Summary: Gerald Geller made his way down to Foley Square, entered one of the buildings where the business is justice, and introduced himself to federal marshals and if they checked their records, they would find that he was wanted for a bank robbery in 1971. Mr. Geller has advanced heart disease, and the need for medical attention beyond an emergency-room visit clearly figured in his decision to surrender.


Summary: Last week, one of the residents, a man who called himself George Cook, made a momentous decision. He was 69 years old, living in a box with a failing and heavy heart. He has advanced heart disease, and the need for medical attention beyond an emergency-room visit clearly figured in his decision to surrender.


Summary: IT is close to half a century since Horst Fascher was the flyweight boxing champion of Germany, a gold medal prospect in the 1960 Rome Olympics and a young man who knew his way around this wealthy, rough-and-ready port city. Then one night he got into a street fight with a sailor. The sailor shoved him, and when Mr. Fascher hit back, the sailor went down, hit his head, and a few hours later was dead. Mr. Fascher spent six months in jail, and was banned from boxing forever.


Summary: As manager of the brand new Star Club, Horst Fascher brought the Beatles to Hamburg in 1962, when the group was on the cusp of global fame. He said that he knew if he could get the Beatles for opening night, he'd have no trouble selling out the club. At first, the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein didn't agree to this deal but Mr. Fascher went out with the Beatles themselves and they had a very good time, because the next day Mr. Fascher walked away with a contract for them to perform at the Star Club.


Summary: Horst Fascher said that Except for Elvis, they had everybody: Ray Charles, Little Richard, the Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley, Brenda Lee, Chubby Checker, Fats Domino. Mr. Fascher has now published a memoir in German, titled "Let the Good Times Roll" in English, full of anecdotes about his adventures and misadventures with some of the legends of the music business. He also said that he started listening to Elvis in 1956 or '57.


Summary: Explaining the European decision, officials in Brussels said the European Union had stopped all direct aid to the Palestinian government and payment of public employees' salaries with European Union funds through the World Bank. Europe's direct payments, which totaled more than $200 million from 2000 to 2002, led to the establishment of a World Bank-monitored trust fund, which is now used by most international donors to disburse money to the fledgling Palestinian government in return for its willingness to meet certain standards of improved fiscal governance.


Summary: Emma Udwin, the spokeswoman for the European Union's executive branch, said that they were not authorizing any payments that went to the Palestinian Authority or through the Palestinian Authority. It has been warning since Hamas won Palestinian elections earlier this year that the Palestinian Authority would lose that aid unless the Hamas-led government renounced violence, recognized Israel and accept past peace agreements. Europe's direct payments, which totaled more than $200 million from 2000 to 2002, led to the establishment of a World Bank-monitored trust fund, which is now used by most international donors to disburse money to the fledgling Palestinian government in return for its willingness to meet certain standards of improved fiscal governance.


Summary: A senior House Republican engaged on immigration issues, Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, also suggested that Congress might want to slow down. He said that his sense is they would do better waiting until after the election.


Summary: Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, who supports the compromise, said the issue was so complex that it would take awhile for the nation and for lawmakers to come to terms with it. Regarding the immigration issue, Mr. Hagel said that it encompasses societal, economic, security issues that are all woven into one fabric.


Summary: Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and one of those who helped broker the bipartisan plan said that he thinks politics got in front of policy on this issue. Mr. McCain and Mr. Kennedy said they had the votes to defeat those proposals and protect the underlying bill.


Summary: The Senate's effort to pass immigration legislation collapsed on Friday, and lawmakers went home for a two-week recess to face voters who are as deeply and passionately divided on the issue as Congress has proven to be.


Summary: But Republicans accused Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, of erecting procedural obstacles to deny Senate Republicans a victory on the politically charged subject in an election year. Mr. Reid and his allies said they objected to the amendments because they saw them as an effort to derail the compromise with a back-door filibuster. Mr. Reid said the major problem, however, was that Mr. Frist had shaken hands on the bipartisan compromise and then was unable to quiet Republican critics who were trying to gum up the works.


Summary: Frank Sharry, the executive director of the National Immigration Forum, an advocacy group, said that he's a little worried that the political momentum that we witnessed this week may dissipate somewhat.


Summary: According to an associate of Mr. Weinstein, a co-founder of Miramax Films, Miramax approached Mr. Johnson to talk about making an American version of ''Jet Set,'' a French movie about socialites, though no deal was ever made.


Summary: Jared Paul Stern has been in New York newspapers for 12 years, most of them working for Richard Johnson, the editor of the Page Six gossip column at The New York Post. It is a well-known element of the glossy magazine business and was even a kind of expectation for a society columnist in the days of 'Sweet Smell of Success'. As the story again dominated the front page of the Post's chief rival, The Daily News, Mr. Stern got a new lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, who replaced Edward Hayes.


Summary: The reversal of fortune for Matt Santos, the Democratic nominee, played by Jimmy Smits, who was the victor, had nothing to do with any shift in opinion among voters. Instead, Lawrence O'Donnell, an executive producer of the show, said he and his fellow writers had declared Santos the winner only after the death, in mid-December, of John Spencer, who portrayed Santos's running mate, Leo McGarry. As it became tougher to learn much of any substance from programs like "Crossfire" on CNN, now defunct, "The West Wing" seemed to delve deeper into real issues like health care and education, as exemplified by the raw, one-hour live debate last fall between Matt Santos and Arnold Vinick.


Summary: Instead, Lawrence O'Donnell, an executive producer of the show, said he and his fellow writers had declared Santos the winner only after the death, in mid-December, of John Spencer, who portrayed Santos's running mate, Leo McGarry. But after Mr. Spencer died, Mr. O'Donnell said in a recent interview, he and his colleagues began to confront a creative dilemma: would viewers be saddened to see Mr. Smits's character lose both his running mate and the election? In deciding to put flesh on a Republican like Mr. Alda's Arnold Vinick and committing, at least initially, to having him win, Mr. O'Donnell said he and the other writers had delighted in playing against type.


Summary: The election was to be won by Alan Alda's Arnold Vinick, a maverick Republican (modeled a bit on Senator John McCain), whom many Democrats (including the Democrats who write the show) could learn to love. In deciding to put flesh on a Republican like Mr. Alda's Arnold Vinick and committing, at least initially, to having him win, Mr. O'Donnell said he and the other writers had delighted in playing against type.


Summary: You can say something complex on 'The West Wing' and you will not suffer a screaming interruption by three other panelists. It may not come as any surprise to viewers, given that President Bartlet was a Democrat, but there were no registered Republicans in the most recent incarnation of the ''West Wing'' writers' room, which included Eli Attie, a former speechwriter for Al Gore.


Summary: Mr. O'Donnell, who is also a political analyst on MSNBC, said that political talk on TV has degenerated so much.


Summary: But the reversal of fortune for Matt Santos -- the Democratic nominee, played by Jimmy Smits, who was the victor -- had nothing to do with any shift in opinion among voters. He said that he was approached by Democratic Party representatives from his native state, Ohio, to see if he would be interested in running for the United States Senate after he left the show.


Summary: Lawrence O'Donnell, an executive producer of the show, said he and his fellow writers had declared Santos the winner only after the death, in mid-December, of John Spencer, who portrayed Santos's running mate, Leo McGarry. But after Mr. Spencer died, Mr. O'Donnell said in a recent interview, he and his colleagues began to confront a creative dilemma: would viewers be saddened to see Mr. Smits's character lose both his running mate and the election? Mr. O'Donnell, a onetime adviser to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, said he was especially proud of the show's response to the increasingly shrill political debate in the real world, particularly on cable news.


Summary: Lawrence O'Donnell, a onetime adviser to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, said he was especially proud of the show's response to the increasingly shrill political debate in the real world, particularly on cable news.


Summary: The Democratic nominee, played by Jimmy Smits, who was the victor -- had nothing to do with any shift in opinion among voters. Instead, Lawrence O'Donnell, an executive producer of the show, said he and his fellow writers had declared Santos the winner only after the death, in mid-December, of John Spencer, who portrayed Santos's running mate, Leo McGarry. Other than a coming episode that will linger at the funeral for Mr. Spencer's character -- and include, as mourners, a parade of former cast members, including Rob Lowe -- the show's final episodes will be devoted to the transition from the Bartlet administration to that of President-elect Santos.


Summary: The Democratic nominee, played by Jimmy Smits, who was the victor -- had nothing to do with any shift in opinion among voters. Instead, Lawrence O'Donnell, an executive producer of the show, said he and his fellow writers had declared Santos the winner only after the death, in mid-December, of John Spencer, who portrayed Santos's running mate, Leo McGarry. But after Mr. Spencer died, Mr. O'Donnell said in a recent interview, he and his colleagues began to confront a creative dilemma: would viewers be saddened to see Mr. Smits's character lose both his running mate and the election?


Summary: Though the show began at the end of the Clinton administration, it soon found its creative niche by evoking a parallel reality, one that imagined how the White House might have been different if George W. Bush had not been elected to two terms. President Bartlet escaped making some of the hard decisions that President Bush faced in real life.


Summary: Four executives at the day-trading firm of A.B. Watley were arraigned in the United States District Court in Brooklyn yesterday on conspiracy and securities fraud charges stemming from a scheme to reap profits after eavesdropping on confidential conversations between stockbrokers and their clients.


Summary: The men who were arraigned on conspiracy and securities fraud charges stemming from a scheme to reap profits were Robert F. Malin, Linus N. Nwaigwe, Michael A. Picone and Keevin H. Leonard, former supervisor of proprietary trading for Watley. Michael S. Asaro, an assistant United States attorney, told the judge that the government wished to make different arrangements for Mr. Leonard, who is living in a boarding house without a telephone. The prosecutor said he was troubled that Mr. Leonard was said to have left a voice mail message for a potential witness a few months ago in which he uttered that he was going to bury him. Mr. Asaro also contended that during a pretrial proceeding, Mr. Leonard had falsely denied using cocaine. Magistrate Judge Marilyn Dolan Go ruled that Mr. Leonard would be held under house arrest until a financially responsible person could offer security for $100,000 bail.


Summary: The men who were arraigned on conspiracy and securities fraud charges stemming from a scheme to reap profits were Robert F. Malin, Watley's vice chairman and president; Linus N. Nwaigwe, Michael A. Picone, and Keevin H. Leonard. Robert Malin was released on $300,000 bail.


Summary: Four executives at the day-trading firm of A.B. Watley were arraigned in the United States District Court in Brooklyn yesterday on conspiracy and securities fraud charges stemming from a scheme to reap profits after eavesdropping on confidential conversations between stockbrokers and their clients. Federal prosecutors say that the men at Watley paid brokers at Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and Lehman Brothers thousands of dollars so that they could listen in on conversations between the firms' trading desks and big institutional customers being carried on internal intercoms, or squawk boxes.


Summary: The Securities and Exchange Commission also sued the men, the firm and seven others in connection with the same scheme, which has become known as the squawk box case. The S.E.C. complaint names the men arraigned yesterday and the two brokers who pleaded guilty this month, as well as four former Watley traders, Bryan S. Rogers, Keith A. Rogers, Warren R. Fellus and Keith M. Geller, and the chairman of the firm, Steven E. Malin.


Summary: Four executives at the day-trading firm of A. B. Watley were arraigned in the United States District Court in Brooklyn yesterday on conspiracy and securities fraud charges stemming from a scheme to reap profits after eavesdropping on confidential conversations between stockbrokers and their clients. Federal prosecutors say that the men at Watley paid brokers at Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and Lehman Brothers thousands of dollars so that they could listen in on conversations between the firms' trading desks and big institutional customers being carried on internal intercoms, or squawk boxes.


Summary: Before the arrival of Whole Foods, the D'Agostino market that occupies 6,000 square feet in a four-story commercial building at 64 University Place, three blocks from Union Square, was not successful, according to the landlord, Bernard Posner. Mr. Posner, an owner of Bernard-Charles Realty, said the supermarket's rent was $84.70 a square foot plus a percentage of earnings over $15 million. Now that D'Agostino is leaving, Mr. Posner said he had raised the asking rent to $135 a square foot. He said he hoped the next tenant would be another supermarket or an upscale restaurant.


Summary: In Manhattan, the number of food stores that are 5,000 square feet or larger has actually grown in the last decade, to 196 from 154, because markets are turning up in neighborhoods that were previously underserved, according to Lawrence Sarf, the president of F&D Reports, a retail consulting company in Great Neck, N.Y. But, he said, the proportion of markets on the Upper West Side, Upper East Side and Midtown had declined to about 30 percent of the total, from 70 percent. Mr. Sarf said that FreshDirect is putting a dent into everybody. He estimated that Manhattan grocery shoppers spend $2.1 billion a year.


Summary: Gristedes, which has 39 supermarkets in Manhattan, gave up a store it has had for 30 years at 62nd Street and Second Avenue after being outbid by Chase Bank, said John A. Catsimatidis, chief executive of the chain. He also said that if one looks at the previous 10 years then they'll have 50 percent fewer supermarkets than one had then, and going forward 10 years the number will probably halve again. A decade or so ago, a supermarket would pay an amount equivalent to 2 percent of its sales in rent in affluent neighborhoods, Mr. Catsimatidis said, but now it has to pay as much as 8 percent of sales. To hold onto a store on University Place and Eighth Street, he had to agree to twice the previous rent.


Summary: Among the latest casualties is a D'Agostino market on University Place near Union Square, which is closing after two decades in that location. Even before the arrival of Whole Foods, the D'Agostino market that occupies 6,000 square feet in a four-story commercial building at 64 University Place, three blocks from Union Square, was not successful, according to the landlord, Bernard Posner.


Summary: Last year, Connecticut filed suit against the federal Department of Education, contending that federal officials had failed to pay the cost of all the tests required by No Child Left Behind.


Summary: Thomas Toch writes that the scale of N.C.L.B. testing requirements, competitive pressures in the testing industry, a shortage of testing experts, insufficient state resources, tight regulatory deadlines and a lack of meaningful oversight of the sprawling N.C.L.B. testing enterprise are undermining N.C.L.B.'s pursuit of higher academic standards. N.C.L.B. is supposed to be increasing the caliber of education and this is lowering it. It's eroding the power of the test to explain what kids can and cannot do. In their legal papers, Connecticut officials said the deputy secretary of education, Ray Simon, suggested that the state, in addition to saving money by switching to multiple-choice reading and math tests in several grades and dropping its writing assessments, could also use multiple choice for the N.C.L.B. science tests in grades 5, 8 and 10. Betty Sternberg, Connecticut's education commissioner, said having challenging tests pushed schools to teach higher-level skills.


Summary: M. Jodi Rell wrote that testing twice as often would not close the gap and that the money would be better spent on preschool, technology and a longer school day.


No Child Left Behind Law
No Child Left Behind

Summary: Thanks to the federal No Child Left Behind Law, this year, for the first time, every student from third to eighth grade and one high school grade must take state tests. Last year, Connecticut filed suit against the federal Department of Education, contending that federal officials had failed to pay the cost of all the tests required by No Child Left Behind.


Summary: Pearson admitted that it had incorrectly scored thousands of the College Board's SAT tests.


Summary: In a recent study that is looking more prescient every minute, Thomas Toch, co-director of a new research group, EducationSector, describes how overextended and underregulated the testing industry is; he warns of many more bad weeks to come, unless something is done. He writes that the scale of N.C.L.B. testing requirements, competitive pressures in the testing industry, a shortage of testing experts, insufficient state resources, tight regulatory deadlines and a lack of meaningful oversight of the sprawling N.C.L.B. testing enterprise are undermining N.C.L.B.'s pursuit of higher academic standards. While testing errors make headlines, Mr. Toch writes that even more worrisome is the pressure on states to dumb down their tests, to switch from challenging tests with essay questions to multiple choice to save money and meet federal reporting deadlines. He points out how much cheaper and faster machine-scored multiple-choice tests are to grade.


Summary: In a letter, the federal education secretary, Margaret Spellings, said that while Connecticut's tests are instructionally sound, they go beyond what was contemplated by N.C.L.B. Federal officials suggested that Connecticut switch to multiple-choice tests and eliminate writing tests to cut costs. Ms. Spellings rejected this request, saying that annual testing was a crucial part of the law. In an opinion article in The Hartford Courant, Ms. Spellings compared Connecticut officials to children who did not like tests and said that, as adults, they should surely know better. She wrote that tests needed to be administered annually to highlight and shrink the achievement gap between white and black students.


Summary: The witness, Steven Corso, is a suntanned C.P.A. who started working with the government in late 2002 after he was caught embezzling $5.4 million from a number of his clients. His testimony overflowed with lunatic accounts of a Vegas mobster in the escort and carpet businesses and of a six-room office suite, built for Mr. Corso by federal agents, equipped with hidden microphones and cameras. At one point, he told the jury how he had had a business lunch with one of the detectives, Louis Eppolito, who was living in Las Vegas and wanted his assistance raising $1.5 million to produce his screenplay "Murder in Youngstown." In its second week, the federal trial has proved itself to be a transcontinental affair, a cross between a pulp-detective novel and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."


Summary: He said that he gathered more than 1,200 hours of recordings on everyone from the habitués of a trattoria called Casa di Amore to the strippers at the Crazy Horse Too.


Summary: Last week, an aging marijuana dealer told how Mr. Eppolito, 57, and his former partner, Stephen Caracappa, 64, had taken part in at least eight gangland murders. Mr. Eppolito, testimony showed, holed up in his garage beside a knife collection writing screenplays, while Mr. Caracappa tried his hand at selling George Foreman punching-bag machines through the home-shopping channel QVC.


Summary: One of the detectives, Louis Eppolito, who was living in Las Vegas and wanted his assistance raising $1.5 million to produce a screenplay he had written, ''Murder in Youngstown.'' The federal trial has proved itself to be a strange, transcontinental affair -- a cross between a pulp-detective novel and ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.'' Last week, an aging marijuana dealer told how Mr. Eppolito, 57, and his former partner, Stephen Caracappa, 64, had taken part in at least eight gangland murders. Mr. Eppolito, testimony showed, holed up in his garage beside a knife collection writing screenplays, while Mr. Caracappa tried his hand at selling George Foreman punching-bag machines through the home-shopping channel QVC. Mr. Corso testified that Mr. Eppolito explained to him that he had the formula to make a movie and how it was foolproof.


Summary: The detectives moved there in the early 1990's, after they retired from the Police Department.


Summary: The witness said, a man he described as a gangster, John Frate, met him for lunch and handed him an envelope with Mr. Eppolito's script. Mr. Corso said that Mr. Frate joined them for good measure. Before the client had arrived, Mr. Corso told the jury that he, Mr. Frate and Mr. Eppolito had been standing at the bar, discussing another movie-making scheme.


Summary: David Cantor, a department spokesman, said that as of yesterday afternoon, 132 employees had applied for amnesty, and an additional 118 had made inquiries about the program. Mr. Cantor said also said that out of 90, 59 were teachers, 7 assistant principals, 6 principals, 6 secretaries or other support staff workers, and 6 were guidance counselors or other student support service workers. He further said that a more comprehensive breakdown would be released next week, and that officials were still trying to determine who among the applicants had submitted false addresses and would therefore be required to pay back tuition.


Summary: Robert Jackson, chairman of the City Council Education Committee, said that these teachers were trying to make it to school on time, trying to do their job and trying to raise their family at the same time. He also suggested that the city offer nonresident school employees a break on tuition.


Summary: A DaimlerChrysler spokesman, Trevor Hale, said the company offered fuel-efficient engines; many Mercedes sedans sold in China have considerably smaller engines than models sold in the United States.


Summary: Yale Zhang, an analyst in the Shanghai office of CSM Worldwide, a big automotive consulting firm based in the Detroit suburbs, said that Chinese automakers had growing influence in policy debates and that the new rules might lead to a proliferation of vehicles with engines a hundredth of a liter below the thresholds for higher taxes.


Summary: The executive vice president and chief research officer for the CBS Corporation, David Poltrack, said that he thinks that they basically just sold time, and because of this new nonlinear world of television with all these new options, that's no longer the way they do business. He also said that CBS is now selling cross-platform advertising, like Internet ad space packaged with television commercials and that through the college basketball tournament so far, CBS has been hosted to more than 14 million downloads of streamed video and more than 4 million unique visitors.


Summary: Josh Bernoff, the vice president for devices, media and marketing at Forrester Research, said that the main culprit is the digital video recorder and although the device is currently in fewer than 10 percent of American households, that number is expected to hit an indelible growth spurt. He estimated that 43 million households were likely to have digital video recorders by 2010. He said that the growth in the DVR household base is about to reach a very rapid pace, and this is driven, of course, by cable companies and satellite companies pushing them out and reducing the prices on those products.


Summary: David Poltrack, the executive vice president and chief research officer for the CBS Corporation, said that he thinks that they basically just sold time and because of this new nonlinear world of television with all these new options, that's no longer the way we do business and that CBS is now selling cross-platform advertising, like Internet ad space packaged with television commercials. While acknowledging that the Internet is competition for broadcasters, he also said that networks can take advantage of the growing popularity of streaming video as through the college basketball tournament so far, CBS has been hosted to more than 14 million downloads of streamed video and more than 4 million unique visitors.


Summary: Converse presented a case study on how to integrate Internet and television with a viral campaign that solicited homemade videos from the public. After asking consumers to send in videos featuring Converse sneakers, Converse received more than 1,500 entries from 20 countries and posted them on conversegallery.com. Erick Soderstrom, the senior director of global brand development for Converse, said that they are trying to blow the barrier between brand and consumer.


Summary: The data system, called ChildStat, which was one of several initiatives outlined yesterday by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and John B. Mattingly, the commissioner of the Administration for Children's Services, during a news conference at City Hall, will be modeled after the Police Department's management system, CompStat, which has been credited with helping to lower the crime rate by compiling and analyzing crime statistics to suggest where police resources should be placed. ChildStat would similarly track data about investigations, and it would use scorecards to evaluate the responses of caseworkers and their supervisors.


Summary: William F. Weld struck back in force, telling how their feud dated at least to a 1996 encounter in which Mr. D'Amato gave him $750,000 in donations for his Senate campaign that year against John Kerry of Massachusetts. Mr. Weld's challenge to Mr. Kerry was one of the most hotly contested Senate races that year.


Summary: Robert S. Mueller III, a friend of William F. Weld's, has been the director of the F.B.I. since 2001.


Summary: For the last few months, William F. Weld's bid to become governor of New York has had a sharp thorn in its side: the outspoken opposition of the onetime kingmaker of state Republican politics, former Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato, who has said that Mr. Weld is without any real experience in New York. Yesterday, Mr. Weld struck back in force, telling how their feud dated at least to a 1996 encounter in which Mr. D'Amato gave him $750,000 in donations for his Senate campaign that year against John Kerry of Massachusetts. Mr. D'Amato vigorously denied that the encounter had taken place and said he had not even met Mr. Weld until recently, at a Feb. 23 fund-raiser for Representative Vito J. Fossella.


Summary: The clash exposed in the most bare-knuckled form the searing divisions that have afflicted state Republicans as they seek to find credible candidates to run for governor and to challenge Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in November. The feud is the latest embarrassment for a state party that has already seen the implosion of Jeanine F. Pirro's bid to topple Senator Clinton and open Republican challenges to the leadership of Governor Pataki, who is not running for a fourth term.


Summary: Mr. D'Amato, who in 1994 helped shepherd a little-known George E. Pataki to the governor's mansion, has been openly praising the presumed Democratic front-runner for governor, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, and yesterday he attacked Mr. Weld's stewardship of Decker College, a financially troubled Kentucky school that is the subject of a federal investigation. Mr. D'Amato added that he didn't intend to endorse Eliot Spitzer, but he would say, if asked, he had done a magnificent job as attorney general, better than any he had ever seen.


Summary: For the last few months, William F. Weld's bid to become governor of New York has had a sharp thorn in its side: the outspoken opposition of the onetime kingmaker of state Republican politics, former Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato, who has said that Mr. Weld is without any real experience in New York. Yesterday, Mr. Weld struck back in force, telling how their feud dated at least to a 1996 encounter in which Mr. D'Amato gave him $750,000 in donations for his Senate campaign that year against John Kerry of Massachusetts.


Summary: Mr. D'Amato suggested that his dislike for Mr. Weld preceded the investigation of his brother and dated from 1988, when Mr. Weld and five other officials resigned to distance themselves from Attorney General Edwin Meese III, who was under investigation.  Mr. D'Amato said that Weld was a duplicitous guy who stabbed Ed Meese in the back. Mr. Weld said that the investigations had been taking their toll on the department. Mr. Meese did not respond to messages left at his office in Washington and his home in McLean, Va.


Summary: Mr. D'Amato, who in 1994 helped shepherd a little-known George E. Pataki to the governor's mansion, has been openly praising the presumed Democratic front-runner for governor, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, and yesterday he attacked Mr. Weld's stewardship of Decker College. The feud is the latest embarrassment for a state party that has already seen the implosion of Jeanine F. Pirro's bid to topple Senator Clinton and open Republican challenges to the leadership of Governor Pataki, who is not running for a fourth term.


Summary: The donations came with an expletive-laced warning: that Mr. Weld distance himself from Robert S. Mueller III, who as a Justice Department official oversaw a federal fraud investigation of Mr. D'Amato's brother, Armand, in the early 1990's. Mr. Weld, a former Massachusetts governor, said if I ever see that expletive Mueller at an expletive fund-raiser, he is going to get every expletive dollar of this back out of your hide. Mr. Weld said he did not interpret it to mean that he would in any way distance himself from Mr. Mueller, to whom he has been close since at least 1982, when Mr. Weld, then the United States attorney in Boston, recruited Mr. Mueller to work for him.


Summary: The feud is the latest embarrassment for a state party that has already seen the implosion of Jeanine F. Pirro's bid to topple Senator Clinton and open Republican challenges to the leadership of Governor Pataki, who is not running for a fourth term.


Summary: William F. Weld struck back in force, telling how their feud dated at least to a 1996 encounter in which Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato gave him $750,000 in donations for his Senate campaign that year against John Kerry of Massachusetts. Mr. Weld's challenge to Mr. Kerry was one of the most hotly contested Senate races that year.


Summary: Craig Engle, who was the committee's general counsel from 1995 to 2000, said yesterday that he, too, could recall only a phone call and not a meeting. He said that under varying state rules, the committee was permitted to pay a campaign's bills and that over time the amounts in the Massachusetts race might have added up to $750,000.


Summary: The donations came with an expletive-laced warning: that Mr. Weld distance himself from Robert S. Mueller III, who as a Justice Department official oversaw a federal fraud investigation of Mr. D'Amato's brother, Armand, in the early 1990's. During a breakfast yesterday organized by Crain's New York Business, Mr. Weld said that in Washington in 1996, he visited Mr. D'Amato, who was the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which raises money for Republican Senate candidates.


Summary: The matter brought to the forefront once again an episode that haunted the Senate career of Mr. D'Amato, who served from 1981 to 1999: the investigation that resulted in the May 1993 mail fraud conviction of Armand P.


Summary: For the last few months, William F. Weld's bid to become governor of New York has had a sharp thorn in its side: the outspoken opposition of the onetime kingmaker of state Republican politics, former Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato, who has said that Mr. Weld is without any real experience in New York. Mr. D'Amato yesterday vigorously denied that the encounter had taken place and said he had not even met Mr. Weld until recently, at a Feb. 23 fund-raiser for Representative Vito J. Fossella. Mr. D'Amato, who in 1994 helped shepherd a little-known George E. Pataki to the governor's mansion, has been openly praising the presumed Democratic front-runner for governor, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, and yesterday he attacked Mr. Weld's stewardship of Decker College, a financially troubled Kentucky school that is the subject of a federal investigation.


Summary: The Abbey Theater was already collapsing with debt when the government appointed Fiach Mac Conghail to be its next director early last year. Mr. Mac Conghail revamped the Abbey's antiquated legal structure, persuaded the Irish government to clear its 4-million-euro ($4.9 million) deficit, and won the largest grant ever awarded by the government's Arts Council, for 25.7 million euros ($31.3 million) over three years. The Abbey, founded by William Butler Yeats, provided a space for those movements' political and cultural expressions.


Summary: The Abbey Theater was already collapsing with debt when the government appointed Fiach Mac Conghail to be its next director early last year. He revamped the Abbey's antiquated legal structure, persuaded the Irish government to clear its 4-million-euro ($4.9 million) deficit, and won the largest grant ever awarded by the government's Arts Council, for 25.7 million euros ($31.3 million) over three years. Mr. Mac Conghail feels free to tackle what he sees as his principal task: reorienting the Abbey on its original mission as a politically relevant national theater. He said that the notion that the Abbey had to continually and centrally interrogate a repertoire was gone, and he thought that was a good thing.


Summary: Ron DeSantis, a chef at the Culinary Institute of America who has done consulting work for the industry, said that the reality of airline food is that one is eating leftovers.


Summary: While outright fraud is rare in the offerings posted by the three companies that dominate the travel auction scene, SkyAuction, LuxuryLink and eBay, in the rush to claim a good price, a buyer may not notice handling fees, blackout dates and penalties for changes that can be buried in the fine print. According to Ms. Stellin, LuxuryLink charges $20 for every purchase.


Summary: On the day prosecutors planned to rest their case, there came, in a 1 p.m. conference call from a maximum-security federal prison, the voice of Anthony Casso, former underboss of the Luchese crime family. After 12 years in prison, nearly 8 of them in Florence, Mr. Casso was calling the defense to exonerate the two defendants, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa. Mr. Casso concluded his letter by reminding Mr. Feldman of his three and a half years. After Mr. Casso was arrested more than a decade ago, he started working with the government, and so agreeably at first that prosecutors tried to use his help in building a case against Mr. Eppolito and Mr. Caracappa.


Summary: Mr. Casso attributed that last crime to Burton Kaplan in a move that indicates how confounding the federal trial has been, his former partner in crime, who has since become a government witness in the case. For the next 12 years or so, prosecutors chipped away at Mr. Kaplan to get him to cooperate, and last year they won his help. In the first week of the trial, acting as a substitute for Mr. Casso, Mr. Kaplan told the jury that he had served as ''the safety spot,'' or liaison, between his former mob associate and the two retired detectives, who are accused of eight murders.


Summary: Pennsylvania's lawyer, Louis J. Rovelli, executive deputy state attorney general, received his share of skeptical questions but appeared generally unfazed by them. Justice Ginsburg asked Mr. Rovelli to explain why the policy permitted inmates to order paperback books from the prison library while prohibiting newspapers and magazines. Mr. Rovelli replied that paperbacks were more difficult to use as weapons by the worst inmates to whom the policy applies.


Summary: But a recent tour of the three-story house with the Abusches and Suzanne D'Amato, senior project manager of the city's development department, held a sense of promise. Ms. D'Amato said that it will be a complete gut rehab, leading the way up a narrow staircase to the sunny second floor, where the Abusches she is the artistic director, he is the executive director envision a lobby and acting studios.


Summary: On a recent tour of Wildcliff, the glorious Gothic Revival house on a windy bluff overlooking Long Island Sound here, the couple talked about their vision, which may not be such a stretch. Play Group was recommended to the City as Wildcliff's new occupant after the group submitted a plan for the building to the city in 2003. The theater, and the house, had been vacant since Fleetwood Stage moved out last spring after presenting plays at Wildcliff.


Summary: The governor, the Senate and the Assembly all support eliminating the so-called marriage penalty, a feature of the state tax code that can make it expensive for couples living together to marry. They also want to offer parents a tax credit of at least $300 per child. While the Senate's top priority is pushing its aggressive tax-cutting plan, the Assembly is focusing on increasing school aid in light of court orders to spend billions more on New York City schools.


Summary: The governor, the Senate and the Assembly all support eliminating the so-called marriage penalty, a feature of the state tax code that can make it expensive for couples living together to marry. They also want to offer parents a tax credit of at least $300 per child, although Gov. George E. Pataki and the Senate want to tie the credit to education. Mr. Pataki wants a $500 credit per child, but only to pay for education spending by families living in areas with underperforming schools, while the Assembly is countering by proposing a general $300 tax credit per child. Mr. Pataki wants a $500 credit per child, but only to pay for education spending by families living in areas with underperforming schools, while the Assembly is countering by proposing a general $300 tax credit per child.


Summary: The governor, the Senate and the Assembly all support eliminating the so-called marriage penalty, a feature of the state tax code that can make it expensive for couples living together to marry. George E. Pataki and the Senate want to tie the credit to education. While the Senate's top priority is pushing its aggressive tax-cutting plan, the Assembly is focused on increasing school aid in light of court orders to spend billions more on New York City schools. The Senate wants to send homeowners several hundred dollars' worth of rebates, averaging $750 annually in Nassau County within three years, for instance, while the governor wants to limit the program to school districts that contain new spending, a likely disqualification for New York City homeowners.


Summary: On Friday, Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate's Republican majority leader, said after a public budget meeting that he's optimistic that everyone intend to do property tax reform as it's a priority. He added that all three sides have substantial property tax reductions in their proposals. This year, in a bid for openness in the notoriously opaque Albany budget process, Mr. Bruno and the Democratic Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, have actually debated and settled a few issues in public.


Summary: The more or less final act came earlier this month, when Bear Stearns agreed to a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission under which it would pay $250 million to investors for its alleged fund-related transgressions. To begin with, Bear Stearns did not pay a fine. The company will pay $250 million in disgorgements and penalties. The penalty part was just $90 million. Bear Stearns agreed to pay all this money without admitting or denying the allegations.


Summary: The more or less final act came earlier this month, when Bear Stearns agreed to a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission under which it would pay $250 million to investors for its alleged fund-related transgressions. As is typical in S.E.C. settlements, Bear Stearns agreed to pay all this money without admitting or denying the allegations. The S.E.C. needs to make Wall Street firms wince when they do something wrong.


Summary: The many of the final act came earlier this current month, when Bear Stearns agreed to a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission under which it would pay $250 million to investors for its alleged fund-related transgressions. As is typical in S.E.C. settlements, Bear Stearns agreed to pay all this money without admitting or denying the allegations. The S.E.C. needs to make Wall Street firms start when they do something wrong.


Summary: A Forrester Research analyst, Charlene Li, concludes that Google has done a very, very nice job pulling together a financial portal. Li writes that he frankly thought that they won't be seeing a mass migration of people from other finance sites to Google anytime soon.


Summary: Reaction has been mixed, but mostly positive, to Google Finance, which went live this week. Despite a few bugs, most Google watchers seem to like the service's features, which include news items keyed to stock charts; recent company-specific blog posts; and pop-up information on corporate officers.


Summary: The Hispanic Society of America, home to one of the largest collections of Hispanic cultural material outside Spain, has decided to move downtown from Washington Heights to draw more visitors and acquire the space it needs to display its art and artifacts. The chairman, George B. Moore, said that its board has been looking at real estate and development proposals in Battery Park, Chelsea and Midtown, but has no fixed area in mind and that they would prefer to build rather than have to remake an existing building, given the specific needs for displaying our diverse collection. Mr. Moore also said that the society might need to raise as much as $300 million, citing the costs of buying land and constructing a building and a need to double the museum's endowment of about $65 million, which covers most of the society's annual $3 million operating budget.


Hispanic Society of America
Hispanic Society

Summary: The Hispanic Society of America, home to one of the largest collections of Hispanic cultural material outside Spain, has decided to move downtown from Washington Heights to draw more visitors and acquire the space it needs to display its art and artifacts. Since its founding in 1904, the society has been on Audubon Terrace, a stately row of Beaux-Arts buildings near Broadway at 155th Street. The chairman, George B. Moore, said that its board has been looking at real estate and development proposals in Battery Park, Chelsea and Midtown, but has no fixed area in mind.


Summary: It included the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Numismatic Society, the American Geographical Society and what was then called the Museum of the American Indian-Heye Foundation. Of those, only the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Hispanic Society remain, joined by Boriuca College.


Summary: Mitchell Codding said it drew about 20,000 visitors a year, about half of them in school groups. Mr. Codding said that this place was never meant to house anything like the number or variety of objects that we have. He pointed to an assortment of 16th-century alabaster tomb sculptures from Cuéllar, Spain, that are stored in pieces on the floor and along the walls of an alcove.


Summary: Department of Education officials said that at least 132 people who work for the New York City public schools and live outside the city have acknowledged that they improperly send their children to city schools without paying tuition.


Summary: The program was set up last month after a report by the special commissioner of investigation for the city schools found that Lee D.


Summary: McCaskill, the longtime principal of Brooklyn Technical High School, and his wife, a teacher, had used a false address to send their daughter to a top Brooklyn elementary school, although they live in New Jersey. Dr. McCaskill, who was allowed to retire without the city's seeking disciplinary measures, had sparred with many of his teachers in recent years, and the United Federation of Teachers had sought his removal.


Summary: Randi Weingarten, the teachers' union president, said she was pleased that the chancellor had changed the policy about back tuition payments. She also said it was unfair for school employees to be forced to pay tuition going back more than three years, adding that many of them had no idea they had done anything wrong and others had been told by their principals to submit city addresses. She added that she did not regret her efforts to have Dr. McCaskill removed, but added that the irony of the situation was not lost on her.


Summary: There are two conclusions from ''Corporate Governance and Climate Change: Making the Connection,'' a report that Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmentalists, expects will influence investment decisions. The report, released yesterday, scored 100 global corporations, 74 of them based in the United States, on their strategies for curbing greenhouse gases. It evaluated companies on their board oversight, management performance, public disclosure, greenhouse gas emissions, accounting and strategic planning.


Summary: Steven Tragash, a spokesman for Guidant, said yesterday that the company did not comment on litigation.


Summary: The toughness of the report may reflect the person Guidant appointed to head the effort, Dr. Robert J. Myerburg, a professor of medicine at the University of Miami.


Summary: The death of that patient last March, a college student, set off a chain of events that would lead to the scrutiny of Guidant, the recalls of thousands of its devices, and some 145 lawsuits and investigations by the Food and Drug Administration and the Justice Department.