign investment while making the administration more vigorous in approaching national security issues.


Summary: Diana L. Taylor, the state superintendent of banks, has written to banks throughout New York encouraging them to adopt similar practices voluntarily.


Summary: Using the records of the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development and those of Housing Here and Now, the bank will consider past housing code violations, emergency repair liens and litigation.


Summary: Maya Widmaier-Picasso, a daughter of Picasso who authenticates works attributed to him, said this week that a drawing of a faun bought in 2004 by a San Francisco doctor through Costco, the warehouse-club wholesaler, was not made by her father, and that a certificate accompanying it had been forged. The pronouncement came three weeks after Ms. Widmaier-Picasso declared two other drawings offered as Picassos at Costco's Web site to be fake: a sketch of a face, sold in 2005 to a man from Newport Beach, Calif., and one of a bullfight, which was not sold and has been withdrawn from the site, www.costco.com. Costco officials said this week that they were conducting an inquiry into the authenticity of the three drawings and had offered customers full refunds for the two disputed Picasso drawings that were sold.


Picasso
Widmaier-Picasso
Maya Widmaier-Picasso

Summary: Maya Widmaier-Picasso, a daughter of Picasso who authenticates works attributed to him, said that a drawing of a faun bought in 2004 by a San Francisco doctor through Costco, was not made by her father, and that a certificate accompanying it had been forged. The pronouncement came three weeks after she declared two other drawings offered as Picassos at Costco's Web site to be fake: a sketch of a face and one of a bullfight, which was not sold and has been withdrawn from the site. Dr. Frank Zhang sent the newspaper digital photographs of his own sketch and its accompanying certificate, which appeared to be written and signed by her, who said in a telephone interview that the certificate is fake, ditto the signature, spelling and the drawing. She wrote her authenticating certificates with no breaks between paragraphs and always spelled the month out in letters, never in numbers.


Summary: The San Francisco physician, Dr. Frank Zhang, who paid $37,000 for his drawing, contacted The New York Times after reading about the two other sketches that Ms. Widmaier-Picasso declared to be copies. He said he was worried that his sketch might also not be genuine. Dr. Zhang said that when he learned of Costco's art offerings, he contacted the wholesaler and was among the first customers to buy an original work.