Summary: Justice Albert Tomei of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn said that they are in the third and they don't know about fourth week of this trial and they haven't even heard from the principal witness, he said it from the bench. Justice Tomei declared a mistrial after the defendants, Kayson Pearson and Troy Hendrix, tried to escape the courtroom using improvised plastic knives. When the second trial began last month, the justice banished the defendants and ordered that they participate by video.


Summary: A relative of Romona Moore, who is the murder victim, flipped through an advertising circular. Moore's mother, clapped her hands. The witness, an 18-year-old woman in a ponytail and sweatsuit, told of an abduction on April 28, 2003, four days after Ms. Moore was taken chained.


Summary: Justice Albert Tomei of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn said that they were in the third and he don't know, fourth week of this trial and we haven't even heard from the principal witness. Justice Tomei declared a mistrial after the defendants, Kayson Pearson and Troy Hendrix, tried to escape the courtroom using improvised plastic knives. When the second trial began last month, the justice banished the defendants and ordered that they participate by video.


Summary: An executive with the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Dr. Joseph S. Bailes, is the doctor of that institution disputed the study's findings, saying that cancer doctors select treatments only on the basis of clinical evidence. He said there was clear clinical evidence about which drugs should be used even in advanced stages of the disease and that doctors recommended the most appropriate treatments.


Summary: The airline ticket tax, the 7.5 percent added to every passenger ticket, has helped finance the Federal Aviation Administration through good times and bad, but with the fall in ticket prices, the government is looking for a new revenue source. The cutthroat competition that has pushed down ticket prices and helped drive airlines into bankruptcy has also hurt the Aviation Trust Fund, providing most of the agency's budget.


Summary: James May, who is the head of the Air Transport Association, and the trade group of the big airlines, said his members paid 90 percent of user fees, but made up only about two-thirds of the flights under F.A.A. control


Summary: The capacity of Southwest Airlines increased 8.5 percent, but its passenger revenue miles jumped 17.3 percent.


Summary: The current president will have piled up more debt than all of the presidents preceding him, which is said by the Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, the senior Democrat on the Budget Committee, as he joined other Democrats in accusing Republicans of shortchanging domestic security.


Summary: Congress gave President Bill Clinton line-item veto authority, but the Supreme Court overturned the law, saying it violated the Constitution by giving the president the power to amend legislation.


Summary: Reflecting broadening concern that high school students of modest means will be priced out of a college education, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology plans to provide matching money to students who have received federal Pell Grants, which are awarded based on financial need. Dr. Hockfield said that tuition, room and board at M.I.T. will be $43,550 next year. M.I.T. students graduate with an average of nearly $20,000 in student debt, said by Dr. Hockfield.


Summary: Susan Hockfield, president of M.I.T., said that they decided that it was very important to give students from these low-income families as much of a break as they could. Tuition, room and board at M.I.T. will be $43,550 next year, said by Dr. Hockfield. He further said that M.I.T. students graduate with an average of nearly $20,000 in student debt.


Summary: Reflecting broadening concern that high school students of modest means will be priced out of a college education, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology plans to provide matching money to students who have received federal Pell Grants, which are awarded based on financial need. For the 2004-5 academic year, Pell Grant awards are ranged from $400 to $4,050, according to the website of the federal Department of Education. Dr. Hockfield said the institute decided to adopt a matching funds policy because Congress had not increased the maximum size of a Pell Grant.


Summary: Susan Hockfield, president of M.I.T., said that they decided that it was very important to give students from these low-income families as much of a break as they could. He further said that they are very concerned about access to higher education. In current years, institutions like Harvard, Yale and the University of North Carolina have announced initiatives to make higher education more affordable to low- and moderate-income students and bring more economic diversity to campus. He further said that tuition, room and board at M.I.T. will be $43,550 next year.


Summary: Reflecting broadening concern that high school students of modest means will be priced out of a college education, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology plans to provide matching money to students who have received federal Pell Grants, which are awarded based on financial need. For the 2004-5 academic year, Pell Grant awards ranged from $400 to $4,050, according to the website of the federal Department of Education. Dr. Hockfield said the institute decided to adopt a matching funds policy because Congress had not increased the maximum size of a Pell Grant.


Summary: Mike Huckabee, who is a governor of Arkansas, said in an interview that everyone in the employment pool has to have coverage. Mr. Huckabee, a second-term Republican, said the new program would help small businesses that currently offer no health insurance. The governor said that forty-six percent of all workers in our state are in companies that have fewer than 100 employees.


Summary: Julie R. Munsell, who is a spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Health and Human Services, said employers could require workers to pay some or all of these fees.


Summary: Eduardo Carrillo was on a field trip to Corcovado National Park with a group of his biology students last November when he realized that something was wrong. In mid-November, park officials closed Corcovado to visitors after tourists, despite warnings not to handle wildlife, began bringing sick animals to ranger stations in the hope of saving them. But tissue samples from Corcovado spider monkeys Costa Rica's most endangered species of monkey sent to a laboratory at the University of Texas for analysis showed no evidence of a virus or other pathogen.


Summary: Eduardo Carrillo was on a field trip to Corcovado National Park with a his biology students group last November when he realized that something was wrong. In just over a mile, the group found five dead monkeys lied. Three more were in agony, he said later emaciated, near death, sitting on the forest floor unable to climb a tree.


Summary: The defendant named Muhammad Hamid Khalil Salah, whose age is 52, is one of three men indicted by a federal grand jury in a racketeering conspiracy in 2004. They are accused of laundering millions of dollars for Hamas over a 15-year period. Mr. Salah, of Bridgeview, Illinois , a Chicago suburb, says he was physically and psychologically tortured into confessing.


Summary: A federal judge heard arguments about whether a confession made to Israeli security agents by an American citizen could be used in a trial in which he is accused of laundering money for Hamas to finance terrorist acts. They are accused of laundering millions of dollars for Hamas over a 15-year period. He was arrested when he was crossing into Israel from Gaza and later pleaded guilty to funneling money to Hamas.


Summary: Michael E. Deutsch, who is a lawyer for Mr. Salah, said his client had changed his accounts and signed confessions because he feared for his life. Mr. Deutsch said that he is desperate, and he's trying anything to stop what's going on. he further said that he gave them what they told him they wanted. he said the torture tactics that Mr. Salah said were used against him had been documented by human rights groups as being standard practice at the time by Israeli security agents.


Summary: Joseph Ferguson, an assistant United States attorney, said in court that Mr. Salah has always been a liar, he was calculating and he was strategic.


Summary: Michael Greenberger, who is a law professor at the University of Maryland who is the director of its Center for Health and Homeland Security, said the debate over the confession sounded similar to the case of an Arab-American student from Virginia who was convicted last year in federal court on charges of conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism.


Summary: Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, swept through Congo this week trying to ensure that the elections do not reignite the nation's old conflicts. Mr. Annan met with all five men, encouraging anyone with political aspirations to join the race. He had a similar message as he encouraged Congo's powerbrokers to put statesmanship above personal ambition.


Summary: The United Nations' largest peacekeeping mission in the world, with 17,000 troops, is already in the country and available should violence break out as the election nears. The United Nations has made significant headway in luring fighters to give up their guns or join the national army, but some say they are frustrated that the country, with its economy in shambles, offers them few ways of making a living.


Summary: Diudonne Mulumba was one of several thousand marchers in support of Mr. Tshisekedi. Mr. Mulumba, a Tshisekedi advocate said they were proud to be militants.


Summary: Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria was instrumental in making sure that the African Union did not destroy its international credibility by installing Sudan's president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, as its head despite the continuing carnage in Darfur.


Summary: When President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria visits Washington, he will probably be lauded for his crucial role as a regional African leader. During his seven years in power, Mr. Obasanjo helped end Liberia's civil war by taking in the strongman Charles Taylor and refusing to accept a Togo coup. Unfortunately, while Mr. Obasanjo deserves credit for good deeds outside of Nigeria, his own country is deteriorating fast and he is partly to blame. Fueling some of this is the perception, right or wrong, that Mr. Obasanjo's much-vaunted anti-corruption campaign concentrates only on critics of his government. In his two terms, Mr. Obasanjo has helped bring stability to a volatile region.


Summary: The president of the General Assembly, Jan Eliasson of Sweden, has led five months of negotiations to develop a proposal to reform the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Despite of this fact, the commission has accomplished many things, including the adoption of human rights standards, treaties and fact-finding mechanisms that measure the performance of governments, it has become more of a political battleground than a meaningful force for protecting victims of human rights violations, and it must be reformed. Last year, Secretary General Kofi Annan boldly proposed that the United Nations replace the commission with a new more elevated and effective body.


Summary: Primarily, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced plans to make corporations more fully disclose executive pay.


Summary: Many years ago a young man marched into the Rye Recreation Department's offices and plunked down a petition bearing 200 signatures. Like nearly a dozen other Westchester municipalities, Rye responded in the affirmative to this grass-roots campaign for a better place to kickflip and boardslide. Sally Rogol, who is the assistant superintendent of the Rye Recreation Department said that if you don't build one, they'll make one, and they'll make it where you don't want it.


Summary: Several years ago a young man marched into the Rye Recreation Department's offices and plunked down a petition bearing 200 signatures. Like nearly a dozen other Westchester municipalities, Rye responded in the affirmative to this grass-roots campaign for a better place to kickflip and boardslide. If you don't build one, they'll make one, and they'll make it where you don't want it, which is said by Sally Rogol, who is the assistant superintendent of the Rye Recreation Department.


Summary: Sam Jackson, who is a sophomore at Rye High School and an ardent skateboarder, is advising Rye's recreation department. He and other students have met with designers to ensure that the park appeals to all ages and, as he put it, as if it doesn't get old. The park Sam envisions certainly has a half-pipe the now-familiar semi-tubular ramp that skateboarders drop into. He said that stair sets and handrails and more typical spots that anyone can see on the streets. But it must also include elements from the suburban landscape.


Summary: Russ Maytag said that their slogan is this is a working ranch without the work, he is the developer of the Maytag Mountain Ranch in south central Colorado, which is near the town of Westcliffe. Maytag, a great-grandson of the appliance magnate, has ranched the scenic property with his wife for 25 years. He wanted to sell some of the valuable land, but he also wanted it to stay in production.


Summary: Buyers of the Maytag's 27 home sites of more than 3,000 acres each will share ownership of a 250-head herd of red angus cattle. Now the Maytags own one parcel, they have sold 10 others and 16 more are still for sale, ranging in price from $895,000 to $1.5 million. As one Maytag buyer, Jim Johnson of Colorado Springs, puts it, he said he saw himself pitching in to mend fences, but he don't want to get a call at midnight that a cow has broken through.


Summary: This one calls itself a Community Without Walls (C.W.W.), and exists mostly in the emotional bonds between its members. Its specifics may be unusual, but its goal to allow people to stay at home while they age is part of a national trend. The Princeton C.W.W. began about 15 years ago, back when a longtime Princeton resident, Richard Bergman and his wife, whose name is Victoria, found themselves caring for his elderly mother, helplessly watching the decline that preceded death.


Summary: The Princeton C.W.W. began about 15 years ago, back when a longtime Princeton resident, Richard Bergman and his wife, named Victoria, found themselves caring for his elderly mother, helplessly watching the decline that preceded death. Back then at that time he was in his late 50's, she was in her 40's and they often found themselves musing about getting old. At first the subject was their parents, but soon talk turned to the prospect of their own aging, and how to avoid putting their children in the same overwhelming position.


Summary: The University Commons, opened near the University of Michigan four years ago and has become a model for others around the country. Even the two-level homes are designed for mainly living. Residents find themselves on campus for culture and events, but just as often the university comes to them. Each house has a high-speed Internet hookup, and each condo owner receives a university e-mail address.


Summary: The University Commons, opened near the University of Michigan four years ago and has become a model for others around the country. The innovation of a group of about 20 retired University of Michigan professors, staff members and alumni who wanted a collegial extension of collegiate life, and Blue Hill Development built this village on 18 acres of land purchased from the school.


Summary: In a kind of carnivalesque charade that seemed like an extension of Mardi Gras, where arrest warrants were issued, the city's top judges, furious, made threats, but still the clerk, Kimberly Williamson Butler, refused to appear. The judges asked Mr. Butler to relinquish some of her responsibilities in applying for federal money to clean up the flood-damaged courthouse. She refused, and last Friday the judges of the criminal court issued a warrant for her arrest.


Summary: The Environmental Protection Agency also gave Mr. Cooper the cold shoulder when he tried to invoke a section of the act that allows states to seek relief from out-of-state pollution.


Summary: Mr. Cooper asked a federal court to declare air pollution from 11 power plants which is owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky which is stated as ''public nuisance'' under common law. It simply asks the court to order the authority to install up-to-date emissions controls on the sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury from its coal-fired power plants. T.V.A. which is a government-owned authority, is among the country's largest power producers and, therefore, one of its biggest polluters. This suggests that the T.V.A. would do well to reach an amicable agreement.


Summary: The steady erosion of the nation's clean air laws under the Bush administration has inspired the attorney general of North Carolina, to adopt an unusual legal strategy to force out-of-state power plants to stop sending air pollution into his state.


Summary: The steady erosion of the nation's clean air laws under the Bush administration has inspired Roy Cooper, who is the attorney general of North Carolina, to adopt an unusual legal strategy to force out-of-state power plants to stop sending air pollution into his state. In last weeks of January, Mr. Cooper asked federal court to declare air pollution from 11 power plants which is owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky which is stated as ''public nuisance'' under common law. The company has spent heavily on controls partly as a result of a consent decree in the 1970's but both Mr. Cooper and environmental groups believe they have potential to do more.


Summary: Mr. Cooper asked a federal court to declare air pollution from 11 power plants which is owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky a stated as ''public nuisance'' under common law. It simply asks the court to order the authority  to install up-to-date emissions controls on the sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury from its coal-fired power plants. T.V.A. is a government-owned authority, which is among the country's largest power producers and, therefore, one of its biggest polluters. This suggests that the T.V.A. would do well to reach an civil agreement.


Summary: Pets provide many benefits to humans, but what happened in this mining town finally turned resort as contaminated water from abandoned gold mines drained into French Gulch creek beginning after World War II. Mr. Lorch, an open space and trails resource specialist for Summit County said that if they are successful in cleaning up French Gulch, they could make it possible for the competitors to move up. Mr. Lorch said state wildlife officials had looked at two road crossings under which French Gulch passes in its journey from the Horseshoe and concluded that the artificial waterfalls from the pipes under those roads provided adequate barriers to downstream interlopers.


Summary: After the incident of accident occurred on cutthroats thrived in their sanctuary above the mines, where the water was clean, Brian Lorch has to worry about keeping it in that way. Mr. Lorch said that if they are successful in cleaning up French Gulch, they could make it possible for the competitors to move up. He is an open space and trails resource specialist for Summit County. Mr. Lorch said state wildlife officials had looked at two road crossings under which French Gulch passes in its journey from the Horseshoe and concluded that the artificial waterfalls from the pipes under those roads provided adequate barriers to downstream interlopers, clean water or not.


Summary: Andrea Madigan is a lawyer for the Environmental Protection Agency said that it is the first time in the nation where the E.P.A. entered into an agreement with a purchaser of a site as this who agreed to do a cleanup. Explosive growth in the Colorado Rockies over the last decade began to crack those barriers, and town planners said they feared that the property's former owners would begin selling off less damaged parcels to pay for the cleanup and water-treatment as E.P.A. wanted.


Summary: The budget of President Bush would increase the federal deficit by $35 billion this year and by more than $1.2 trillion over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office which is reported on Friday. The nonpartisan budget office said that Mr. Bush's tax-cutting proposals would cost about $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years and that his proposals to partly privatize Social Security would cost about $312 billion during that period. The office also said Mr. Bush's proposals to save money on Medicare, Medicaid and most pther programsof government would offset about one-third of the cost of his other proposals.


Summary: As no one has the right to be more disappointed about the fact that Dubai is buying the storied British container port operator at the center of the political storm in the United States than the company it bid higher, PSA International of Singapore. PSA has no port operations in the United States, so the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company and the six American ports where it operates terminals would have been strong additions to the 19 others that PSA already has stakes in around the world. Moreover, the state-owned PSA would have vaulted to No. 1 from second in the top rankings of global port operators. Still PSA, whose single shareholder is the Singapore government's $63 billion investment agency, chose to walk away after DP World topped its bid of £3.5 billion with one for £3.92 billion ($6.8 billion).


P. Moller-Maersk Group of Denmark
Maersk

Summary: P. Moller-Maersk Group of Denmark further growth in the port terminal empires will largely involve buying individual ports from governments, expanding existing terminals or building them from scratch. But Singapore and PSA got a taste of what can go wrong in 2002, when Malaysia opened a opponent container port less than 50 miles away, attracting both the Maersk shipping line and Evergreen Marine of Taiwan with lower prices.


Summary: Yasmin Wirjawan, who is an analyst at Standard & Poor's in Singapore said that it will be difficult for them to find a significant investment.


Summary: PSA is a company which has no port operations in the United States, so the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company including six American ports where it operates terminals would have been strong additions to the 19 others that PSA already has stakes in around the world. Peninsular & Oriental's port operations in fast-growing China and India were also a draw. And in history in 1845, Singapore moved its port from what is now its financial district to the southern coast just to serve Peninsular & Oriental's coal-hungry steamships.


Summary: Lawrence Liaw, general manager at the Singapore office of the shipping line Nippon Yusen of Japan, said that they've become more responsive to customers.


Summary: Under cross-examination yesterday, George DiBello, 39, said he had, among other tattoos, one depicting angels breaking the shackles off John J. Gotti, Mr. Gotti's father and the late don of the Gambino family. Mr. DiBello was one of two surprise witnesses called by the defense yesterday to challenge the accuracy and integrity of the prosecution's two main witnesses, Mr. D'Angelo and Michael DiLeonardo, a former Gambino captain known as Mikey Scars. Prosecutors asked Ms. Ricci whether she knew that her brother, father, cousin, uncle and current husband were all associated with the Gambino crime family.


Summary: George DiBello was one of two surprise witnesses called by the defense yesterday to challenge the accuracy and integrity of the prosecution's two main witnesses, Joseph D'Angelo and Michael DiLeonardo, a former Gambino captain known as Mikey Scars.


Summary: Whether jurors believe that Joseph D'Angelo was ever in the club could be important to the prosecution's case against John A. Gotti, who is accused of racketeering conspiracy, including conspiring to kidnap Curtis Sliwa, a radio host and the founder of the Guardian Angels.


Summary: The bartender, George DiBello, suggested that the witness, Joseph D'Angelo, would surely have noticed the unusual décor of Our Friends Social Club, in Ozone Park, Queens, if he had been there, as he claimed in his testimony. Whether jurors believe that Mr. D'Angelo was ever in the club could be important to the prosecution's case against Mr. Gotti, who is accused of racketeering conspiracy, including conspiring to kidnap Curtis Sliwa, a radio host and the founder of the Guardian Angels. Testifying in Federal District Court in Manhattan earlier this week, Mr. D'Angelo said Mr. Gotti had convened a meeting at the Ozone Park club, where he ordered Mr. D'Angelo and two other men to rough up Mr. Sliwa, to punish him for insulting the Gotti family on his show.


Summary: Whether jurors believe that Joseph D'Angelo was ever in the club could be important to the prosecution's case against John A. Gotti, who is accused of racketeering conspiracy, including conspiring to kidnap Curtis Sliwa, a radio host and the founder of the Guardian Angels. Testifying in Federal District Court in Manhattan earlier this week, Mr. D'Angelo said Mr. Gotti had convened a meeting at the Ozone Park club, where he ordered Mr. D'Angelo and two other men to rough up Mr. Sliwa, to punish him for insulting the Gotti family on his show.


Summary: The bartender, George DiBello, suggested that the witness, Joseph D'Angelo, would surely have noticed the unusual décor of Our Friends Social Club, in Ozone Park, Queens, if he had been there, as he claimed in his testimony.


Summary: George DiBello was one of two surprise witnesses called by the defense yesterday to challenge the accuracy and integrity of the prosecution's two main witnesses, Joseph D'Angelo and Michael DiLeonardo, a former Gambino captain known as Mikey Scars. The other was Toni Marie Ricci, Mr. DiLeonardo's ex-wife. She testified that the younger Gotti summoned her 15-year-old son, Michael, to Raybrook prison, where Mr. Gotti was then incarcerated, at her suggestion, and not, as Mr. DiLeonardo testified, in an effort to intimidate Mr. DiLeonardo from becoming a government witness.


Summary: A former bartender at John A. Gotti's social club testified yesterday that the club had hot-pink walls and an elaborate buzzer system and that a crucial prosecution witness, a turncoat mobster who claims that he made plans in the club to carry out a kidnapping Mr. Gotti had ordered, was never there. Whether jurors believe that Mr. D'Angelo was ever in the club could be important to the prosecution's case against Mr. Gotti, who is accused of racketeering conspiracy, including conspiring to kidnap Curtis Sliwa, a radio host and the founder of the Guardian Angels. Testifying in Federal District Court in Manhattan earlier this week, Mr. D'Angelo said Mr. Gotti had convened a meeting at the Ozone Park club, where he ordered Mr. D'Angelo and two other men to rough up Mr. Sliwa, to punish him for insulting the Gotti family on his show.


Summary: The bartender, George DiBello, suggested that the witness, Joseph D'Angelo, would surely have noticed the unusual décor of Our Friends Social Club, in Ozone Park, Queens, if he had been there, as he claimed in his testimony. To get in, he said, visitors had to pass through one door into a foyer, where he could see them through a window, and then be buzzed in from a buzzer behind the bar. Under cross-examination yesterday, Mr. DiBello, 39, had, among other tattoos, one depicting angels breaking the shackles off John J. Gotti, Mr. Gotti's father and the late don of the Gambino family.


Summary: The suit says that chief Bowman grabbed Billy Snead's shoulder who was furiously trying to save the life of a friend, Claude Green Jr. who was red-faced and gasping for breath and had the virus that causes AIDS, pulling him away from his friend. Trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation, Mr. Snead tried to continue pressing and then pounding on Mr. Green's chest. Mr. Green, who was 43, died at Welch Community Hospital less than an hour later.


Summary: The chief, Robert K. Bowman of the small town of Welch, told Mr. Snead that his friend, had the virus that causes AIDS, according to a lawsuit filed. 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: Billy Snead was furiously trying to save the life of a friend having a heart attack on a West Virginia roadside in June when the police chief arrived. According to a lawsuit filed yesterday, 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 and ordered him to stop. The suit says that chief Bowman grabbed Mr. Snead's shoulder, pulling him away from his friend, Claude Green Jr.


Summary: New Orleans Cold Storage, like other nearby businesses, owes its livelihood to the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet. Nonetheless, the revival of New Orleans Cold Storage and other shipping-related businesses has been a bright spot in the flattened economy, one the city would like to nurture. Having made an $11 million investment based on the government's original commitment that it would keep the canal clear and deep, New Orleans Cold Storage faces a number of difficulties.


Summary: Henry Rodriguez Jr., president of the devastated St. Bernard Parish, just east of the city, said that people are really afraid of the Mr. Go and rightfully so since for decades, Mr. Go has also come under criticism for destroying the wetlands alongside it by acting as a channel for saltwater from the gulf, which kills vegetation, and it has never lived up to its promise as a major navigational waterway. The channel has become such a presence in the collective consciousness here that a lawyer, Soren Gisleson, recently wore a Mr. Go Mardi Gras costume with a wig coiffed to resemble a tidal wave and a watery blue strip painted from his face down the center of his white tuxedo.


Summary: Henry Rodriguez Jr., is the president of the devastated St. Bernard Parish, just east of the city. Mr. Rodriguez's sector suffered widespread damage because of levee failures along the length of the canal. To Mr. Rodriguez, the parish president, the top question is how to give residents a sense that their safety comes first.


Army Corps of Engineers
Corps of Engineers

Summary: The State Legislature passed a resolution urging Congress to close the canal, which the Army Corps of Engineers completed in the 1960s. But corps officials say the ultimate fate of the canal will be determined as part of long-range studies of the levee system. No decision about closing the canal is imminent, according to the corps.


Summary: LaGrange, president of the Port of New Orleans, said it would cost $381 million to relocate all nine businesses to the banks of the Mississippi and $5 million a year to take goods to ships on the Mississippi by truck or barge until new wharves can be built on the river.


Summary: Last month, the State Legislature passed a resolution urging Congress to close the canal, which the Army Corps of Engineers completed in the 1960's.


Summary: Mike Shaw, the president of sales and marketing for the ABC Television Network unit of ABC, said that despite the greater competition, television viewing time had increased because consumers had a greater choice. He said the average consumer now watched 4 hours and 32 minutes of television a day. Mr. Shaw of ABC said his network was planning a new feature on its Web site: a Webcast available 12 hours after the show runs on television.


Summary: Daniel L. Rosensweig, the chief operating officer of Yahoo, promoted Yahoo Groups as an innovative advertising opportunity. Years ago, he said, advertising in online communities and message boards was considered undesirable and that now there are more than 90 million users of Yahoo Groups, and those users are generally in a target demographic for advertisers.


Summary: IN front of an electric blue backdrop that resembled a computer screen, speakers at the annual media conference of the American Association of Advertising Agencies stressed that their industry must cater to consumers who are empowered by technology and ever-widening content choices.


Summary: Charlie Rutman, is the chief executive of MPG North America, part of the Media Planning Group.


Summary: In concluding its nuclear deal with India, the Bush administration faces significant opposition in Congress and tough questions from its allies on whether the arrangement could set a precedent encouraging the spread of nuclear weapons to Iran and other potential foes of the United States. But Bush administration officials expressed confidence that they could overcome the skepticism of the critics, in part because support is nearly universal in the West and among Republicans and Democrats in Washington for building India's strength as a bastion of democracy and a counterweight to China in Asia. Critics of the deal in Congress and abroad are certain to focus on what they maintain is a double standard embraced by the Bush administration.


Summary: Senator Richard G. Lugar, the Indiana Republican who leads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has raised more than 80 questions about the deal that he says need to be answered before it can be approved.


Summary: A Dubai investment company,  Istithmar, said it would buy Inchcape Shipping Services, a British ship agency company that operates in more than 20 ports in the United States, including Baltimore, New York-New Jersey, and Long Beach, Calif. Istithmar paid $285 million for Inchcape.


Summary: The underwriters of the Chipotle offering, led by Morgan Stanley, set a price of $22 a share, for 7.9 million shares. Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse managed the sale, a variation on a Dutch auction, and Hambrecht was part of the underwriting team. Last year, Morningstar, a financial research company, hired Hambrecht to take it public in an auction that raised $140.8 million, but only after Morgan Stanley refused to do things Morningstar's way.


Summary: That is much less than McDonald's took in when it spun off its Chipotle Mexican Grill chain in a traditional initial public offering in late January, but it is a decent start, said Clay Corbus, who shares the chief executive role at Hambrecht with its founder, William Hambrecht.  Google was important because it led to Morningstar, but Morningstar was more important because it was a purely run auction without any big banks imposing their traditional ways on the process, Mr. Corbus said.


Summary: Hambrecht raised $22.5 million in an auction of shares in FortuNet, which makes wireless gambling machines.


Mr. Hambrecht
Bill Hambrecht
Hambrecht
William Hambrecht

Summary: Mr. William Hambrecht founded Hambrecht & Quist, which was one of the first investment banks focused on financing the technology boom in Silicon Valley. Mr. Verratti said he talked to traditional investment banks but hired Hambrecht because the company's goal was to maximize its proceeds from the sale. Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse managed the sale, a variation on a Dutch auction, and Hambrecht was part of the underwriting team.


Summary: Morningstar, a financial research company, hired Hambrecht to take it public in an auction that raised $140.8 million, but only after Morgan Stanley refused to do things Morningstar's way. Shares of Morningstar rose $1.55, or about 8.5 percent, on their first day of trading, to close at $20.05. By Mr. Ritter's measure, Morningstar left about $12 million on the table but saved about $7 million in underwriting fees.


Summary: Kent L. Womack, a professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, said auctions should be ideal for taking public big, well-known companies.


Summary: Jay Ritter, a professor at the University of Florida who studies the public offering market, refers to the difference between what the company received for its shares and what they were worth at the end of the first day. In Chipotle's case, it amounted to almost $175 million. By Mr. Ritter's measure, Morningstar left about $12 million on the table but saved about $7 million in underwriting fees.


Summary: Traffic.com, which provides information about local traffic conditions to radio and TV stations and directly to consumers, raised $78.6 million through an auction led by Hambrecht. Traffic.com sold 6.55 million shares for $12 each and they have barely moved up or down since. The absence of pop did not seem to bother Traffic.com's chief executive, Robert N. Verratti.


Summary: Hambrecht, the system-bucking champion of using auctions to sell initial public offerings of stock, has developed a following among entrepreneurs since Google went public in an auction 18 months ago. Google inspired followers. With the exception of Google, the biggest deals are still done the traditional way.


Summary: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, responding to an advocacy group's report about traffic congestion in Manhattan, said that congestion pricing was among several options the city should examine. Mr. Bloomberg struck a more moderate tone at a news conference, where he was asked about a report by Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group for pedestrians and cyclists. But the mayor also argued that there were unforeseen drawbacks to many alternatives that looked good on paper like shifting truck deliveries to nighttime hours and installing speed bumps on busy streets.


Summary: Peter H. Kostmayer, president of Citizens for NYC, a nonprofit organization that gives grants to neighborhood groups around the city, urged Mr. Bloomberg to remain open-minded. He said that they're focusing on four problems: congestion, danger, noise and pollution, and we think this is a simple, bold, dramatic step, like the citywide smoking ban, that could solve all four at once. He conceded that congestion pricing was controversial.


Summary: Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, will introduce new legislation that would prohibit Internet network operators from charging companies for faster delivery of their content to consumers or favoring some content providers over others. The Wyden legislation, called the Internet Non-Discrimination Act of 2006, aims to prohibit network operators from assessing charges that give some content providers better access than others. Time Warner Cable,  Senator Wyden said, should not be able to give other Time Warner companies better access to the network than their rivals.


Summary: Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, will introduce new legislation today that would prohibit Internet network operators from charging companies for faster delivery of their content to consumers or favoring some content providers over others. Consumer groups and Internet companies like Google and Amazon contend that any move by the network operators to levy fees for premium delivery service would harm Web sites that are unwilling to pay for faster delivery.


Summary: Pamela Post, a victim of a panic disorder called agoraphobia, has been afraid to leave her house. She managed to find work for a time, at a company partly owned by a man who also had a panic disorder. He gave her a private office in a house, to make her feel at home and to shield her from the office bustle that could bring on attacks. Today, she works from home in Deltona, Fla., sets her own working hours, and supports herself.


Summary: At the Internal Revenue Service, about 350 disabled workers in 42 states are taking calls this tax season. The I.R.S. and other federal agencies are required to hire people with severe disabilities as part of their compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act. The I.R.S. was especially interested in having agents answering calls during peak hours without having to employ them full time.


Summary: For 24 years, Pamela Post, a victim of a panic disorder called agoraphobia, has been afraid to leave her house. She managed to find work for a time, at a company partly owned by a man who also had a panic disorder. He gave her a private office in a house, to make her feel at home and to shield her from the office bustle that could bring on attacks.


Alejandra St. Guillen
Imette
St. Guillen
Imette St. Guillen

Summary: In Boston, where Ms. St. Guillen grew up, her family released a statement thanking the New York police for doing all they can to identify who took Imette away from them. In a telephone interview, her sister, Alejandra St. Guillen, 29, said the victim was just a very open, very loving person who is super bright, honest and just caring and that she just kept people close to her heart. She said her sister spent much of her young life studying criminology.


Summary: According to J. P. Patafio, the local's chairman for the Jackie Gleason Bus Depot in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, the petitions, put into circulation about a week ago by disgruntled members of Transport Workers Union Local 100, had been signed by thousands of bus and subway workers by yesterday. he said that it is spreading and he thinks there will be enough support to petition for a second contract vote and that so far about 500 of the 800 union workers at his depot have signed the petitions. Mr. Patafio said most union members viewed the contract terms, rejected by a margin of only seven votes in January, with 22,461 workers casting their votes, as preferable to any agreement that would be produced by binding arbitration, as is being sought by the transit authority.


Summary: According to union members and a member of the authority's board, a transit workers' petition drive seeking a second vote on the contract that was narrowly defeated in January is gaining broad support, and could provide an opening to resolve a bitter standoff with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.


Skilling
Mr. Skilling
Jeffrey K. Skilling

Summary: A former Enron executive gave the strongest testimony yet in the five-week-old trial that Jeffrey K. Skilling, the company's former chief executive, signed off on a controversial accounting shift involving troubled trading contracts. Mr. Delainey, 40, provided other testimony in the trial of Mr. Skilling and Enron's founder, Kenneth L. Lay, who is accused of conspiring to defraud Enron investors. Mr. Delainey testified that Mr. Skilling and Mr. Lay went to great lengths to mislead analysts that Enron was not a high-risk trading company at its core. Mr. Delainey offered the first evidence that Mr. Skilling was aware of the plans to use the Raptor accounting vehicles to move underperforming assets and hundreds of millions of dollars of debt off Enron's books.


Summary: ''What did you take that to mean?'' asked Kathryn H. Ruemmler, a prosecutor.


Summary: A former Enron executive gave that Jeffrey K. Skilling, the company's former chief executive, signed off on a controversial accounting shift involving troubled trading contracts. Mr. Delainey, 40, provided other testimony in the trial of Mr. Skilling and Enron's founder, Kenneth L. Lay, who were accused of conspiring to defraud Enron investors. Mr. Skilling and Mr. Lay say that there was no conspiracy and that any wrongdoing at Enron was confined to a small group that did not include them. They also say that Enron's failure was tied to a market panic and not to portrayals of its finances. When Enron declared bankruptcy in December 2001 the energy services unit had never turned a profit in its core business, he said.


Summary: Mr. Delainey, 40, provided other testimony on Tuesday in the trial of Mr. Skilling and Enron's founder, Kenneth L. Lay, who are accused of conspiring to defraud Enron investors. Mr. Skilling and Mr. Lay say that there was no conspiracy and that any wrongdoing at Enron was confined to a small group that did not include them. Mr. Delainey testified that Mr. Skilling and Mr. Lay went to great lengths to mislead analysts that Enron was not a high-risk trading company at its core, in order to protect the company's high stock price.


Summary: David W. Delainey, who headed the Energy Services division at Enron, said that he initially resisted the idea of shifting losses from his unit to the wholesale division, an accounting move that he concluded was improper and misled investors. Mr. Delainey recounted a meeting on March 29, 2001, in Mr. Skilling's office where, he said, Mr. Skilling assented to the move after Mr. Delainey initially got cold feet. He testified that there was no business purpose but to hide the loss and he knew that was not proper. Mr. Delainey, 40, provided other testimony on Tuesday in the trial of Mr. Skilling and Enron's founder, Kenneth L. Lay, who are accused of conspiring to defraud Enron investors.


Summary: Mr. Delainey recounted how top managers at the meeting on March 29, 2001, discussed a plan by Richard A. Causey, the chief accounting officer. Mr. Causey reacted angrily said it was a bona fide operational change. Then Mr. Skilling turned to Mr. Delainey and asked what he wanted to do.


Summary: The new data, along with comments yesterday from a Google executive that the company's growth in search-related advertising revenue was inevitably slowing, seemed to concern investors.


Summary: Yesterday, a survey showed a surprising dip in consumer expectations, and the Commerce Department revised upward measures of economic growth and inflation in the fourth quarter. On Monday, the Commerce Department reported that the sales of new homes fell 5 percent in January from a year earlier. The Commerce Department revised upward one gauge of inflation, the fourth-quarter gross domestic product price index, to 3.3 percent, from an earlier estimate of 3 percent. The department also revised upward its estimate of fourth-quarter economic growth to 1.6 percent, from its previous estimate of 1.1 percent.


Summary: In June 1992, Mr. D'Angelo said that he was the driver of a stolen taxicab in which Curtis Sliwa, the radio host and founder of the Guardian Angels, was ambushed, shot and gravely wounded. Mr. Gotti is accused of ordering the attack to get back at Mr. Sliwa, who had denounced Mr. Gotti's father, the Gambino don John J. Gotti, on his show. Mr. D'Angelo identified Mr. Gotti as the person who convened a meeting to plan the attack on Mr. Sliwa.


Summary: The mobster, Joseph D'Angelo, 37, said that he had hardly done an honest day's work in his life, not so much because he did not want to but because he was not expected to. He started working for the mob, when he was 16, right after his father was killed in a bar in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, that was frequented by the mob. 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.


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. Mr. D'Angelo recalled his mentor, Mr. Gravano, and said that before they let another family kill one of ours, they would do it themselves. In the second case, Mr. D'Angelo said that he shot a friend of his, James Gilbert, in 1992 or 1993.


Summary: A prosecutor, Joon Kim, asked Mr. D'Angelo if he had come to learn how the Gambino family made money from the unions. Mr. D'Angelo replied that they did what they wanted or they got hurt. Mr. D'Angelo, muscular but still charming and baby-faced, conveyed a wistful sweetness on the witness stand.


Summary: A self-described member of John A. Gotti's crime organization described in court yesterday coming of age in a world where he held many construction jobs, yet never did any real work. Joseph D'Angelo told his story as a prosecution witness at Mr. Gotti's racketeering trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan, where prosecutors are trying to prove that Mr. Gotti was a member of an organized-crime enterprise that engaged in a pattern of racketeering going back to the 1980's. During the construction of an Ikea store in New Jersey, he said, his job as foreman was to stand in a trailer reading newspapers and making sure that no union guys were bothering anybody.


Summary: He and a fellow mobster shot Ed Garofalo, a cousin of a Gambino crime soldier, because Mr. Garofalo was stealing from the Colombo family.


Summary: The mobster, Joseph D'Angelo, 37, said he had hardly done an honest day's work in his life, not so much because he did not want to but because he was not expected to, as an associate and later made a member of the Gambino crime family. He and a fellow mobster shot Ed Garofalo, a cousin of a Gambino crime soldier because Mr. Garofalo was stealing from the Colombo family. Mr. Gotti is accused of ordering the attack to get back at Mr. Sliwa, who had denounced Mr. Gotti's father, the Gambino don John J. Gotti, on his show.


Summary: In June 1992, Mr. D'Angelo said, he was the driver of a stolen taxicab in which Curtis Sliwa, the radio host and founder of the Guardian Angels, was ambushed, shot and gravely wounded.


Summary: Mexican Retail Properties is the exception, going it alone with a local staff headed by Mr. Foley, who developed shopping centers in the United States for 17 years before coming to Mexico three years ago. In Ixtapaluca, for example, some 75,000 houses have been built over the last few years, said Mr. Foley, helping to push the population in the area to more than a million.


Summary: Mexico Retail Properties is a partnership of the Black Creek Group and Equity International Properties, the international investment arm of Sam Zell's Equity Group Investments. Mexican Retail Properties is the exception, going it alone with a local staff headed by Mr. Foley, who developed shopping centers in the United States for 17 years. The partners of Mexico Retail raised $250 million and leveraged that into $500 million, which they will invest over the next couple of years, building 5 to 10 shopping centers a year.


Summary: The ruling, by Judge John Gleeson, called for the State Board of Elections and the Republican and Democratic Parties to immediately halt the nominating conventions. Clarence Norman Jr., a former Assemblyman and chairman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, was convicted on charges that originated with an inquiry into his role in judicial nominations.


Summary: The issue gained new immediacy after a federal court in Brooklyn found last month that the current system of picking State Supreme Court justices was unconstitutional because party bosses wield far too much power in deciding who gets to run in general elections.


Summary: Democrats who control the State Assembly say such a system would force candidates into expensive races, either favoring wealthy candidates or forcing judges to raise money from contributors and say they are unlikely to support the legislation unless the campaigns are publicly financed. The Assembly has passed legislation calling for publicly financed campaigns in the past, but the Senate has opposed such a measure. But there is little to suggest that the Senate and Assembly would reach such a compromise.


Summary: Clarence Norman Jr., a former Assemblyman and chairman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, was convicted on charges that originated with an inquiry into his role in judicial nominations.


Summary: Assemblywoman Helene E. Weinstein, the chairwoman of the Judiciary Committee, said that this might be a case where the cure was worse than disease. Both Ms. Weinstein and Mr. DeFrancisco are opposed to such a system, which would take years to create.


Summary: John A. DeFrancisco, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that such a long term should require judges to campaign directly to voters. Weinstein and Mr. DeFrancisco are opposed to such a system, which would take years to create.


Summary: The so-called NewBank exists largely on paper, but like a superhero on standby, it can spring into action to stabilize the government securities market if a legal or financial disaster strikes. The NewBank will have no physical location and no full-time employees. In a crisis, the NewBank would take over the legal position of the existing clearing bank and replace its top officers with a small group of designated executives from other institutions. The NewBank would then take over the troubled bank's existing operations to process the trades.


Summary: Donald H. Layton, the former vice chairman of J. P. Morgan Chase, said that all of a sudden half of the securities would not be able to clear their overnight positions.


Summary: The industry's dependence on just two big institutions has long concerned the Federal Reserve, which fears the fallout of a potential trading disruption. The Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission began raising concerns about what would happen if a clearing bank's activities were severely disrupted again. It will be set up as a limited-purpose trust company under the New York state banking laws and will also be regulated by the Federal Reserve.


Summary: Rick Adam, the chief executive of Adam Aircraft, said that the next day, one can have their meeting, but chances are that they won't be able to get back that day which makes it a three-day trip. Adam is one of several aircraft manufacturers that are about to introduce very light jets, little fuel-efficient four- to six-seat aircraft with ranges of about 1,200 miles and price tags in the $1.8 million to $2.4 million range, well under the current entry-level prices for business jets. Besides Adam Aircraft, the top players in this market are Eclipse Aviation, which is marketing a very light jet that its founder, Vern Raburn, refers to as the "Model T" of aviation.


Summary: Rick Adam, the chief executive of Adam Aircraft said that's a three-day trip. Mr. Adam is one of several aircraft manufacturers that are about to introduce very light jets little fuel-efficient four- to six-seat aircraft with ranges of about 1,200 miles and price tags in the $1.8 million to $2.4 million range, well under the current entry-level prices for business jets. Air-taxi operators are going to want to fly into airports where it's highly likely that when you drop somebody off you can fairly quickly find somebody who wants to hop in the taxi and go someplace else, Mr. Adam said.


Summary: The top players in this market other than Adam Aircraft are Eclipse Aviation, which is marketing a very light jet that its founder, Vern Raburn, refers to as the "Model T" of aviation.


Summary: J. P. Morgan conference last week, Continental Airlines said it was adding seating capacity this year, both domestically and internationally.


Summary: Frederic F. Brace, United's chief financial officer, said last week in a speech to industry analysts sponsored by J. P. Morgan that they are judiciously taking money and investing it in the high-value customer and at the same time they are not spending any more than they have to on the low-value customer. He said that United planned to cut in-flight service for low-value customers who quite frankly don't value it and aren't willing to pay for it while improving amenities in first class, business class and premium economy.


Summary: At a J. P. Morgan conference last week, Continental Airlines said it was adding seating capacity this year, both domestically and internationally but it was adding 3.6 percent more seats on domestic flights to battle incursions into its hub markets by discount carriers and was adding a substantial number of international seats in response to growing demand. Continental also added that it would increase seating on trans-Atlantic flights by 15 percent, seating on Latin American flights by 12 percent and trans-Pacific seating by 7.5 percent.


Summary: United Airlines said that it was planning to put a new emphasis on its premium-class cabins domestically and internationally while cutting spending on economy-class customers. He said United planned to cut in-flight service for low-value customers who quite frankly don't value it and aren't willing to pay for it. The airline will also put some emphasis on long-haul premium-class cabins, where foreign airlines dominate in customer satisfaction surveys and product reviews.


Summary: Hyatt Hotels is offering free annual membership which is available to Gold Passport Diamond-level members of its loyalty program, in the only currently operating Registered Traveler program. The Registered Traveler program, in which travelers who pass a federal background check receive a special ID card encoded with personal biometric data, offers a special lane for expedited screening at airport checkpoints. Hyatt said it had entered a partnership with Verified Identity Pass Inc., which now operates the only Registered Traveler program, branded under the name Clear, in Orlando, where it has more than 15,000 members who pay an annual fee of $79.95.


Summary: Byun Ha Jung, a senior manager at the Hyundai Asan Corporation, the South Korean company and unit of the Hyundai Corporation that is developing the park, said that for South Korean companies, the reality is that one doesn't have to go to China. He asked reporters how much they have invested in China and whether it is one billion dollars.


Summary: Oh Sung-Chang, senior managing director of Taesung Hata Company, a manufacturer of packaging for cosmetics, said that they have plans to build a factory here four times the size of this complex.


Hyundai Corporation
Hyundai
Hyundai Asan Corporation
Hyundai Asan

Summary: Byun Ha Jung, a senior manager at the Hyundai Asan Corporation, the South Korean company and unit of the Hyundai Corporation that is developing the park said that for South Korean companies, the reality is that you don't have to go to China. Hyundai Asan, the only large South Korean company to invest in the North, runs a growing resort in North Korea's Kumgang Mountains. But last fall, North Korean officials temporarily cut by half the number of permitted visitors because they were angry that Hyundai had fired an executive with ties to Kim Jong Il, North Korea's leader.


Summary: Kim Dong Keun, a South Korean who is chairman of the Kaesong Industrial District Management Committee, said that the exact amount is determined by North Korean authorities.


Summary: Oh Sung-Chang, senior managing director of Taesung Hata Company, a manufacturer of packaging for cosmetics, said that they have plans to build a factory here four times the size of this complex. With his plans to start construction this summer, he added that the Northern side has been very cooperative. Despite its initial reluctance, the North has thrown its weight behind the industrial park, which is now the isolated nation's largest center of foreign investment.


Summary: Hwang Woo Seung, president of the Shinwon Ebenezer Company, said Kaesong has more advantages than Vietnam, China, or Guatemala, citing other countries where his company produces clothes. If the leaders of the two Koreas have their way, Mr. Hwang's factory, with its 326 North Korean workers and 7 South Korean managers, will be the face of future economic cooperation for the long-divided Korean peninsula.


Summary: An investment group led by Kent Swig paid a record price for an apartment house when they bought the Sheffield in April for $418 million. Still, if their conversion is approved and everything goes according to plan, Mr. Swig's group will double its investment. Mr. Swig said he wanted residents to buy apartments and had offered some tenants month-to-month leases although in the same interview he said that they're not going to renew leases.


Summary: Bruce E. Bernstein made his way past the wires hanging from the ceiling and the pile of trash in the hallway to the freight elevator on the 10th floor of his apartment building on the Upper West Side. Mr. Bernstein and many of his neighbors at 230 Riverside Drive say that construction noise and thick layers of dust replaced the quiet sense of community. And one by one, Mr. Bernstein said, more than 100 residents left after the owner refused to renew their leases.


Summary: There has been a surge in the conversion of rental buildings since 2004, said Kenneth Demario, an assistant state attorney general in the office's real estate finance department, which oversees conversion plans. Mr. Demario said a majority of tenants in most buildings then were rent-regulated. They had a lot of leverage, he said, because they could refuse to go along with the conversion.


Summary: By opening with a party where Edward R. Murrow and his old staff are gussied up and drinking and giggling and taking pictures with their arms around one another, the viewer figures out right away that this is more than Murrow vs. McCarthy. My favorite scene starts with George Clooney as the producer Fred Friendly and David Strathairn as Murrow a couple of minutes before Murrow goes on the air with a potentially controversial report about a Red Scare flare-up in Michigan. When Friendly counts down the seconds left until Murrow goes live, Friendly sits just off-camera and taps Murrow's leg with his pen when it's time.


Summary: At this point, five years after oil and gas lobbyists started scoring Interior Department appointments overseeing national parks and the Bureau of Land Management, I'm heartened that I can still scrape up a glimmer of dismay.


Summary: Before Lawrence Summers announced his resignation as president of Harvard on Tuesday, the last upheaval of equal magnitude at the university was 140 years ago. That older drama was perhaps the most consequential episode in the history of American higher education; one that not only created the institution where a Larry Summers could flourish as a graduate student and professor, but oddly also laid the seeds of his presidential breakdown. When Larry Summers, through a series of perceived missteps and affronts, lost the support of the most vocal part of the faculty, the Harvard Corporation could not really have saved him even if it wanted to, because it was no longer clear who was in charge.


Summary: Lawrence Summers announced his resignation as president of Harvard, the last upheaval of equal magnitude at the university was 140 years ago. From 1846 to 1868, Harvard had five consecutive presidents whose short-lived and frustrating tenures evoke Mr. Summers's five-year stint. When Larry Summers, through a series of perceived missteps and affronts, lost the support of the most vocal part of the faculty, the Harvard Corporation could not really have saved him even if it wanted to, because it was no longer clear who was in charge.


Summary: The biggest result, four years later, was the selection of the next president, the chemist Charles William Eliot, who ushered in large-scale reforms that marked the renaissance in liberal arts education, not just at Harvard but also across the country. Eliot, only 35 at the time of his inauguration, published a two-part series on ''The New Education'' in The Atlantic Monthly, setting forth a national agenda for educational reform. Eliot remained president for 40 years, the longest term in the university's history, and brought Harvard into the first years of the 20th century.


Summary: Until the 1860s, Harvard presidents were anointed by and answered to the university's Board of Overseers, a powerful group of political and religious establishment figures that included the governor of Massachusetts, along with other dignitaries appointed by the Legislature. The 1865 law shaking up the Board of Overseers allowed the university to adjust more nimbly to events outside its gates.


Summary: Bruce Wasserstein, the enigmatic investment banker who runs Lazard, presented a plan to break up Time Warner, he crossed a line between adviser and co-conspirator. He proclaimed to a crowded ballroom that the plan to break the company into four pieces was his own. Mr. Wasserstein's decision to play such a prominent role in Mr. Icahn's failed fight may have exposed him as Wall Street's Emperor With No Clout. While several executives said they were generally satisfied with the work of Lazard, Mr. Wasserstein's spectacular failure has companies looking at him a little differently. Mr. Wasserstein and Lazard could have had some plausible deniability when the campaign failed to generate any enthusiasm. Mr. Wasserstein was supposed to come in, with his reputation as a master strategist someone who is two steps ahead even when he looks as if he is about to lose.


Summary: Bruce Wasserstein, the enigmatic investment banker who runs Lazard, presented a plan to break up Time Warner, he crossed a line between adviser and co-conspirator. He proclaimed to a crowded ballroom that the plan to break the company into four pieces was his own. Mr. Wasserstein's decision to play such a prominent role in Mr. Icahn's failed fight may have exposed him as Wall Street's Emperor With No Clout. Mr. Wasserstein and Lazard could have had some plausible deniability when the campaign failed to generate any enthusiasm. Mr. Wasserstein was supposed to come in, with his reputation as a master strategist someone who is two steps ahead even when he looks as if he is about to lose. While several executives said they were generally satisfied with the work of Lazard, Mr. Wasserstein's spectacular failure has companies looking at him a little differently.


Summary: Rather than making a case on behalf of his client, Carl C. Icahn, the activist investor leading the fight against Time Warner, Mr. Wasserstein assumed the role of activist investor himself, for reasons that remain inexplicable. He proclaimed to a crowded ballroom at the St. Regis Hotel in Manhattan that the plan to break the company into four pieces was his own. Wall Street's denizens might have snickered at Mr. Icahn, but Mr. Wasserstein and Lazard could have had some plausible deniability when the campaign failed to generate any enthusiasm.


Summary: When Bruce Wasserstein, the enigmatic investment banker who runs Lazard, presented a plan to break up Time Warner almost three weeks ago, he crossed a line between adviser and co-conspirator. Carl C. Icahn, the activist investor leading the fight against Time Warner, Mr. Wasserstein assumed the role of activist investor himself, for reasons that remain inexplicable. Ten days after Mr. Wasserstein declared that there was no compelling reason today for those businesses to remain together, and Mr. Icahn capitulated, settling his fight against Time Warner in exchange for some minor face-saving concessions.


Summary: Bruce Wasserstein, the enigmatic investment banker who runs Lazard, when presented with a plan to break up Time Warner, crossed a line between adviser and co-conspirator. He proclaimed to a crowded ballroom that the plan to break the company into four pieces was his own. Mr. Wasserstein's decision to play such a prominent role in Mr. Icahn's failed fight may have exposed him as Wall Street's Emperor With No Clout. While several executives said they were generally satisfied with the work of Lazard, Mr. Wasserstein's spectacular failure has companies looking at him a little differently. Mr. Wasserstein and Lazard could have had some plausible deniability when the campaign failed to generate any enthusiasm. Mr. Wasserstein was supposed to come in, with his reputation as a master strategist someone who is two steps ahead even when he looks as if he is about to lose.


Summary: Instead, the fundamental premise of the 343-page polemic that was called the Lazard Report, not the Icahn Report was widely panned by Wall Street, landing in the equivalent of the remainder bin before it had a chance to reach store shelves.


Summary: An unscientific survey of some of Lazard's top clients found that many privately expressed concerns about Mr. Wasserstein's foray into corporate activism. While several executives said they were generally satisfied with the work of Lazard. The fundamental premise of the 343-page polemic that was called the Lazard Report, not the Icahn Report, was widely panned by Wall Street, landing in the equivalent of the remainder bin before it had a chance to reach store shelves.


Summary: I think of Ms. Bratt, my third-year Latin teacher in high school, who had us all dress in togas and read Cicero's Catilinarian orations.


Summary: No one went up there in the 1950's, when on Sundays Diane (later Afiya) Dawson walked with her mother to the church, an old stone building on Henry Street on the Lower East Side.


Summary: Mr. Owens also represents the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, whose chairman, Julian Bond, gave a speech in July 2004 sharply critical of Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. The N.A.A.C.P. declined to cooperate in the following investigation, and Mr. Owens said it had not heard from the I.R.S. since early last year.


Summary: The agency began an investigation after a former pastor gave a sermon in which he imagined a debate among Jesus, President Bush and Senator John Kerry and in which he criticized the Iraq conflict.


Summary: The internal revenue commissioner, Mark W. Everson, devoted much of a speech to a civic group in Cleveland to the subject. He said that they have seen a staggering increase in money flowing into campaigns, and the question is whether all this money is encroaching upon and polluting the charitable sector. Mr. Everson warned that the agency would be more aggressive in addressing prohibited political activity as election campaigns moved into full swing.


Summary: The I.R.S. said yesterday that it saw a sharp increase in prohibited political activity by charities and churches in the last election cycle, a trend that it aims to reverse as the country heads into the midterm elections. The tax agency found problems at three-quarters of the 82 organizations it examined after having received complaints about their political activities, according to a report the Internal Revenue Service released. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which has filed dozens of complaints about churches' political activities, said that it is no longer possible for critics to say the I.R.S. is blind or toothless, because this announcement is a pretty major indication that they are serious about educating charities and about imposing appropriate penalties.


Republican Party
North Carolina Republican Party

Summary: Churches played a pivotal role in the 2004 elections, and the Republican Party, in particular, harnessed their influence to register, educate and deliver voters. Rick Warren, who draws more than 20,000 people a week to his Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., and the North Carolina Republican Party made waves when its leader sent an e-mail request for church directories.


Summary: The complaints by the group include one on July 15, 2004, against Jerry Falwell Ministries, saying falwell.com had endorsed President Bush and urged readers to donate $5,000 to the Campaign for Working Families.


National Association for the Advancement of Colored People


Summary: Liz Towne, director of advocacy programs for the Alliance for Justice, which has urged the tax agency to provide better guidance, said that the Advocates for nonprofit groups are getting information out early this year, before they get into the heat of an election year.


Summary: Marcus Owens also represents the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, whose chairman, Julian Bond, gave a speech in July 2004 sharply critical of Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.


Summary: Arriba Soft said the use of thumbnail images in an Internet search engine did not violate the copyright of the producer of the original work. The California court's willingness to rule against the Arriba Soft precedent under a different set of facts was encouraging to the publishers' group, as was the judge's statement that the public benefit of Google's search engine does not necessarily outweigh the rights of copyright holders. Neither the Perfect 10 case nor the Arriba Soft case are direct precedents for the Book Search lawsuits, which were filed in Federal District Court in New York.


Summary: Mr. Adler said that even if the publishers do not assert that there is currently a market for the few lines of text displayed by Google Book Search, the fact that a market exists for the digital copies created by Google could work in the publishers' favor.


Homeland Security Department
Homeland Security

Summary: We tried that experiment in the wake of Sept. 11, cramming a host of agencies into one oversize Homeland Security Department. The challenge is to make the Homeland Security Department work, not to siphon away its powers and give them to other agencies. Recommending new structural changes is politically expedient because it diverts attention away from the real problem and the failures of Homeland Security under Secretary Michael Chertoff and the Federal Emergency Management Agency under Michael Brown.


Summary: The report by Frances Fragos Townsend, President Bush's domestic security adviser, lacks the bite of the select House committee's report of a week earlier, which was unsparing in its criticism of local, state and federal officials. If Mr. Bush wants to adopt Ms. Townsend's suggestion to set up a disaster response group inside the White House, that's fine but it won't solve their problems unless the president staffs it with strong, independent advisers.


Summary: H & R Block shares fell $2.18, to $23.01, after it reported disappointing quarterly earnings and a slow start to this year's tax filing season. It said it would restate its profits for the years ended April 2004 and 2005 and would have to restate profit reports for previous quarters. The problem Block has does not indicate it made errors in its own tax returns to state or federal authorities. Block said it had prepared tax returns for 4.1 percent fewer clients than in the same period of last year, although revenues were up because it raised the average fee per client 6.1 percent, to $152.66. Block said its ongoing work to remediate control weaknesses in its corporate tax function led to the restatements, which is estimated will cut 2004 profit by 7 cents a share and 2005 earnings by 2 cents.


Summary: That in a nutshell, is the marketing problem that H & R Block now faces. Its shares fell $2.18, to $23.01. Jack Ciesielski of Analysts Accounting Observer, said that from the looks of it, H & R Block had crossed over into the Bizarro universe, where up was down, back was forward, and black was white. Instead, it deals with the sometimes complicated process of estimating the taxes that will be owed on the profits reported in any year.


Summary: The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission are still investigating former executives, and the company's regulator may ask them to return bonuses.


Summary: Plaintiffs will receive 25 percent of any future judgments the company receives from Richard M. Scrushy, its former chief executive; Ernst & Young, its former auditor; and UBS, its former investment bank. A jury acquitted Mr. Scrushy of all criminal charges that he participated in the fraud. He still faces numerous civil lawsuits.


Summary: Fannie Mae and HealthSouth took their licks, while Wal-Mart Stores tried to get out ahead of its detractors on health care. HealthSouth, without admitting wrongdoing, agreed to pay $445 million to settle investor lawsuits filed after federal investigators uncovered accounting fraud.


Summary: Fannie Mae and HealthSouth took their licks, while Wal-Mart Stores tried to get out ahead of its detractors on health care. A report, commissioned by the directors of Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant, found that senior executives manipulated its accounting in the 1990's to meet earnings projections and ensure multimillion-dollar bonuses. The report is expected to renew calls for strengthening oversight of Fannie Mae and to limit its size.


Summary: In New York, light crude for April delivery surged $2.37 yesterday on the news, settling at $62.91 a barrel after the Saudi Oil Ministry said production and exports were unaffected.


Summary: Dubai Ports World said it expected to complete its $6.85 billion purchase of the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company of Britain next week but agreed not to exercise control over terminal operations at six American ports yet.


Summary: Fannie Mae and HealthSouth took their licks, while Wal-Mart Stores tried to get out ahead of its detractors on health care. H. Lee Scott Jr., the chief executive of Wal-Mart Stores, will formally announce changes to the company's health benefits program to the nation's governors in Washington, some of whom have criticized the health care coverage the retailer provides, saying it leaves the states to shoulder many medical costs. Wal-Mart previewed new benefit rules that are aimed at loosening eligibility requirements and reducing the waiting period for new part-time employees to participate.


Summary: With its $6.8 billion purchase of the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company, Dubai Ports World, which is owned by the emirate of Dubai, would acquire terminals not just in the United States, but in 18 other countries, among them Britain, Belgium, France, India and China. The deal, which is scheduled to close on Thursday, gives Dubai Ports an entry to the United States, but in other countries it will vastly increase the company's reach. Dubai Ports will also be acquiring port operations in Vancouver, Canada, as part of the purchase of P.& O., but there has been no outcry in Canada.


Summary: On Friday, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow indicated in a conversation with reporters that the hiatus would be used to better explain the deal, rather than review it.


Summary: President Bush has said he will veto any attempt to block it.


Summary: Nick Savvides, the editor of CI Online, a research company for the shipping container industry with headquarters in London.


Summary: With its $6.8 billion purchase of the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company, Dubai Ports World, which is owned by the emirate of Dubai, would acquire terminals not just in the United States, but in 18 other countries, among them Britain, Belgium, France, India and China.


Summary: Gary Sutton, who has served as director of a number of public and private companies, agrees that getting another point of view is valuable, but adds that after an extended period of service, outside directors in essence become insiders. Mr. Sutton says, outside directors can lose their critical eye, or conversely think they know so much about the company that they begin to interfere in decisions that are best left to the executives who serve full time. Mr. Sutton further added that after six years, he felt like an insider, regardless of legal definitions, and it was healthier if somebody with a fresh set of eyeballs and apprehensions steps up.


Summary: One complication of the dispute is that another port operator, A. P. Moller-Maersk, is caught in the crossfire. Maersk, a Danish company, planned to maintain its half-interest in the terminal but could soon be without a lease to operate at the port. The Port Authority's message to Maersk, Mr. Coscia said that they were sorry he was in the middle of this, but he was in the middle of that. A spokeswoman for Maersk in New Jersey declined to comment.


Summary: Anthony R. Coscia, the chairman, said the company that holds a lease on the terminal through 2030 violated the contract by selling a half-interest in it to Dubai Ports World without seeking the landlord's approval. He said the Port Authority would ask a judge in New Jersey Superior Court in Newark today to affirm its right to end the lease. This should have been reviewed at the highest levels. The suits were the first by public agencies in the growing controversy over the sale to Dubai, though Mr. Coscia said other port officials were considering taking similar action.


Summary: He said the Port Authority would ask a judge in New Jersey Superior Court in Newark today to affirm its right to end the lease. Separately, the State of New Jersey sued the federal government in United States District Court in Trenton yesterday afternoon to block the Dubai deal.


Summary: One complication of the dispute is that another port operator, A. P. Moller-Maersk, is caught in the crossfire. Maersk, a Danish company, planned to maintain its half-interest in the terminal but could soon be without a lease to operate at the port. The Port Authority's message to Maersk, Mr. Coscia said that they were sorry he was in the middle of this.


Port Authority of New York
Port Authority


Summary: Anthony R. Coscia, the chairman, said the company that holds a lease on the terminal through 2030 violated the contract by selling a half-interest in it to Dubai Ports World without seeking the landlord's approval. Last night, Dubai Ports World said it would not exercise control over its new operations in the United States while the White House tried to calm opposition in Congress. The suit asks the court to order the committee to conduct a full investigation of the Dubai Ports World and to share information they gather with New Jersey's Office of Counterterrorism. But the Port Authority's only power to slow or block Dubai Ports World from arriving as a tenant rests in the lease.


Summary: New Jersey's suit argues that the federal Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which approved the deal last month, has not provided Gov. Jon S. Corzine with the information he needs to protect the state's residents. As attorney general, he said at a ceremony to swear in Zulima V. Farber, that their federal suit is really about information but he went on to criticize the decision to approve the deal quickly saying that this was very poorly executed foreign policy.


Summary: As defendants, the suit names the heads of the federal agencies that make up the committee, including John W. Snow, the treasury secretary, Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, and Donald H. Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense.


Summary: The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will break the lease of a big container terminal at Port Newark to stop a company based in Dubai from taking over part of the operation there, the agency's chairman said yesterday. One of the subsidiaries it would acquire, P & O Ports North America, owns half of the company that operates the Port Newark Container Terminal.


Summary: The lawsuit said Bush administration officials failed to fulfill their duty to fully investigate the national security implications of the transaction.


Summary: In March 2003, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, inspectors from Customs merged with inspectors from the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Department of Agriculture's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service to form a unified border agency. It was called Customs and Border Protection, a part of the Department of Homeland Security.


Summary: Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, said that preventing dangerous agents at ports of entry was impossible with the current technology. But he suggested that it was critical that various arms of the federal government charged with watching the borders work together. He cited three critical areas: early detection, enhanced laboratory capacity to do the necessary testing and vigilant clinicians who are trained to make a diagnosis. He said that despite billions of dollars in expenditures, he doesn't think the nation has made significant progress in those areas.


Summary: Vado Diomande left New York for West Africa in early December. He went through Abidjan, the commercial capital of Ivory Coast, and to his hometown, a dusty speck of a village so small that it is not identified on many maps. There, in Tousingha, or on the road to it, Mr. Diomande, 44, bought five goatskins that authorities say he sent on a plane to a warehouse in Brooklyn, where he cleaned them and turned them into the drums that made the music he spent much of his life celebrating. The first time that Mr. Diomande, who lives in Greenwich Village, was obligated to inform authorities about his purchases was when he packed the shipments of goatskins to send them out of Ivory Coast as cargo.


Summary: United States Customs and Border Protection officials in New York and Washington say that if Mr. Diomande had followed regulations precisely, an entry form filed with a Customs broker would have spelled out what was being imported. In March 2003, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, inspectors from Customs merged with inspectors from the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Department of Agriculture's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service to form a unified border agency. It was called Customs and Border Protection, a part of the Department of Homeland Security.


Summary: The American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, has reached out to Sunnis, pushing to include them in the government and pressing Shiite leaders hard to keep politicians with ties to Shiite militias out of sensitive security posts. Mr. Khalilzad said Monday that the United States would not invest the resources of the American people in Iraqi security forces if they were run by people who are sectarian. The comment provoked unusually direct criticism from Shiite leaders, some of whom suggested that maligning the Iraqi security leadership led to the attack on the mosque in Samarra on Wednesday. In Baghdad and among some experts, there were questions about how much Mr. Khalilzad's influence could help broker a political solution given the anger between Shiites and Sunnis, and the Shiite anger at Mr. Khalilzad himself.


Summary: Reuel Marc Gerecht, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who supports the American efforts in Iraq said the situation was very, very, very bad.


Summary: The drug's developer, GTC Biotherapeutics, said it would appeal the decision, adding that the ruling was based mainly on a problem with its clinical trial, not on the fact that the drug was made in goats. GTC and a few other companies put human genes into animals so they produce a human protein in their milk. Other protein drugs, like the one GTC, is developing, are extracted from donated blood, but are found in such minute quantities that they are often in short supply. GTC said it would take 90,000 blood donations to obtain as much of the protein as one of its goats can produce in a year.


Summary: The initial ads carry headlines like "Someone smooth is waiting at the bar," "Meet someone smooth tonight" and "Succumb to smooth." Ewen Cameron, chief executive and executive creative director at Berlin Cameron United in New York, part of the United division of the WPP Group, which was awarded the Heineken Premium Light account in December, said that the goal is to entice the light beer drinker with the notion of something a little better, a little more exciting. Mr. Cameron added that it's a relationship metaphor and that they have talked to light beer drinkers in their late 20's who said there's nothing wrong with light beer, but there's a kind of settling for it.


Summary: Anheuser-Busch introduced a higher-priced light beer, Michelob Ultra Amber, with a campaign that started during Super Bowl XL and is continuing during the Winter Olympics. Anheuser-Busch signed a deal to become the United States importer of brands sold by another Dutch brewer, Royal Grolsch, which is bringing out Grolsch Light Lager in five states. Mr. Bellas noted that the first light beer sold by Anheuser-Busch was called Natural Light; Bud Light did not follow for years.


Summary: Heineken Premium Light will be the second light beer sold in this country by Heineken, joining Amstel Light, introduced in the 1980's. The company will also put up a separate site, heinekenlight.com, on Wednesday to complement sites for its two other brands, amstellight.com and heineken.com. Benj Steinman, editor of Beer Marketer's Insights, an industry newsletter in Nanuet, N.Y. Heineken is the No. 2 import over all, behind Corona Extra, said that Amstel Light, which appeals to a somewhat older, female audience than Heineken Premium Light is meant to attract, is neck-and-neck with Corona Light as the best-selling imported light beer.


Heineken Premium Light
Heineken USA
Heineken

Summary: Heineken Premium Light will be the second light beer sold in this country by Heineken, joining Amstel Light, introduced in the 1980s. The online campaign for Heineken Premium Light is the leading edge of a multimedia effort with a budget estimated at $50 million. Heineken Premium Light is meant to attract, is neck-and-neck with Corona Light as the best-selling imported light beer. Heineken is the No. 2 import overall, behind Corona Extra. Mr. Steinman said, that Heineken Premium Light may lure drinkers from Amstel Light rather than competitive brands. The most rapid growth in the beer market is in the high end, but light beer is very underrepresented in the high end, Mr. Steinman said. The online campaign for Heineken Premium Light is being created by Modem Media.


Villaraigosa
Mayor Villaraigosa
Antonio R. Villaraigosa

Summary: Last week, the mayor, Antonio R. Villaraigosa, a Democrat who took office last July and is also chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a regional transit agency, flew in a traffic helicopter over the glittering predawn snarl to press his main point. In an interview, Mr. Villaraigosa, who campaigned on a promise to end gridlock, said he would soon roll out an aggressive plan to tow parked cars blocking major arteries. He also said engineers were studying the possibility of more bus express lanes on some of the city's widest streets.


Summary: ''Everyone has to get out of their cars every once in a while,'' he said, sitting in the clattering copter during a KABC-TV traffic report.


Summary: Coming back from vacation, Laurence D. Fink was hit with the news that his division had lost $100 million on a series of risky bets on the volatile mortgage market. Mr. Fink, now chief executive of BlackRock, the rapidly growing asset management company, said that what he learned is that one has to understand ones risk in good times and bad times and that the pain of losing money is far greater than the glory of making money. Twenty years later, almost to the date, Mr. Fink has ascended to a career and personal mountaintop: last week, he clinched an industry-rattling $9.8 billion merger with Merrill Lynch's asset management unit. With BlackRock's stock soaring, he is worth more than $230 million, and, it seemed, just about everyone on Wall Street wanted to take him out to lunch.


Summary: Mr. Fink, chief executive of BlackRock, the rapidly growing asset management company. Mr. Fink has ascended to a career and personal mountaintop he clinched an industry-rattling $9.8 billion merger with Merrill Lynch's asset management unit. While not necessarily an unheard-of notion, it was enough to attract the attention of two of Wall Street's most aggressive chief executives, John J. Mack of Morgan Stanley and E. Stanley O'Neal of Merrill Lynch, both of whom were looking for a fund company with assets that could draw in their institutional and retail clients. Mr. Fink chose Mr. O'Neal and Merrill Lynch. At Merrill, the firm's portfolio managers occupy a warren of small offices in the firm's labyrinthine Plainsboro, N.J., campus, many miles away, literally and philosophically, from the BlackRock mother ship.


Summary: With BlackRock's stock soaring, Mr. Fink is worth more than $230 million, and, it seems, just about everyone on Wall Street wants to take him out to lunch. The lessons he has learned from it have informed a core aspect of what he calls the BlackRock way, which is that a portfolio of assets scrubbed well enough for risk can appeal to both sophisticated institutions aching for flashy returns as well as more risk-averse retail investors. In the end, it was the high price of BlackRock's stock that dissuaded Morgan Stanley from doing the deal. At BlackRock, Mr. Fink's portfolio managers sit and brainstorm in an open arena just outside his glassed-in office.


Summary: Barbara Hunt McLanahan, director of the 10-year-old foundation, formed after the 1994 death of Mr. Judd to preserve his living and working spaces in New York and Marfa, Tex. said that between New York and Marfa, we have 16 permanently installed buildings. She said the sale was very much in keeping with Mr. Judd's belief in permanent installations; he considered the environment in which art is placed as important as the art itself. She said it chose Christie's because it came forward with the best proposal and organization. Americans in Paris, Terra Foundation for American Art and the Louvre in Paris will collaborate on "American Artists and the Louvre," a show of 30 works from the Terra and other American institutions that will be on view, which will be one of the few times that American art will be on view at the Louvre in its 212-year history.


Summary: Donald Judd Sculptures To Be Auctioned In an effort to create a $20 million endowment for the support of its permanent installations in New York and Texas, the Donald Judd Foundation has decided to sell about 35 Judd sculptures at Christie's in New York on May 9. In his will, Mr. Judd stated, that such works of art which he owns at the time of his death as are installed at 101 Spring Street in New York City, or in Marfa, Tex., will be preserved where they are installed. His home and studio on Spring Street, which he bought in 1968, was a laboratory for his ideas and includes works by Mr. Judd, Dan Flavin, Frank Stella, John Chamberlain, Carl Andre and Claes Oldenburg.


Summary: Five months after the Ethan Allen tour boat capsized under a clear sky in Lake George, N.Y., killing 20 of the 48 people onboard, the operator of the boat said yesterday that he could not pay out claims to survivors and the families of those who died because his insurance company contended that his policy covered accidents occurring on land, not water. Mr. Quirk, whose family owns Shoreline Cruises, the operator of the Ethan Allen and several other tour boats, said that they have the original insurance quotes, the proposal, which is clearly for marine liability.


Summary: Jim Quirk, the owner, said his insurance company, Global Property Owners Association, had led him to believe that his $2 million policy included marine liability insurance. He said that the policy proposal the company sent him more than a year ago covered accidents on water, and that he made several payments on the policy. But Mr. Quirk said that when he finally took a close look at the policy last month, he saw that it did not cover marine liability. As a result, Mr. Quirk said, Global Property has declined to pay the families of victims who have demanded reimbursement for funeral costs, and the survivors who are seeking payment for hospital bills.


Summary: Charles H. Wegman, an insurance agent for Global Property who Mr. Quirk said had sold him the policy, declined to comment, and referred questions to his company representative. The Detroit Free Press, which first reported the dispute on Wednesday, quoted Mr. Wegman as saying that his company had excluded marine liability insurance from its policy for Shoreline Cruises because Mr. Quirk declined it. Jim Quirk said he made at least two payments to the company amounting to roughly $15,000, and that after the accident Mr. Wegman repeatedly told him that he would handle any claims.


Summary: Ronald Zdrojewski, whose wife's parents, William and Caryl Gilson, died in the accident, said that they felt like their backs were  against the wall and they couldn't even defend themselves. At this point, the way he saw it, the probability of getting any kind of financial compensation was nil. Mr. Zdrojewski, who lives in Livonia, Mich., said his family had spent more than $13,800 on a funeral for the Gilsons and nearly $1,000 to have their bodies returned to Michigan.


Summary: Arthur H. Rosenberg, Ms. Salichs's lawyer said that the New York City Police Department failed to provide adequate and proper warnings and reasonable time and opportunity for Eric to lower his gun. Mr. Rosenberg said that Officer Hernandez provided financial support for his mother, who was never married to his father. He added that they had asked Officer Hernandez's father, Efrain Hernandez, to join in the suit, but had not heard from him.


Summary: Officer Hernandez was shot three times by another Bronx officer, Alfredo Toro, and died of his injuries 11 days later. The claim says that Mr. Toro failed to adequately identify himself as an officer before opening fire, though witnesses reported hearing Officer Toro and his partner identify themselves as officers and order Officer Hernandez to drop his gun.


New York City Police Department
Police Department

Summary: The mother of the off-duty police officer fatally shot by another officer outside a Bronx fast food restaurant filed a legal claim against New York City and the Police Department, the lawyer for the mother said. Ms. Arthur H. Rosenberg said that the New York City Police Department failed to provide adequate and proper warnings and reasonable time and opportunity for Eric to lower his gun.


Summary: The legal maneuvering will delay the execution of the condemned man, Michael A. Morales, 46, for months if not longer and will be closely watched. Death penalty opponents cheered California's decision to delay the Morales execution, a step the state took after concluding that it was unable to comply with the order of a federal district judge in San Jose that customary injection procedures be altered. Although Mr. Morales's lawyers and death penalty opponents hope the case may ultimately produce a binding ruling that lethal injection is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual, the issue before Judge Fogel was narrower.


Summary: The complaint against Jeffrey Thorp and three hedge funds he ran such as Langley Partners, North Olmstead Partners and Quantico Partners, says that in 22 deals, PIPE shares were improperly used to cover short positions, often with elaborate ruses aimed at making the tactic hard to discover. Mr. Thorp was accused of illegal insider trading by shorting the stocks before the PIPE deal was disclosed to the public. Mr. Thorp, 42, of New York and the funds settled the case without admitting or denying the S.E.C. allegations. Mr. Thorp also agreed to talk to the S.E.C..