Summary: Robert (the Birdman) Stroud was psychotic, but he never kept birds here and did not look anything like Burt Lancaster, who played him in ''Birdman of Alcatraz.'' Mr. Heaney ought to know.


Summary: THIS much Frank Heaney knows is true: the gangster George (Machine Gun) Kelly was easy to get along with and did not try to con the guards like other inmates on Alcatraz. Mr. Heaney, who is 79, regularly makes the trek back to the island to share his memories and to sell and autograph his book, ''Inside the Walls of Alcatraz.'' But now his visits are only once a month, down from nearly a dozen a month before a stroke slowed him down two years ago. The service does not announce Mr. Heaney's visits beforehand. As tourists study the damp rooms with mint-green chipped lead paint, Mr. Heaney recalls how the guards paid $10 a month for ''a bed and a bureau'' and 25 cents for a meal.


Summary: Bonnie and Clyde's driver, Floyd Hamilton, was nice enough.


Summary: Governor Perry is facing not just a Democratic opponent, former Representative Chris Bell, but also probably two independents, the comptroller, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, and Kinky Friedman, the gadfly country singer, and humorist. Ms. Strayhorn, long a Republican who left the party to challenge Mr. Perry as an independent and is collecting signatures to get on the ballot, said she would not comment on the tax plan until it was formally presented, or quantify the surplus before providing the figure to lawmakers. Ms. Strayhorn said, maintaining that electronic gaming at racetracks could underwrite raises for teachers and other new money for education issues she said should be part of the special session.


Summary: The system badly needed fixing, he said, since the Legislature in 1988 made it easy for tax-paying corporations to turn themselves into untaxable partnerships, costing the state billions.


Summary: Governor Rick Perry, a Republican whose re-election prospects in a busy field of rivals are tied to a solution, may seek out a settlement, but many political veterans are hedging their bets over the third special session called by him. Governor Perry is facing not just a Democratic opponent, former Rep, the comptroller, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, and Kinky Friedman, the gadfly country singer, and humorist. Mr. Perry has been calling in political chits, lobbying hard for the tax panel's plan, and has called it a rare opportunity to significantly reduce property taxes, make substantial reforms to the franchise tax so it is fairer and broader and ensure our schools have a reliable and constitutional stream of revenue.


Summary: As outlined by the tax panel's chairman, John Sharp, a former Democratic comptroller, the state would reduce property taxes by one-third, largely by broadening the commercial-receipts tax, which is now paid at 4.5 percent by only one out of every 16 businesses in Texas. Mr. Sharp agreed in an interview in Austin in which he outlined the plan's provisions, developed during five months of public hearings across the state. Lowering the property tax would cost about $5.8 billion a year, Mr. Sharp said, but the new business tax would raise $4 billion of that gap, and the remainder would mainly come from the surplus and higher cigarette taxes.


Summary: Glen A. Rosenbaum is a partner at the powerful law firm of Vincent & Elkins and spokesman for 18 top Texas law firms that have complained of inequities in the new taxing formula. While maintaining that they were willing to be taxed for the first time, Mr. Rosenbaum said, one way of making the plan fairer would be to raise the deduction per lawyer to at least $500,000 from the proposed $300,000.


Summary: Singapore Airlines plans to begin the first commercial service of the Airbus A380 and will unveil its cabin design for the new superjumbo jet, according to Subhas Menon, the airline's vice president for the Americas. In an interview, Mr. Menon said that all 10 double-deck A380's that Singapore has ordered will be configured with about 475 seats in first class, business class, and economy cabins. Singapore has not set a date for starting A380 service to and from the United States, but Mr. Menon said the carrier was looking more closely at using San Francisco International Airport, which has made the necessary modifications to accommodate the giant jet.


Summary: Singapore Airlines plans to begin the first commercial service of the Airbus A380 and will unveil its cabin design for the new superjumbo jet, according to Subhas Menon, the airline's vice president for the Americas. Mr. Menon said that all 10 double-deck A380's that Singapore has ordered will be configured with about 475 seats in first-class, business class, and economy cabins. The first service will be on one of the airline's signature long-haul routes, Singapore to Sydney, Australia, with a London route to follow as more planes come into service, Mr. Menon said.


Summary: This year, in particular, business and leisure travelers are making earlier-than-usual summer domestic travel plans, says the Travel Industry Association of America.


Summary: Singapore Airlines plans to begin the first commercial service of the Airbus A380 and will unveil its cabin design for the new superjumbo jet, according to Subhas Menon, the airline's vice president for the Americas. In a passenger evacuation test required for regulatory certification of the A380 jet, Airbus said it managed to get 873 passengers and 20 crew members off one of its new double-deck jumbo aircraft within the required 90 seconds. Airbus said that only half of the aircraft's 16 exits were used to empty the jet.


Summary: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, spoke to try to close a crucial difference over the language of a possible Security Council statement on Iran. Ms. Rice said that Russian and American officials would work through the weekend to resolve their differences.


Summary: On Saturday, a state news agency, RIA, cited unidentified Russian security officials as saying that the American Defense Department study that included the documents seemed intended to punish Russia for opposing the 2003 invasion.


Summary: According to Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University, Iranian news media outlets are praising Russia and China for trying to block a Security Council action that would impose penalties on Iran. He said that the Iranian papers are bursting with stories about how China and Russia are not caving to the American pressure to punish Iran.


Summary: Boris Labusov, a spokesman for the service, said that this kind of unsubstantiated allegation against Russia's intelligence service has been voiced repeatedly.


Summary: A senior State Department official said Saturday that the department was studying details related to the disclosure, and no decision had been made on whether to raise the matter diplomatically with the Russians.


Summary: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, spoke Friday to try to close a crucial difference over the language of a possible Security Council statement on Iran, specifically the statement's reference to Iran's nuclear activities as a threat to international peace and security.


Summary: The Bush administration and Russia, struggling to forge a joint strategy on Iran, remain at odds over whether the United Nations Security Council should take a step toward imposing penalties on Iran by labeling its nuclear activities a threat to world peace, American and European officials say. The officials say that the Russian-American impasse, in which leading European countries are siding with the Bush administration, has held up what the West had hoped would be a unanimous move by the Security Council on Iran this month. The Bush administration had some hope over the weekend that the Russian-American talks could produce agreement soon.


United Nations Security Council
Security Council
Council
United Nations

Summary: The Bush administration and Russia, struggling to forge a joint strategy on Iran, remain at odds over whether the United Nations Security Council should take a step toward imposing penalties on Iran by labeling its nuclear activities a threat to world peace, American and European officials say. The officials say that the Russian-American impasse, in which leading European countries are siding with the Bush administration, has held up what the West had hoped would be a unanimous move by the Security Council on Iran this month. The impasse also has echoes of the Iraq war, they say, in that Russia is concerned about a possible replay of the United States' using resolutions by the Council to confront Iran in the same way it acted against Iraq.


Summary: Étienne Tshisekedi, who did not immediately respond to Kofi Annan's pleas, is but one of dozens of potential candidate threatening to boycott the polling and discredit what they see as a sure victory for Joseph Kabila, the 34-year-old military commander who took over the presidency when his father was assassinated in 2001. As part of a 2003 peace deal, Mr. Kabila has the job temporarily while four vice presidents representing Congo's divided political landscape check his power. But Mr. Kabila, who formally entered the race this week, has the power of the state behind him, and analysts suggest that the only way he could face trouble is if opposition parties merge.


Summary: A separate European Union force of about 400 soldiers is due here before the vote to act as a rapid response force. An additional 1,000 or so European Union troops will be on standby outside the country.


Summary: The sign was a threat directed at Congo's government: meet the demands of Étienne Tshisekedi, a veteran opposition politician, or face the wrath of his unruly band of supporters in the Union for Democracy and Social Progress, who are known for their aggressive ways. It was said that without Tshisekedi in this election, there will be civil war. Mr. Tshisekedi insisted that Mr. Kabila's government meet his demands, including reopening voter registration to allow more of his backers to sign up.


Summary: The country's chief justice, Fazil Hadi Shinwari, is a hard-line conservative associated with the Islamist parties of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf and Burhanuddin Rabbani. Under Justice Shinwari's leadership the Supreme Court has variously attempted to ban co-education; tried to eliminate a rival to President Hamid Karzai from the 2004 elections; and jailed newspaper editors, all in the name of Islam. To further his aims, Justice Shinwari has packed the lower courts with judges who have Islamic educations but no foundation in Afghan law or experience in the judiciary.


Summary: Under the Constitution, President Hamid Karzai must appoint a new Supreme Court and he sent his slate of nine justices to Parliament for approval. These appointments mark President Karzai's first opportunity to compose Afghanistan's Supreme Court under a fully constitutional government. By creating a competent, professional, and moderate judiciary, President Karzai will help to establish the rule of law.


Summary: When Abdul Rahman tried to get custody of his daughters in Kabul, Afghanistan, his wife's family told the court that he was unfit to care for his children because he had converted from Islam to Christianity some 16 years ago. A zealous prosecutor, hearing of the case, charged Mr. Rahman with apostasy, a crime punishable by death under some interpretations of Islamic law. If Mr. Rahman does not repudiate Christianity, the judge in the case has said, he will get the death penalty. Mr. Rahman's case is a discouraging illustration of the uneasy balance between the democratic norms Afghanistan's Constitution enshrines and the conservative Islamic values its judiciary upholds.


Summary: Under Justice Shinwari's leadership, the Supreme Court has variously attempted to ban co-education, tried to eliminate a rival to President Hamid Karzai from the 2004 elections, and jailed newspaper editors, all in the name of Islam. Under the Constitution, Mr. Karzai must appoint a new Supreme Court. He sent his slate of nine justices to Parliament for approval. These appointments mark President Karzai's first opportunity to compose Afghanistan's Supreme Court under a fully constitutional government.


Summary: Almost three years after regulators accused officers at Gemstar-TV Guide of inflating the company's revenue to reap a windfall from bonuses and stock sales, a federal judge found the former chief executive, Henry C. Yuen, liable for securities fraud. Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer in Federal District Court in Los Angeles also found Mr. Yuen liable for misrepresenting facts to Gemstar's auditors and falsifying its books.


Summary: General Motors and Microsoft took steps to cope with problems long in coming, while federal prosecutors were staggered by a reversal in a very visible corporate corruption case. Microsoft said that its new computer operating system, Windows Vista, would not be available to consumers before Christmas, as it had planned. Microsoft did not say why it would miss its own deadline of delivering Vista by the end of this year, but trade papers have reported that it has had difficulty in designing and debugging the system, which is particularly complex and power-hungry.


Summary: In a rare reversal of a jury verdict, a federal appeals court overturned the obstruction-of-justice conviction of Frank P. Quattrone, the Silicon Valley-based investment banker. It unanimously ruled that the trial judge failed to require that jurors agree that Mr. Quattrone intended to thwart a government investigation. The appeals court granted Mr. Quattrone a new trial, but it was unclear if prosecutors would pursue the case, which produced a hung jury at his first trial.


Summary: Bayer, the drug and chemical giant best known as the inventor of aspirin, said it would pay nearly $20 billion in cash for a smaller rival, Schering, topping a $17.9 billion offer by Merck of Germany. Bayer's biggest business now is producing polyurethane, polycarbonates and other manufacturing materials, which accounted for about $13 billion in sales last year. Health care products account for less than 40 percent of its revenue, which was about $30.5 billion last year, but the Schering acquisition could make health care the largest part of Bayer, with projected sales of $18 billion a year.


Summary: L'Oréal of France agreed to buy Body Shop International for about $1.14 billion, for example, while Colgate-Palmolive acquired an 84 percent stake in Tom's of Maine for $100 million. Neither L'Oreal nor Colgate are likely to completely change their strategies.


Summary: Bayer, the drug and chemical giant, said it would pay nearly $20 billion in cash for a smaller rival, Schering, topping a $17.9 billion offer by Merck of Germany. The offer, which Schering said it would recommend to its shareholders, could help rebuild some of Germany's historic prominence in the pharmaceutical industry. Merck withdrew, leaving Bayer to complete the takeover unless another suitor enters the fray.


Summary: Colgate-Palmolive acquired an 84 percent stake in Tom's of Maine for $100 million. Body Shop, which sells natural cosmetics, and Tom's, best known for its natural toothpaste, are attractive because consumers are willing to pay more for their products. Colgate's chief operating officer, Ian Cook, said Tom's toothpaste had a gross profit margin 10 percentage points higher than Colgate's.


Summary: Colgate-Palmolive acquired an 84 percent stake in Tom's of Maine for $100 million. Colgate's chief operating officer, Ian Cook, said Tom's toothpaste had a gross profit margin 10 percentage points higher than Colgate's. As its next acquisition, Colgate is considering an offer for the Listerine brand from Pfizer Inc.


Summary: Microsoft has said it is determined to make the new software secure against viruses, worms and other malicious software. They added that it could increase sales of Microsoft's Xbox video game consoles over the holidays because consumers might look elsewhere to spend their cash.


Summary: This week's revelation did not please Kim Gandy, the president of the National Organization for Women, who told the author that she might challenge the legality of affirmative action for male applicants. Gandy's also wary of allowing private schools like Kenyon to discriminate, and she's skeptical of their justification: that they need a fairly even male-female ratio on campus to attract the best applicants of either sex.


Summary: The Harvard economist Brian Jacob attributes these problems to boys' lack of noncognitive skills, like their difficulties with paying attention in class, their disorganization and their reluctance to seek help from others.


Summary: Stuart W. Bowen Jr., who heads the office of the inspector general, said he expected more arrests in the case but declined to give further details to the Interior Ministry. Mr. Bowen said that in the cash economy of Iraq, where traditional investigative methods like tracing money transfers are nonexistent, tracking down fraud is challenging. Still, Mr. Bowen said out-and-out fraud was not pervasive among Americans now in Iraq, adding that many of his cases turned up in the early months after the invasion when controls were especially weak. He said that he thinks it's a few individuals who took advantage of a chaotic situation early on and it's his job to track them down and bring them to justice. Of the arrests, at least six involve people who at one time worked directly for Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary, or for outside subcontractors working for the company.


Summary: The Justice Department said yesterday that it had arrested an Iraqi-American translator from Michigan on bribery charges in the latest case involving accusations of corruption, which have become a steady accompaniment to the war in Iraq. The Justice Department said the translator, Faheem Mousa Salam, 27, of Livonia, Mich., probably acting as an intermediary for others who have not yet been identified, offered tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to people inside the Iraqi Interior Ministry for a contract to provide some $1 million in flak jackets and other equipment to an organization that trains Iraqi police officers.


Summary: The Justice Department said the translator, Faheem Mousa Salam, 27, of Livonia, Mich., probably acting as an intermediary for others who have not yet been identified, offered tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to people inside the Iraqi Interior Ministry for a contract to provide some $1 million in flak jackets and other equipment to an organization that trains Iraqi police officers. The federal complaint says that in the course of his work, Mr. Salam offered $60,000 to an Iraqi police official who eventually referred Mr. Salam to someone the official described as a procurement officer for the American-operated program to train the Iraqi police. Mr. Salam repeated his bribery offer and was arrested late Thursday night at Dulles International Airport near Washington, as he returned from Iraq.


Summary: In postings on Web sites used by jihadi groups, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the terrorist network's arm in Iraq, claims to have joined with five other guerrilla groups to form the Mujahedeen Shura, or Council of Holy Warriors. The Mujahedeen Shura, which continues to call for attacks against American and Iraqi forces, has stopped taking responsibility for large-scale suicide attacks against civilians, and it has toned down its fierce verbal attacks against Iraq's Shiite majority. The officials say the proclamations by Al Qaeda and the Mujahedeen Shura, as well as the claim that an Iraqi is in charge, are probably ploys to give the illusion of changes that have not taken place.


Summary: Bruce Hoffman, a terrorist expert at the Rand Corporation's Washington office, said he believed that the Mujahedeen Shura and Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi were real, but was unconvinced that Mr. Zarqawi had ceded control of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Having brought the country to the brink of civil war, Mr. Zarqawi may have decided that it was a good time to step back as events in Iraq unfold. There are other reasons why Mr. Zarqawi might want to take a less prominent role in Iraq.


Summary: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist and the head of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, has sharply lowered his profile in recent months, and his group claims to have submitted itself to the leadership of an Iraqi. In postings on Web sites used by jihadi groups, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the terrorist network's arm in Iraq, claims to have joined with five other guerrilla groups to form the Mujahedeen Shura, or Council of Holy Warriors. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which is dominated by followers of Islam's Sunni sect, also boasted of the mass killing of Shiite civilians, whom it labeled derogatorily as converters. While it is impossible to verify the claims on the Web sites, experts believe it significant that Mr. Zarqawi apparently feels the need to send such signals, which offer clues about what he and other senior jihadi leaders might be thinking and doing.


Summary: A new group, whose formation was announced in January, is said to be headed by an Iraqi named Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi. Bruce Hoffman, a terrorist expert at the Rand Corporation's Washington office, said he believed that the Mujahedeen Shura and Mr. Baghdadi were real, but was unconvinced that Mr. Zarqawi had ceded control of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.


Summary: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist and the head of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, has sharply lowered his profile in recent months, and his group claims to have submitted itself to the leadership of an Iraqi. Mr. Zarqawi's group also appears to have stopped, at least for now, the practice of beheading its captives. Previously, Mr. Zarqawi's group celebrated large-scale civilian massacres, and often made videos of the attacks and of beheadings and posted the videos on jihadi Web sites.


Summary: Rita Katz, the director of the SITE Institute, which tracks violent Islamist groups, said that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi wanted to hand over Al Qaeda to the Iraqis so he could move on to the next phase of jihad. Ms. Katz, the director of SITE, which provided the translations of his statements, said that even if he had stepped back, Mr. Zarqawi was probably still the dominant force in Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.


Summary: Under cross-examination by Edward B. MacMahon Jr., a court-appointed lawyer for Zacarias Moussaoui, Harry Samit acknowledged that after the attacks he had written strongly worded reports saying his superiors had improperly blocked his efforts to investigate Mr. Moussaoui. He added that he was convinced that Mr. Moussaoui was a terrorist involved in an imminent hijacking plot. When Mr. MacMahon began reading from a document detailing many suspicions about Mr. Moussaoui's intentions, Michael Rolince interrupted by asking if he may know what document that's coming from. Mr. MacMahon obliged, noting that it was an urgent memorandum written by Mr. Samit on Aug. 18, 2001, hoping to attract the attention of headquarters.


Summary: The testimony of two prosecution witnesses, in particular, has brought renewed and unwelcome attention to how the Federal Bureau of Investigation dealt with early warning signs. The two witnesses testified that if he had told the truth on Aug. 16, 2001, the bureau could have moved swiftly to foil the plot. One problem for the bureau is that the backbone of the prosecution case, that the bureau could have disrupted the plot had Zacarias Moussaoui admitted all he knew, represents a substantial revision of conventional wisdom at the law enforcement agency.


Summary: The sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui was supposed to have been the government's best opportunity to hold someone accountable for the deaths on Sept. 11, 2001. But after federal prosecutors finished laying out their case this week, even those who strongly supported an aggressive prosecution may wonder whether the trial has shed as much light on Mr. Moussaoui's culpability as it has on the missteps and mistakes by law enforcement agencies. Mr. Moussaoui is the sole person to go to trial in an American courtroom for the attacks, making him a proxy for the 19 hijackers who were killed carrying out the attacks and the chief planners who are being held in secret C.I.A. prisons overseas.


Summary: A comment posted on the blog said a passage from an article by Mr. Domenech was nearly identical to a chapter from P. J. O'Rourke's book, "Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People." Other articles that contained passages that appeared to be copied were published in National Review Online, The New York Press and The Flat Hat, the student newspaper at the College of William and Mary, which Mr. Domenech attended. He explained the passage that appeared to be copied from Mr. O'Rourke's book by saying that Mr. O'Rourke gave him permission. Contacted at his home in New Hampshire, Mr. O'Rourke said that he had never heard of Mr. Domenech and did not recall meeting him.


Summary: A 24-year-old blogger for The Washington Post, Ben Domenech, resigned yesterday after being confronted with evidence that he had plagiarized articles in other publications. His resignation came after writing six blog items in the three days he worked for Red America, a blog that The Post created to offer a conservative viewpoint on its Web site. Mr. Domenech, who had worked in the Bush administration and was a founder of the conservative blog RedState.com, came under heavy criticism from liberal bloggers, who called his political views extreme.


Summary: Ben Domenech, who had worked in the Bush administration and was a founder of the conservative blog RedState.com, came under heavy criticism from liberal bloggers, who called his political views extreme.


Summary: Federal authorities are conducting an inquiry into Ela Medical, a small maker of defibrillators and other heart devices, according to a government official and an industry official. The precise nature of the government's interest in Ela Medical, which is a division of the Sorin Group, is unclear and any inquiry appears to be at an early stage. The inquiry into Ela Medical is apparently being conducted by investigators with the Food and Drug Administration and the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services.


Summary: The precise nature of the government's interest in Ela Medical, which is a division of the Sorin Group, is unclear and any inquiry appears to be at an early stage. The general counsel for the Sorin Group, an Italian company based in Milan, said in a statement that the device maker was unaware of any investigations. Late last year, the Sorin Group, in response to an inquiry from a reporter, declined to release a list of the postmarketing trials that Ela Medical was sponsoring in this country.


Summary: The Justice Department is investigating whether the country's three big makers of implanted heart devices, Medtronic, Guidant and St. Jude Medical, used illegal inducements to get doctors to use their products. The Justice Department investigation is said to be looking at whether the big companies, among other things, provided doctors with excessive payments to enroll patients in post-marketing studies of their devices as a way of increasing sales. In October, when the Justice Department issued its subpoenas, it did not send one to Ela Medical.


Summary: The Justice Department is investigating whether the country's three big makers of implanted heart devices, Medtronic, Guidant and St. Jude Medical, used illegal inducements to get doctors to use their products.


Summary: The Justice Department is investigating whether the country's three big makers of implanted heart devices, Medtronic, Guidant and St. Jude Medical, used illegal inducements to get doctors to use their products. That investigation began in October, soon after an article in The New York Times reported that internal Guidant e-mail messages suggested that a product evaluation survey run by that company, in which doctors were paid $1,000 each to participate, was actually an effort to improve device sales.


Summary: The inquiry into Ela Medical is apparently being conducted by investigators with the Food and Drug Administration and the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services. A spokesman for the F.D.A., Jason Brodsky, and a spokeswoman for the inspector general's office, Laura Bradbard, said that as a matter of policy the agencies do not confirm or deny the existence of any investigation.


Summary: On Ariel Sharon's 78th birthday a few weeks ago, those closest to him joined his two sons around the bedside where he lies, silent and comatose, in a hospital on a hill high above Jerusalem. Nearly three months after Mr. Sharon's major stroke on Jan. 4, his spirit hangs over this Israeli election, as the country prepares to give its verdict on Tuesday on Kadima, the centrist party he created. Mr. Sharon's huge photo is wrapped around the suburban headquarters of Kadima, whose name means "forward," and the party's e-mail messages still come from kadimasharon.co.il.


Summary: Ehud Olmert, the acting prime minister, leaves Mr. Sharon's big chair empty at the center of the cabinet table and does not use the prime minister's office. Mr. Olmert has carefully tried to extract himself from Ariel Sharon's huge shadow, forced by politics to create his own identity as a prime minister, and not just as a clever, cigar-smoking aide.


Summary: Eyal Arad, one of Ariel Sharon's closest political advisers, continues to advise Kadima. According to Mr. Arad, there's a strong commitment to continue what he started to make happen. The focus groups continue to show strong attachment to Mr. Sharon, Mr. Arad said, as a guarantor of security.


Summary: People come up to Uri Dan, a Sharon intimate and chronicler since 1954, all the time to express their pain. It was said that people knew that they could sleep at night because he was not sleeping, that there was someone to guide the Zionist ship in a sea full of mines.


Summary: Aluf Benn, a political correspondent for the daily Haaretz, said that Ehud Olmert's real race wasn't against the opposition.


Summary: It is the opposition, especially the Likud Party that Ariel Sharon broke apart, that uses Mr. Sharon's image more to portray the former general, whom the rump Likud battled to the end and regarded as a betrayer, as a heroic figure in contrast with their present foe, Ehud Olmert.


Summary: Yitzik Sasson, 51, has four children and lives in the settlement of Qiryat Arba, where he works in security. He said that he had moved there less for ideology than for cheap housing, but that he would also have voted for Ariel Sharon. Now he is torn between Ehud Olmert's Kadima and Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu, a hawkish Russian-oriented party that wants to swap Arab Israeli towns for West Bank settlements.


Summary: At first, Ariel Sharon's image was everywhere, and Kadima's first television spots emphasized his stewardship and his team. But by the end of January, the party jingle was "Kadima Israel," not, as planned, "Kadima Sharon."


Summary: Now, Leah Nakash is not so sure, torn between Ehud Olmert's Kadima and Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud.


Summary: Nearly three months after Ariel Sharon's major stroke on Jan. 4, his spirit hangs over this Israeli election, as the country prepares to give its verdict on Tuesday on Kadima, the centrist party he created. Mr. Sharon's huge photo is wrapped around the suburban headquarters of Kadima, whose name means "forward," and the party's e-mail messages still come from kadimasharon.co.il. Mr. Sharon's absence has probably cost Kadima at least six parliamentary seats.


Summary: On Ariel Sharon's 78th birthday, those closest to him joined his two sons and they chatted and ate cake made by a friend of his late wife, Lily, using her recipe.


Summary: The Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, ruled that students in New York City were being denied a sound basic education and ordered the Legislature and the governor to address the problem, but both the Legislature and Gov. George E. Pataki have avoided dealing with court decisions in the past as the school-financing case wound its way through the courts. In 2004, Mr. Pataki proposed a plan to increase the financing for city schools by $4.7 billion, which would have been phased in over five years.


Summary: While the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, said the decision should finally end the case, there were few signs that it would release the logjam in Albany as lawmakers try to pass a budget by the end of the month.


Summary: An appeals court ruled yesterday that New York City schools were being shortchanged by at least $4.7 billion annually in state aid, adding more firepower to the city's plea for more education money as lawmakers try to wrap up work on a state budget. But in its ruling, the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court said that only the governor and the Legislature, not the courts, could determine the exact amount of education aid. More than two years ago, the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, ruled that students in New York City were being denied a sound basic education and ordered the Legislature and the governor to address the problem.


Summary: An appeals court ruled yesterday that New York City schools were being shortchanged by at least $4.7 billion annually in state aid, adding more firepower to the city's plea for more education money as lawmakers try to wrap up work on a state budget. But in its ruling, the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court said that only the governor and the Legislature, not the courts, could determine the exact amount of education aid. In its 3 to 2 decision, the Appellate Division ordered the Legislature to consider a plan to direct between $4.7 billion and $5.63 billion to New York City schools, more than either the governor, the Senate or the Assembly have put forward in their plans.


Summary: The court upheld an earlier ruling to provide about $9.2 billion in capital funds over the next five years, even more than the $6.5 billion Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has been seeking.


Summary: An appeals court ruled yesterday that New York City schools were being shortchanged by at least $4.7 billion annually in state aid, adding more firepower to the city's plea for more education money as lawmakers try to wrap up work on a state budget. More than two years ago, the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, ruled that students in New York City were being denied a sound basic education and ordered the Legislature and the governor to address the problem.


Summary: After the court's decision was made public, Joseph L. Bruno and the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, sparred over its meaning while standing shoulder to shoulder after a budget hearing. Mr. Silver, a Democrat who has been pushing for more school spending, said that this decision gives the Legislature directive that they better address this issue this year. Shuffling through pages of the decision, he began to say that they hold that the state, in enacting a budget for the fiscal year commencing April 1, 2006, must appropriate the constitutionally required funding for the New York City schools.


Summary: Both Governor Pataki and Joseph L. Bruno, the leader of the Republican-controlled Senate, issued statements yesterday saying that their current budget proposals would comply with the court's decision, an assertion the plaintiffs dispute. Shortly after the court's decision was made public, Mr. Bruno and the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, sparred over its meaning while standing shoulder to shoulder after a budget hearing. Mr. Bruno said it's directly in the decision and called it a clear victory that the legislative process is what will dictate school aid in this state.


Summary: President Bush added, in a warning to members of Congress, that the debate must be done in a way that doesn't pit one group of people against another. The discussion has intensified as Mr. Bush finds himself caught between two of his most important constituencies: business owners and managers on the one hand, conservatives on the other. Pollsters say the issue is still fluid among voters, although they expect public opinion to solidify during the coming debate in Congress and as Mr. Bush promotes his plan.


Summary: It was central to Mr. Bush's thinking as the former governor of a border state, key to his relationship with President Vicente Fox of Mexico and essential in attracting new Hispanic voters to the Republican Party. He has lost control of his own party on the issue, as many Republicans object to his call for a temporary guest-worker program, insisting instead that the focus be on shutting down the flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico.


Summary: In the days before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, immigration policy was going to be President Bush's signature issue. Five years later, Mr. Bush has at last realized some momentum on immigration policy, but it is probably not the activity he once anticipated. He has lost control of his own party on the issue, as many Republicans object to his call for a temporary guest-worker program, insisting instead that the focus be on shutting down the flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico.


Summary: In the days before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, immigration policy was going to be President Bush's signature issue. It was central to Mr. Bush's thinking as the former governor of a border state, key to his relationship with President Vicente Fox of Mexico and essential in attracting new Hispanic voters to the Republican Party. At the end of next week, Mr. Bush is scheduled to meet with Mr. Fox in Cancún, Mexico.


Summary: David Winston, a Republican pollster, said that Mr. Bush has got a very strong position with the bully pulpit but the dynamic of the issue at this point is that there is consensus around border security, but people have not come to a similar consensus about what to do with the 11 million in the country.


Summary: State Senator Raymond J. Lesniak found support from several legislators, with the most prominent voice being that of Richard J. Codey, the Senate president and former acting governor. According to a task force that Mr. Codey convened last year as governor, the pension and health benefits system is costing the state $2.4 billion this year, with most of it going for health benefits, out of a $28 billion state budget.


Summary: Under a bill introduced this week by State Senator Raymond J. Lesniak, a Democrat from Union County, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority would set up a new corporation and sell a 49 percent stake of the turnpike and the parkway to investors and while the bill would limit any toll increases to the rate of inflation, Mr. Lesniak said the sale would raise $6 billion and help pay down the state's pension liabilities. Mr. Lesniak found support from several legislators, with the most prominent voice being that of Richard J. Codey, the Senate president and former acting governor.


Summary: Jon S. Corzine proposed in his inaugural budget to raise the sales tax a penny and cut overall spending by $2 billion. So immediately, speculation followed as to whether the bill represented an alternative to the proposed sales tax increase, or anything else in Mr. Corzine's $30.9 billion budget. When asked about the bill, Mr. Corzine seemed lukewarm at best, saying that if it's not used for paying down debt or investing in capital functions, he probably have difficulty with it.


Summary: For years, people who did their insurance business with Prudential, one of New Jersey's signature companies, were told that they owned a piece of the rock. Now, people may have an opportunity to own a piece of other prominent state symbols: the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway.


Summary: The mystery surrounding the murder of Jennifer Shafiq, a 4-year-old girl from Hollis, Queens, has lingered far longer than she was even alive. The police said that her mother, Khairual N. Abdul, 42, was charged with murder in the case, and her father, Parmjit P. Singh, 48, was charged with hindering prosecution. Officials said that Jennifer's remains were discovered in 1996 by a hiker who stumbled across a shallow grave in a wooded area of Manorville, N.Y., while looking for deer antlers.


Summary: The police said, Jennifer Shafiq's mother, Khairual N. Abdul, 42, was charged with murder in the case, and her father, Parmjit P. Singh, 48, was charged with hindering prosecution. In 1990, Mr. Singh said, he saw Ms. Abdul shake Jennifer violently and throw her to the floor, where the child hit her head and died, according to Lieutenant Fitzpatrick, an account that matched the description of injuries on the body of the child found in Manorville. Ms. Abdul had arrests on charges of grand larceny, bad checks and criminal impersonation, and Mr. Singh was once charged with driving while intoxicated, according to the police.


Summary: The police said that the mother of Jennifer Shafiq, Khairual N. Abdul, 42, was charged with murder in the case, and her father, Parmjit P. Singh, 48, was charged with hindering prosecution. Officials said that though Mr. Singh did not give the location of Jennifer's body, the police in Suffolk County and Sacramento conducted DNA testing and further interviews to identify the remains as hers. According to the police, Ms. Abdul had arrests on charges of grand larceny, bad checks and criminal impersonation, and Mr. Singh was once charged with driving while intoxicated.


Summary: Jack Fitzpatrick of the Suffolk County Police described as estranged spouses. Lieutenant Fitzpatrick said that she had him arrested a number of times in Sacramento, and he finally decided to tell the police about the killing and that during the investigation it came out that the Suffolk police might have enough to come out here and arrest them. Lieutenant Fitzpatrick said the couple had lived in the New York area for 14 years, residing in several places in Nassau County and Queens before moving to Sacramento in 2000.


Summary: L. Tammy Duckworth, a retired Army major who lost her legs in Iraq and has the backing of some of the Democratic Party's national leaders, declared victory on Wednesday in a close Congressional primary in suburban Chicago, setting up a carefully watched race for the seat of Representative Henry J. Hyde, a Republican who is retiring after 32 years. Duckworth winning 44 percent of the vote, with her main opponent, Christine Cegelis, winning 40 percent. Duckworth has received widespread support from leading Democrats like Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and John Kerry of Massachusetts, vows to focus on education, health care and jobs.


Summary: L. Tammy Duckworth, a retired Army major who lost her legs in Iraq and has the backing of some of the Democratic Party's national leaders, declared victory on Wednesday in a close Congressional primary in suburban Chicago, setting up a carefully watched race for the seat of Representative Henry J. Hyde, a Republican who is retiring after 32 years.


Summary: L. Tammy Duckworth winning 44 percent of the vote, with her main opponent, Christine Cegelis, winning 40 percent.


Summary: Late Wednesday afternoon, Forrest Claypool conceded his challenge to the incumbent Cook County Board president, John H. Stroger Jr. Mr. Claypool's concession came while election officials were manually counting ballots after problems with a new voting system left 13 percent of the votes uncounted. In unofficial returns, Mr. Stroger was leading Mr. Claypool by more than 21,000 votes, 52 percent to 48 percent.


Summary: In the gubernatorial primary, Illinois Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka narrowly edged a conservative rival to clinch the Republican nomination and earn a chance to challenge Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich in November.


Summary: Problems with Chicago's and Cook County's new voting system, installed to solve problems with the old punch-card method, also left a hard-fought county race up in the air for nearly a day after the polls closed. In the Cook County Board race, Forrest Claypool, who was running against John H. Stroger Jr. as a reformer looking to end patronage in county government, told his supporters on Wednesday at campaign headquarters, that they brought them so close to victory against the old Democratic machine and that they were challenging virtually all the power brokers in Cook County and Chicago, but they ran a real grass-roots campaign. Mr. Stroger, 76, remains hospitalized in serious but stable condition after suffering a stroke last week.


Summary: Late Wednesday afternoon, Forrest Claypool conceded his challenge to the incumbent Cook County Board president, John H. Stroger Jr. In the Cook County Board race, Mr. Claypool, who was running against Mr. Stroger as a reformer looking to end patronage in county government, told his supporters on Wednesday at campaign headquarters that they brought them so close to victory against the old Democratic machine and that they were challenging virtually all the power brokers in Cook County and Chicago, but they ran a real grass-roots campaign. Mr. Stroger, 76, remains hospitalized in serious but stable condition after suffering a stroke last week. In unofficial returns, Mr. Stroger was leading Mr. Claypool by more than 21,000 votes, 52 percent to 48 percent.


Summary: Gov. Jon S. Corzine stormed into the State House in January with a financial background that, to many voters, suggested that Mr. Corzine could be New Jersey's swashbuckling fiscal savior, an image that the new governor did little to deflect. But with his $30.9 billion budget proposal, Mr. Corzine all but acknowledged that, because of years of questionable budget making by his predecessors, he would be spending much of his time trying to bring the state's spending under control. While Mr. Corzine, a liberal Democrat, might have wanted to promote a progressive agenda, he seemed resigned that he would first have to resolve the state's chronic budget problems, a task that leaders in the Legislature say may take up fully half his four-year term, if not more.


Summary: The 12-member panel, which spent almost three years studying the issue at the request of the Environmental Protection Agency, did not address the health effects of the much smaller amounts of fluoride added to the drinking water of 160 million Americans to prevent tooth decay. Besides the 200,000 whose levels are four parts per million or higher, 1.4 million more are drinking water with two parts per million, a so-called secondary limit set by the E.P.A. to protect against cosmetic dental discoloration and other effects.


Summary: The 12-member panel, which spent almost three years studying the issue at the request of the Environmental Protection Agency, did not address the health effects of the much smaller amounts of fluoride added to the drinking water of 160 million Americans to prevent tooth decay. In a statement, the environmental agency responded that it would seriously consider the conclusions of the study, but that any changes in the standard would have to await a complete review of all data. Besides the 200,000 whose levels are four parts per million or higher, 1.4 million more are drinking water with two parts per million, a so-called secondary limit set by the E.P.A. to protect against cosmetic dental discoloration and other effects.


Summary: John Doull, the committee chairman, a retired professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Kansas, said that their committee concluded unanimously that E.P.A. should lower the maximum contaminant level goal for fluoride. A majority of the committee, Mr. Doull said, concluded that water fluoride concentrations at or near the current standard caused adverse health effects. Dr. Doull added that all concurred with the recommendation that the maximum allowable level of fluoride should be lowered to prevent the condition.


Summary: George E. Pataki instituted a policy on Tuesday barring his appointees and commissioners from raising political donations and rebuked his hand-picked insurance superintendent, Howard D. Mills, for raising $15,000 last year. Mr. Mills said afterward that he would stop raising donations while he is the superintendent of insurance, the state's $127,000-a-year chief insurance regulator, he held open the possibility that he would continue to spend from his campaign account. Mr. Mills reported that he spent his campaign funds on monthly payments of $588.55 for a Chrysler 300 that he said he used only as a means to keep his profile high, and on cellphone bills, meals, flowers, political donations and gifts for volunteers.


Summary: Sales last year were only $4.5 million, with BiDil hampered partly by insurance reimbursement problems and possibly by its small marketing force, according to the University of Minnesota cardiologist who developed the drug, Dr. Jay N. Cohn. Maybe that's the message. Dr. Cohn, who receives a percentage of BiDil sales, said there was still time for the product to catch on, saying that many physicians still did not understand its benefits.


Summary: NitroMed's only product, BiDil, was introduced with much fanfare, after the Food and Drug Administration made it the first drug approved for use by a single racial group. The American Heart Association officially designated BiDil as a major treatment advance after research indicated it could extend the lives of black heart-failure patients by 43 percent over 18 months. Sales last year were only $4.5 million, with BiDil hampered partly by insurance reimbursement problems and possibly by its small marketing force, according to the University of Minnesota cardiologist who developed the drug, Dr. Jay N. Cohn.


Summary: NitroMed's only product, BiDil, was introduced with much fanfare , after the Food and Drug Administration made it the first drug approved for use by a single racial group. BiDil's approval last year by the F.D.A. came amid criticism that the government was embracing the idea that blacks were somehow biologically different from others, which some said could promote racial stereotyping.


Summary: The Kovytka field, owned 62 percent by BP's joint venture in Russia, TNK-BP, holds 1.9 trillion cubic meters of proven gas reserves, according to Marina Dracheva, a spokeswoman for the company. BP's chief executive, Lord Browne, said in an interview this year that the field, in the taiga forests north of the Chinese border, might be found to hold even greater reserves, perhaps more gas than Norway's North Sea fields.


Summary: President Vladimir V. Putin kicked off the "Year of Russia in China" celebration on Tuesday by bringing an entourage of 1,000 people to Beijing, including the executives of top Russian oil and natural gas companies. Mr. Putin said in an interview before leaving Moscow that cooperation in the energy sphere is one of the most important elements of Russian-Chinese trade and economic relations. On Tuesday, Mr. Putin and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, discussed a possible spur line off this future pipe leading directly to China and they agreed to a feasibility study.


Summary: The Kovytka field, owned 62 percent by BP's joint venture in Russia, TNK-BP, holds 1.9 trillion cubic meters of proven gas reserves, according to Marina Dracheva, a spokeswoman for the company.


Summary: The settlement, with Apotex, of Canada, calls for the companies to pay an undisclosed amount to Apotex and also allows the generic company to sell its version of Plavix beginning in September 2011, eight months before the United States patent is expected to expire. The companies said they would split the payments to Apotex 50-50, adding that they expected to establish reserves this quarter for the minimum estimated amount of the payment. Under the agreement, Apotex will make undisclosed royalty payments to the companies beginning in 2011.


Summary: The museum is no stranger to New Yorkers, if only because of the bitter preservation battle that arose over its purchase and planned renovation of 2 Columbus Circle, the 1964 lollipop building near Central Park designed by Edward Durell Stone. The building has been empty much more than occupied. Built as Huntington Hartford's Gallery of Modern Art, 2 Columbus Circle closed in 1969 and then reopened as the New York Cultural Center. she said that at least many, many people knew that there would be a Museum of Arts and Design at Columbus Circle, and they couldn't pay for that kind of marketing.


Summary: Arriving on her first day as director of the Museum of Arts and Design 10 years ago, Holly Hotchner was greeted by an eviction notice, a bookkeeper who said the museum could not make payroll and a rat scurrying across the floor of her sub-basement office. She had inherited an institution, then called the American Craft Museum, that was struggling with an operating deficit, virtually no endowment and stagnant attendance and membership. Hotchner says she hopes it will become known for what it does, not where it is.


Summary: Robert M. Zink, an ornithologist with the Bell Museum of Natural History at the University of Minnesota, said that birds made this wholesale transformation to nesting in human habitation. Dr. Zink and colleagues analyzed the mitochondrial DNA of birds from about 20 sites around the world. Dr. Zink said he expected to find Old and New World birds to be genetically different, and generally the results, published in The Proceedings of the Royal Society B, showed that to be so.


Summary: The five busiest airports were Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which handled 85.9 million passengers (an increase of 2.7 percent); Chicago O'Hare International Airport, with 76.8 million passengers (up 1.6 percent); Heathrow International Airport in London, with 67.9 million passengers (up 0.8 percent); Haneda International Airport in Tokyo, with 63.3 million passengers (up 1.8 percent) and Los Angeles International Airport, with 61.5 million passengers, up 1.3 percent).


Summary: The global travel management company said that the average domestic airfare negotiated for corporations by American Express Business Travel hit a six-year low in 2005. The average negotiated first-class round-trip fare on 160 major international routes tracked by the American Express Business Travel Monitor was $11,610, up 4 percent, in the fourth quarter of 2005. American Express said that the average negotiated round-trip business-class fare rose 5 percent, to $7,824, and for coach fares, the average rose 9 percent, to $2,226.


Summary: Andy McGraw, a senior vice president, said that the main reasons behind the average domestic airfare negotiation were the introduction of simplified fares and more low-fare competition. This year, Mr. McGraw said that corporate travel buyers will face a tough negotiating environment across the board, as prices rise for air travel, hotels and rental cars.


Summary: Andrew P. Dobson, a professor of ecology and epidemiology at Princeton who has studied diseases near Yellowstone, said that the feed grounds have been a problem for the last 30 years although there is no palatable way. The one thing that may save Yellowstone from an outbreak of chronic wasting disease, Dr. Dobson said, is the wolf, which was re-introduced there in 1994. Dr. Dobson cautions that it is important to keep in mind the critical role of disease in natural systems and points out that half of all species are parasites and pathogens.


Summary: Dr. Margaret Wild, a wildlife veterinarian with the Biological Resource Management Division of the Parks Service in Fort Collins, Colo., who heads the team and whose job it is to monitor and devise strategies for diseases, said that they're seeing disease coming at them they've never even thought about before. Officials were particularly concerned when foot-and-mouth disease appeared in Europe, said Dr. Wild, the wildlife veterinarian.


Summary: Dr. Margaret Wild, a wildlife veterinarian with the Biological Resource Management Division of the Parks Service in Fort Collins, Colo., who heads the team and whose job it is to monitor and devise strategies for diseases, said that they're seeing disease coming at them they've never even thought about before.


Summary: Dr. Margaret Wild, a wildlife veterinarian with the Biological Resource Management Division of the Parks Service in Fort Collins, Colo., who heads the team and whose job it is to monitor and devise strategies for diseases, said that they're seeing disease coming at us we've never even thought about before.


Summary: Controlling Brucellosis poses a challenge to the National Park Service, which has to decide on strategies and try to meet a number of competing needs of hunters, tourists, ranchers and the animals. The Park Service has created a rapid response team for diseases, largely because of West Nile virus and avian flu, both of them diseases that affect people.


Summary: Dr. N. Thompson Hobbs, a senior research scientist at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado Sate University, said infected animals lived longer in the absence of predators and hunting and had more opportunity to spread disease. That is the same problem caused by feeding animals, allowing sick animals to live longer, Dr. Hobbs said. He added that there's a whole lot they don't know about.


Summary: It was pointed out that in statewide contests in New York, the early front-runners often falter, and count as examples Geraldine A. Ferraro's bid for the Senate in 1998 and Edward I. Koch's run for governor in 1982.


Summary: The candidate, Mark Green, the former New York City public advocate, was bolstered by a recent survey by NY1 and Newsday showing that while 27 percent of voters questioned backed Andrew M. Cuomo, 21 percent chose Mr. Green. But Mr. Green has long contended that his years as public advocate and as New York City's consumer affairs commissioner make him the best-qualified candidate, and that voters throughout the state will come to realize that. Over the last week, Mr. Green announced the endorsements of 32 current and former local officials from western and central New York.


Summary: The other candidates for the Democratic nomination for attorney general are Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky; Charlie King, a two-time candidate for lieutenant governor who is head of a nonprofit group that provides housing for the homeless; Sean P. Maloney, a former aide to President Bill Clinton; and Denise O'Donnell, a former United States attorney in western New York. Mr. Brodsky said that he was the front-runner among the political elite. Mr. Brodsky said of Mr. Cuomo that he was benefiting from having name recognition.


Summary: The other candidates for the Democratic nomination for attorney general are Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky; Charlie King, a two-time candidate for lieutenant governor who is head of a nonprofit group that provides housing for the homeless; Sean P. Maloney, a former aide to President Bill Clinton; and Denise O'Donnell, a former United States attorney in western New York.


Summary: The candidate, Mark Green, the former New York City public advocate, was bolstered by a recent survey by NY1 and Newsday showing that while 27 percent of voters questioned backed Andrew M. Cuomo, 21 percent chose Mr. Green.


Andrew M. Cuomo
Cuomo
Andrew Cuomo
Mario M. Cuomo

Summary: For the last month, much of the focus in the attorney general's race has centered on Andrew M. Cuomo, who has raised $1 million more than his closest rival and collected prominent supporters throughout the state. But the five other candidates for the Democratic nomination insist that with six months to go before the primary, it is far too early to coronate Mr. Cuomo as the winner. Mr. Cuomo, the son of the former governor Mario M. Cuomo and a former federal housing secretary, has commanded a huge amount of support from labor unions, politicians and donors. Mr. Cuomo has put together an impressive group of supporters and large labor unions, including 1199/S.E.I.U., which represents health workers and is one of the state's most politically active unions.


Summary: Bruce Cutler was sparring with a government witness, one Alphonse D'Arco, former acting boss of the Luchese family, whom the government had called to establish that Mr. Eppolito and Mr. Caracappa had had a long relationship with another mobster, Anthony Casso, the Luchese family underboss. Both the witness and the lawyer are what used to be called men's men, Mr. D'Arco, a Korean war veteran who worked in the trucking trade before he joined the mob; and Mr. Cutler, a broad-beamed former high school wrestler. The problems began when Mr. Cutler asked Mr. D'Arco if he had any moral compunction while committing murder, and the witness, after asking Mr. Cutler to define moral, telling him to keep his voice downreferring to him as pal. This was schoolyard stuff, and Mr. Cutler jabbed back saying that he is not his pal.


Summary: Beneath the surface of the federal trial of Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa is a cautionary tale about the entertainment age. After leaving the police force in the early 1990's, he went to act in films and write scripts in Las Vegas, where years later he was charged with his former partner, Mr. Caracappa, 64, in a federal narcotics case. He has always had a touch of the poet in him, penning "Mafia Cop," a book that describes his break with the Brooklyn gangsters in his family, and scripts like "Turn of Faith," a cop-mob-priesthood potboiler produced by the former lightweight champion Boom Boom Mancini.


Summary: Edward Hayes, Mr. Caracappa's lawyer, had this to say in his opening arguments last week that nothing has hurt people more in this country than wanting to be in the movies. Cross-examination is the pugilistic phase of legal work, a time when lawyers strap on the gloves and hammer things out through open combat. On Mr. Hayes's cross-examination of the witness, the discussion once again turned to the literary subtext that percolates beneath the case.


Summary: Beneath the surface of the federal trial of Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa is a cautionary tale about the entertainment age. After leaving the police force in the early 1990's, Louis Eppolito went to act in films and write scripts in Las Vegas, where years later he was charged with his former partner, Mr. Caracappa, 64, in a federal narcotics case. Mr. Cutler was sparring with a government witness, one Alphonse D'Arco, former acting boss of the Luchese family, whom the government had called to establish that Mr. Eppolito and Mr. Caracappa had had a long relationship with another mobster, Anthony Casso, the Luchese family underboss.


Summary: If you believe the government the informant, Steven Corso, risked his life recording Mr. Eppolito boasting about all sorts of gangsters he knew and then agreeing to secure an ounce of methamphetamine for some Hollywood big shots. Mr. Corso seemed, after all, to hold the keys to the film world and was, therefore, a man Mr. Eppolito wanted to impress. Even though Mr. Corso recorded Mr. Eppolito saying some fairly rough things on tape, Mr. Cutler has argued they were not criminal things, and not even true.


Summary: If Bruce Cutler, Mr. Eppolito's lawyer, is to be believed, Mr. Corso was a defrocked C.P.A. and a man worthy of a nice smack in the face, who played upon his client's celluloid dreams to entrap him. Mr. Cutler was sparring with a government witness, one Alphonse D'Arco, former acting boss of the Luchese family, whom the government had called to establish that Mr. Eppolito and Mr. Caracappa had had a long relationship with another mobster, Anthony Casso, the Luchese family underboss. The problems began when Mr. Cutler asked Mr. D'Arco if he had any moral compunction while committing murder, and the witness, after asking Mr. Cutler to define moral, told him to keep his voice down referring to him as pal, This was schoolyard stuff to which Mr. Cutler jabbed back saying that he's not his pal.


Summary: Richard Winder, director of the city's Department of Human Services, which controls the site, said that these days, they're in limbo and that they don't know where they are, post-Katrina.


Summary: Lee Hampton, executive director of the Amistad Research Center, an archive for the history of African-Americans and other ethnic groups, at Tulane said that it certainly is a chance once again for a rebuilt New Orleans to seize an opportunity that in the past it did not seize, and to actually help its own cause and certainly he thinks it would be worth preserving and worth the effort put into upkeep.


Summary: Bruce Boyd Raeburn, curator of the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane University, said that he might say this was the second, if not the third, opportunity to do something with a Louis Armstrong site where the opportunity has been missed. Mr. Raeburn said that a lot of the old jazz sites had been torn down to make new parking lots. Mr. Raeburn added that the track record on preserving jazz-related sites was pretty dismal for New Orleans. Yet this is a city that is probably more dependent on the marketing of jazz than any other, as tourism is one of the few engines of the local economy.


Summary: The city official overseeing arts and entertainment said he did not know much about it. I think it could actually repay the city in its interest to outsiders, to tourists. Long neglected, Milne was not in pristine shape before the storm and had not housed children since the 1980's, becoming instead the setting for after-school social service programs and athletics. The home was named for a Scottish philanthropist, Alexander Milne, who arrived here in the late 1700's and provided money for the care of troubled children in his will after making a fortune in bricks and hardware.


Summary: Before Milne was built in the 1930's, part of it was called the Colored Waif's Home for Boys, the institution where Louis Armstrong was incarcerated at age 11 after firing a pistol to celebrate New Year's Day 1913. Armstrong was born to a teenage mother in a neighborhood so notoriously dangerous, even by New Orleans' rough port-town standards, that it was called the battlefield. He was largely abandoned by his father and dropped out of grade school, and entertained people by singing and dancing for change around the brothels of Storyville. Armstrong wrote about Mr. Davis in his memoir, "Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans." He wrote that every day he practiced faithfully on the lesson Mr. Davis gave him.


Summary: David A. Sellers, a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, said that after the killings of the family members of the Chicago judge, Joan H. Lefkow, the security focus shifted from courthouses to judges and other court employees outside court buildings. Judge Lefkow testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last May on increasing security for court employees. Senator Arlen Specter said the Marshals Service had been slow in adopting changes after the Lefkow shootings and had in some cases failed to cooperate fully with the federal judiciary on security.


Summary: L. Tammy Duckworth, Democratic Congressional candidate, had hardly maneuvered her wheelchair up to the table at the Bakers Square restaurant. Duckworth, 38, a natural campaigner whose compelling personal saga has made her the headliner of the Democrats' new strategy of running military veterans to try to blunt Republican advantages on national security, has endorsements from the party stars who recruited her and from all four major newspapers in the Chicago region. Duckworth said that she could not leave her Hoffman Estates home because of the investments made in retrofitting it after her injuries, and that the crucial issues of health care and education do not change across Algonquin Road, the major artery that forms a district line.


Summary: L. Tammy Duckworth, the Democratic Congressional candidate, had hardly maneuvered her wheelchair up to the table at the Bakers Square restaurant here before Sally Allen, exclaimed to her that she was a real inspiration.


Summary: Such reactions are exactly why the leading lights of the Democratic Party including Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, John Kerry of Massachusetts, and Illinois's own Barack Obama have rushed to back Ms. Duckworth's bid for the Democratic nomination, making the Sixth District contest to replace Henry Hyde, the Republican incumbent who is retiring after 32 years, one of the most closely watched in the country.


Summary: Ms. Cegelis's endorsers include Dick Simpson, a former Chicago alderman and local pundit, and Democracy for America, the remnants of Howard Dean's political machine.


Summary: Such reactions are exactly why the leading lights of the Democratic Party including Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, John Kerry of Massachusetts, and Illinois's own Barack Obama have rushed back. Ms. Duckworth had a Manhattan fund-raiser featuring Mrs. Clinton and is running television advertisements.


Summary: With Democrats needing to pick up 15 seats to gain control of the House, Vice President Dick Cheney called this one a must-win for Republicans when he visited this week to raise more than $200,000 for state Senator Peter Roskam, who faces no opposition on the Republican side.


Summary: Such reactions are exactly why the leading lights of the Democratic Party including Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Illinois's own Barack Obama have rushed to back Ms. Duckworth had a Manhattan fund-raiser featuring Mrs. Clinton and is running television advertisements in which Mr. Obama praises her as a person of conscience and proven courage.


Summary: Except for Brooklyn Industries, that is, which might have been better off keeping its bikes tucked away. It was because of these bikes that Brooklyn Industries, the eclectic hipster clothing boutique, found itself the target of a coordinated graffiti attack early on Feb. 23, when someone etched in acid on the front windows of four of the company's stores, three in Brooklyn and one in SoHo. The company intended that the display highlight its plan to donate money from sales of messenger bags to Recycle-a-Bicycle, a Brooklyn charity that runs bike workshops for children.


Summary: As the College Board races to score the final 1,600 exams from its problem-ridden October SAT test, a string of recent testing errors around the country has college and high school officials, testing experts, students and parents asking with rising urgency. The College Board's disclosure that at least 4,600 students out of 495,000 who took its October SAT test had scoring errors was followed this week by an $11 million settlement by the Educational Testing Service of a case involving scoring errors for 27,000 people on tests that more than half the states use for teacher certification. Gaston Caperton, the College Board president, said that when something like this occurs, they wanted to make sure they didn't create regulations or ways of doing things that increase costs and didn't improve the quality of service.


Summary: Some are even proposing a national agency like the Food and Drug Administration to regulate testing. The administration is often flawed. A large part of the problem, policy makers and educators say, is that the demand for tests is outstripping the abilities of the industry.


Summary: As the College Board races to score the final 1,600 exams from its problem-ridden October SAT test, a string of recent testing errors around the country has college and high school officials, students and parents asking with rising urgency, And for students headed to college, there are the Advanced Placement exams, the SAT and the ACT. Robert L. Linn, a professor emeritus at the University of Colorado at Boulder who serves on a College Board advisory committee, said that problems like those with the October SAT were not uncommon in testing.


Summary: Republicans in some of this year's tightest races -- Conrad Burns of Montana, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Jim Talent of Missouri and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island -- all backed the chief budget-busting provision as they endorsed an extra $7 billion for medical research, education and worker safety.


Summary: The largess demonstrated by the Senate in padding its budget with billions of dollars in additional spending this week showed that lawmakers are no different from many of their constituents. Lawmakers, analysts said the Senate's reluctance to clamp down on spending was a natural result of an approach that fails to recognize a sharply changed reality. Senate Republicans showed no hesitation about bursting through the spending ceiling he set, adding more than $16 billion after eliminating some of his cuts.


House
Budget Committee
House Budget Committee

Summary: John Kasich, a former Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee and devotee of balanced budgets who is now an investment adviser and author, said much of Washington had surrendered to the political impulse to please various voter groups with unbridled spending. Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, the senior Democrat on the Budget Committee., said that he had concluded this job was so big it could only be done if the two parties worked together.


Summary: Paul W. Armstrong, requires that the removal of Mr. Cullen's kidney take place in New Jersey at a hospital certified by the Department of Corrections and that it then be transferred to New York for implantation. Mr. Cullen's lawyer, Johnnie Mask, said that the conditions made him suspicious that someone in the Department of Corrections or the attorney general's office does not want this to happen.


Superior Court
Somerset County Superior Court

Summary: A judge in Somerset County Superior Court signed an order that would allow the convicted serial killer Charles Cullen to donate one of his kidneys as long as he and his doctors met a new series of conditions, including providing a guarantee that the recipient's insurance would pay all costs.


Summary: A judge in Somerset County Superior Court signed an order that would allow the convicted serial killer Charles Cullen to donate one of his kidneys as long as he and his doctors met a new series of conditions, including providing a guarantee that the recipient's insurance would pay all costs. Mr. Cullen's lawyer said that he was concerned that New Jersey officials might yet try to sabotage his client's effort to donate the organ. Mr. Cullen had threatened not to attend his sentencing unless he was allowed to donate a kidney to a relative of a friend in New York State. He was sentenced on March 2 in Superior Court in Somerville amid angry and tearful statements by 20 relatives and is now serving 11 consecutive life terms.


Summary: The Internal Revenue Service will deposit a refund directly into a taxpayer's bank account. But it won't split the amount between, say, a checking account and an I.R.A. If the I.R.S. would split refunds, taxpayers would not need H&R Block, or any other financial company, to channel some of their refunds into long-term savings.


Summary: Congress should pass legislation to establish auto-I.R.A.'s, and the president should sign it. Congress must make sure it happens.


Summary: The New York attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, says that in practice, it's a lousy deal. In a lawsuit filed this week, Mr. Spitzer contends that the accounts are virtually guaranteed to lose money because of low returns and high fees. Besides facing Mr. Spitzer's suit, H&R Block is also being sued over high-cost short-term loans it makes against filers' refunds, and it recently paid $62.5 million to settle some cases related to the loans.


Summary: The Bush administration proposed allowing split refunds in 2004.


Summary: H&R Block's Express I.R.A. lets tax filers deposit all or part of their refunds directly into retirement savings accounts. Conventional I.R.A.'s are inconvenient and offer tax breaks meant primarily for high-income people. The automatic I.R.A. would use a no-frills design and economies of scale to overcome the problem of high fees on small accounts.


Summary: H&R Block's Express I.R.A. lets tax filers deposit all or part of their refunds directly into retirement savings accounts. H&R Block denies any wrongdoing and plans to fight in court. H&R Block is also being sued over high-cost short-term loans it makes against filers' refunds, and it recently paid $62.5 million to settle some cases related to the loans.


New York City Corrections Department
Corrections Department

Summary: The chief chaplain for the New York City Corrections Department, Imam Umar Abdul-Jalil, made that remark in a speech last year in Tucson before a group of Muslim students. The speech was only one event in a career that Jewish chaplains and other clerics at the Corrections Department have described as exemplary.


Summary: The chief chaplain for the New York City Corrections Department, Imam Umar Abdul-Jalil, made that remark in a speech in Tucson before a group of Muslim students. Mr. Abdul-Jalil will keep his $76,600-a-year job, but the mayor announced that he had been suspended without pay for two weeks for his failure to disclose that he had been speaking as a private citizen, not as a city employee.


Robert Anderson
Martin
Martin Lee Anderson
Anderson

Summary: Martin Lee Anderson was buried a second time this week, more than two months after he died following a confrontation with guards at a boot camp for teenage offenders in the Florida Panhandle. The guards at Bay Boot Camp in Panama City kneed, kicked and hit Martin, 14, after he stopped running during an orientation drill on Jan. 5. He had been sent to the camp for violating probation after stealing his grandmother's car. He died early on Jan. 6, and when the original autopsy report came out a month later, his parents, lawmakers and civil rights groups expressed outrage.


Summary: Like her mentor, James Watt, the maniacally anti-environmental interior secretary under Ronald Reagan, Gale Norton came to Washington convinced that the pendulum of public policy had swung too far in favor of the protection of America's natural resources at the expense of their commercial exploitation.


Summary: Gale Norton came to Washington convinced that the pendulum of public policy had swung too far in favor of the protection of America's natural resources at the expense of their commercial exploitation, especially by the oil, natural gas and mining industries. Norton spoke winningly of what she called her four C's such as cooperation, communication and consultation, all in the service of conservation. This was little more than comfy language diverting attention from her main agenda, which was to open up Western lands, some of them fragile, to the extractive industries. Her signature moment was a secret deal in 2003 with Mike Leavitt, then governor of Utah, in which she not only exposed 2.6 million acres of previously protected lands to commercial development but also renounced her statutory authority to recommend additional lands for wilderness protection.


Summary: Gale Norton's signature moment was a secret deal in 2003 with Mike Leavitt, then governor of Utah, in which she not only exposed 2.6 million acres of previously protected lands to commercial development but also renounced her statutory authority to recommend additional lands for wilderness protection.


Summary: Many express a view offered by Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida, who said the Abramoff and Cunningham cases showed that the current laws worked.


Rules Committee
House
House Rules Committee

Summary: Mr. Putnam, a member of the House Rules Committee, which is charged with drafting lobbying legislation said he thought the entire Congress was schizophrenic on it right now.


Summary: Shortly after the lobbyist, Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to corruption charges, Mr. Dreier and Speaker J. Dennis Hastert called for tough restrictions, including a ban on gifts, meals, and privately financed travel. The initial fervor for the legislation was fueled by the Abramoff scandal, coupled with the resignation of Representative Randy Cunningham, Republican of California after he pleaded guilty in another corruption case. There has been little political fallout from the Abramoff case, according to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.


Summary: The younger Gotti was charged with ordering the botched kidnapping and beating of Curtis Sliwa, the radio host and founder of the Guardian Angels; with loan-sharking; and with construction industry extortion, all as part of a broad pattern of racketeering dating to the 1980s. Mr. Sliwa, whose kidnapping and shooting provided the government with its most publicized charges, lashed out outside the courthouse after the verdict at the co-host of his radio show, Ronald L. Kuby. Mr. Kuby's testimony hurt him more, Mr. Sliwa said, referring to not just the kidnapping in which Mr. Gotti was charged, but a previous attack on Mr. Sliwa with baseball bats.


Summary: Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly described eight people who were at Mr. Giuca's house that night as uncooperative. After Mr. Giuca was arrested, two other young men were charged with intimidating a witness.


Summary: She opened the state's case against Kayson Pearson and Troy Hendrix, accused of raping and killing Romona Moore, 21.


Summary: David Bookstaver, a spokesman for the Office of Court Administration, declined to comment on particular security issues.


Summary: Doug Atkin, chief executive of Majestic Research and the former chief executive of Instinet, said that London was the crown jewel of Europe. Nasdaq's interest in London comes at a time when it is still integrating Instinet, the electronic exchange it acquired about the same time the New York Stock Exchange planned to merge with the electronic stock operator Archipelago.


Summary: The Deutsche Börse and Euronext have made runs at the exchange. The Deutsche Börse, while lacking the trading volume of London, has a much larger market value of more than $13 billion, because of its profitable clearing and derivatives businesses. Deutsche Börse shareholders rejected a takeover of the London exchange and ousted its chief executive, Werner Siefert.


Summary: Deputy Chancellor Carmen Fariña said parents would sit on committees that hire the lead teachers but said that principals did not need the coordinating committees.


Summary: The average room rate for the three New York hotels are the Millennium Broadway, the Millennium Hilton and the Millennium United Nations Plaza which was $275.12. The Millennium Hilton is owned by Millennium & Copthorne, but operated by Hilton Hotels.


Summary: Continental Airlines reported 4.9 percent more domestic seats but a rise of 11.3 percent in revenue miles flown.


Summary: United Airlines, newly emerged from bankruptcy, had 3.5 percent more domestic seats available, against a 6.7 percent rise in revenue miles flown.


Summary: Delta Air Lines, which is operating in bankruptcy protection, reported a 17.6 percent drop in domestic capacity against a 12 percent drop in revenue passenger miles. (On the other hand, Delta reported a 22.4 percent increase in capacity on Latin American routes, reflecting its push into more lucrative markets.)


Summary: Northwest Airlines, who is also operating in bankruptcy, reported a 7.6 percent drop in domestic seats against a 6.5 percent decline in revenue miles flown.


Summary: Alan Yates of the company's Office division, said that in Office 2007, which Microsoft will ship in the second half of the year, OpenXML will be the default format for saving documents instead of Microsoft's proprietary formats and that the OpenXML format is supported by Intel, Apple, Toshiba, BP and the British Library, among others.


Summary: Nowadays, the formats used by most people for creating documents are those in Microsoft Office: over 90 percent of the market. But Microsoft supports another open standard for documents, called OpenXML Document Format. Alan Yates of the company's Office division said that in Office 2007, which Microsoft will ship in the second half of the year, OpenXML will be the default format for saving documents instead of Microsoft's proprietary formats.


Summary: According to a lawsuit, the chief, Robert K. Bowman of the small town of Welch, told Mr. Snead that his friend, red-faced and gasping for breath, had the virus that causes AIDS. The suit says that the chief Bowman grabbed Mr. Snead's shoulder pulling him away from his friend, Claude Green Jr. In the suit, Mr. Green's estate, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, accused Chief Bowman and the town of Welch of violating Mr. Green's civil rights and causing his death.


Summary: Dr. Sarah J. Schlesinger, a research associate professor at Rockefeller University and a research scientist at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, said that a finger sweep of the mouth, so long as the skin on the finger is intact, and performing chest compressions poses no risk for transmission of H.I.V.


Summary: This commission holds, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the leadership of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate Pope Karol Wojtyla, the commission wrote, using John Paul's given name, in a preliminary report released to news organizations.


Summary: The report says the analyses show decisively that a Bulgarian, Sergei Ivanov Antonov, the former director of Balkan Air, was in the square at the time of the shooting and so had lied when he said that he was in his office at the time. Mr. Antonov and two other Bulgarians were cleared by an Italian court in 1986 of accusations that they had hired the Turkish gunman, Mehmet Ali Agca, who was convicted of attempted murder and was imprisoned in Italy until 2000.


Summary: Elliott Bross, who heads Planigrupo, one of the country's largest retail developers, said that he thinks that they're in a boom in the development cycle. When HEB tapped the Mexican developer Planigrupo to handle its entry into Mexico in 1997, Mr. Bross searched in vain for financing in the United States. Mr. Bross signed a deal with the Kimco Realty Corporation, a real estate investment trust based in New Hyde Park, N.Y., that owns and operates shopping centers in North America.


Summary: He became a driver for his father's best friend, Salvatore Gravano, then a high-ranking member of the Gambino family known as Sammy the Bull, and took Mr. Gravano to meetings with Teamsters union officials who were connected to the mob. In the second case, Mr. D'Angelo said, he shot a friend of his, James Gilbert, in 1992 or 1993.


Summary: He became a driver for his father's best friend, Salvatore Gravano, then a high-ranking member of the Gambino family known as Sammy the Bull, and took Mr. Gravano to meetings with Teamsters union officials who were connected to the mob.


Human Rights Commission
United Nations Human Rights Commission

Summary: When it comes to reforming the disgraceful United Nations Human Rights Commission, America's ambassador, John Bolton, is right. Some of the world's most abusive regimes have won seats on the Human Rights Commission and used them to insulate themselves from criticism. Ideally, violators of the declaration should be barred from the new Human Rights Council, which would succeed the commission.


Summary: When it comes to reforming the disgraceful United Nations Human Rights Commission, America's ambassador, John Bolton, is right; Secretary-General Kofi Annan is wrong, and leading international human rights groups have unwisely put their preference for multilateral consensus ahead of their duty to fight for the strongest possible human rights protection. Mr. Annan's original proposal did not go that far.


Summary: When it comes to reforming the disgraceful United Nations Human Rights Commission, America's ambassador, John Bolton, is right; Secretary-General Kofi Annan is wrong, and leading international human rights groups have unwisely put their preference for multilateral consensus ahead of their duty to fight for the strongest possible human rights protection. Mr. Bolton, representing an administration whose record is stained by Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, is awkwardly placed to defend basic human rights principles. But he also represents the United States, with its long and proud human rights tradition.


Summary: It becomes clearer that the protests are no longer about the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, but about the demagoguery of Islamic extremists.


Summary: It focuses instead on calling for a greater role in handling disasters for a host of federal agencies, like Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development, and the big guns at Justice and the Pentagon.


Summary: The troubled Scios unit of Johnson & Johnson told employees yesterday that it would lay off 150 of its approximately 900 workers. The job cuts will affect sales and marketing staff members in the field and at the Scios home office in Fremont, Calif., according to Mark T. Wolfe, a Johnson & Johnson spokesman. Johnson & Johnson paid $2.4 billion for Scios in 2003, largely on Natrecor's potential.


Summary: Natrecor was considered a potential blockbuster when the Food and Drug Administration approved it in 2001 for treating acutely decompensated heart failure, in which patients generally arrive at emergency rooms gasping for air.


Summary: Scios is also the subject of a Justice Department investigation into whether it improperly promoted Natrecor for an unapproved use, according to company disclosures to the Securities and Exchange Commission.


Summary: The troubled Scios unit of Johnson & Johnson told employees yesterday that it would lay off 150 of its approximately 900 workers. Scios has struggled since sales of its flagship drug, the heart failure treatment Natrecor, began declining last year over safety concerns. Scios is also the subject of a Justice Department investigation into whether it improperly promoted Natrecor for an unapproved use, according to company disclosures to the Securities and Exchange Commission.


Summary: Scios has struggled since sales of its flagship drug, the heart failure treatment Natrecor, began declining last year over safety concerns. Natrecor sales reached $400 million in 2004. But the company has said that sales declined significantly after outside medical researchers raised questions last year about whether the treatment increased the risk of kidney problems and death. Scios is also the subject of a Justice Department investigation into whether it improperly promoted Natrecor for an unapproved use, according to company disclosures to the Securities and Exchange Commission.


Summary: The notice of claim filed by Cynthia Salichs, the mother of the officer, Eric Hernandez, 24, contends that the uniformed officers at the scene used excessive deadly force against Officer Hernandez, who was pointing a gun at another man outside a White Castle on Webster Avenue.


Summary: Kate O'Brien Ahlers, a spokeswoman for the city's Law Department said the matter involved a very tragic incident.


Summary: The City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, appointed seven top aides yesterday, moving quickly to fill some of the vacancies created when she suddenly dismissed 61 employees, nearly one-fifth of the Council's staff, on Friday. The number and timing of the firings by Ms. Quinn, who was elected speaker last month by her colleagues, took some council members and employees by surprise. Ms. Quinn also promoted two council employees: Robert J. Newman, a lawyer for the Council, to legislative director, and Maria Alvarado, a deputy press secretary, to press secretary.


Hernandez
Eric
Efrain Hernandez
Eric Hernandez

Summary: The notice of claim filed by Cynthia Salichs, the mother of the officer, Eric Hernandez, 24, contends that the uniformed officers at the scene used excessive deadly force against Officer Hernandez, who was pointing a gun at another man outside a White Castle on Webster Avenue. Officer Hernandez was attacked in the White Castle only minutes before by a group of men and had pulled his gun on a man he mistakenly believed was one of his attackers. Officer Hernandez did not drop his gun and did not identify himself as a police officer. He was shot three times by another Bronx officer, Alfredo Toro, and died of his injuries 11 days later.


Summary: Elizabeth R. Fine, a lawyer at Spence Chapin Services to Families and Children, an adoption agency, was named the Council's general counsel.


Summary: The new deputy chiefs of staff are Maura Keaney, formerly the New York State director for Unite Here, the union of garment and hotel workers; Ululy Rafael Martinez, formerly a lawyer in the office of Assemblyman José Rivera; and Kevin Wardally, who has been the Council's director of member services.


Summary: Yahoo Games, Pogo.com and MSN Entertainment allow mobile phone users to download games onto their cellphones, usually paying $3 to $5 on the basis of each kilobyte received to carriers like Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile.


Summary: John C. Malone was interested in capitalizing on Carl C. Icahn's planned proxy fight at Time Warner. The filing landed after last week's settlement between an investor group led by Mr. Icahn and Time Warner. Including an increased share buyback and the appointment of two new independent directors, Mr. Icahn called off the planned proxy fight.


Summary: John C. Malone was interested in capitalizing on Carl C. Icahn's planned proxy fight at Time Warner, as well. Mr. Malone, the media investor, applied to regulators to have a nonvoting 4 percent stake in Time Warner owned by his Liberty Media Corporation converted into voting shares a year ahead of schedule. Mr. Malone's tactics with Time Warner are reminiscent of the approach he took toward the News Corporation, another large media company that Liberty invested in.


Summary: In a news release, the company's incoming chief executive, Gregory B. Maffei, said the company was looking to participate actively in key shareholder votes and actions. But John C. Malone had hoped to get voting control of his shares while the proxy challenge was still on. Mr. Maffei said that the company was pleased with the steps taken by Time Warner, but looked forward to additional actions. A Time Warner spokesman said the deadline had now passed for shareholders to nominate board members for the company's annual meeting in May, as Carl C. Icahn had threatened to do in pursuit of a plan to break up the company.


Summary: One of the most serious charges the Police Department has leveled against Capt. Eric Adams is that he gave the public wrong information during a television interview after a terror alert last fall. In the interview, Captain Adams said the police learned of a terrorist threat against the transit system as early as Oct. 3, but did not announce it until Oct. 6, and then did not flood the transit system with extra officers until the next day. Captain Adams to the program's host, Marcia Kramer, said that he was the captain that was assigned to safeguarding Manhattan location subway stations.


Summary: In the interview, on WCBS-TV, Captain Adams said the police learned of a terrorist threat against the transit system, but did not announce it, and then did not flood the transit system with extra officers until the next day.


Summary: Carl Golden, who was a spokesman for two Republican governors, Thomas H. Kean and Christie Whitman, said that Gov. Jon S. Corzine has remained low-key but he is not offended by it.


Summary: Michael M. Horn, a Republican and former treasurer in the Kean administration, said that he is just impressed by the quality.


Summary: The real action is in business, where the posted round-trip fare is about $8,800, on top-shelf carriers like British Airways or Virgin Atlantic, and the less luxurious but still comfortable business classes of domestic airlines like American, United and Continental.


Summary: The real action is in business, where the posted round-trip fare is about $8,800, on top-shelf carriers like British Airways or Virgin Atlantic, and the less luxurious but still comfortable business classes of domestic airlines like American, United, and Continental.


Summary: Dr. Kristin Nichol, chief of medicine at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Minneapolis said the virus can live on a doorknob for hours and maybe longer. Even people with very mild flu can inflict more serious cases on others less equipped to deal with it, Dr. Nichol said.


Summary: The Securities and Exchange Commission has acknowledged that small companies will be hit the hardest by the new requirements and will have to spend more, as a percentage of their revenue, than bigger companies to upgrade their systems. Microcap companies have already been given a one-year extension, and the S.E.C. is considering ways to scale back some requirements for small businesses.


Summary: Unless Congress intervenes, microcap companies, those with a market value of $75 million or less, will join bigger companies in adhering to the most burdensome parts of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, known as SOX. But the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed by Congress in 2002 after the Enron, Tyco and WorldCom accounting scandals, is becoming a blueprint for how private companies, nonprofit groups and even municipal governments can demonstrate the soundness of their financials. John Bace, an analyst at Gartner in its Chicago office, said that SOX was becoming the gold standard for governance, transparency and controls.


Summary: Unless Congress intervenes, microcap companies, those with a market value of $75 million or less, will join bigger companies in adhering to the most burdensome parts of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. But the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed by Congress in 2002 after the Enron, Tyco and WorldCom accounting scandals, is becoming a blueprint for how private companies, nonprofit groups and even municipal governments can demonstrate the soundness of their financials.


Summary: John R. Bolton, the American ambassador to the United Nations, scheduled Security Council briefings on two volatile issues that many on the 191-member General Assembly believe are their responsibility and two United States congressmen wrote an accusatory letter to Ambassador Dumisani S. Kumalo of South Africa, head of the Group of 77, which represents 132 developing nations. Mr. Bolton, president of the Security Council this month, set meetings next week on what the United Nations has been doing about charges of sexual exploitation by peacekeepers and an audit on waste approaching $300 million in the peacekeeping purchasing department. Mr. Bolton said he had no quarrel with the General Assembly taking up reform issues, but said he would not relinquish the Security Council's right to do the same.