Summary: When a company goes the route of PIPE's, you can bet that it is in trouble, unable to raise funds through conventional routes. PIPE stands for private investment in public equity, and providing such financing can be very profitable, even if the companies later go bankrupt. PIPE deals usually allow the buyer to buy shares or securities convertible into shares at a price below the market price of the stock. In addition, the S.E.C. says, it is illegal insider trading to sell the shares short if the seller knows a PIPE deal is coming, but that fact has not been announced to the public.


Summary: The complaint against Jeffrey Thorp and three hedge funds he ran -- 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.


Summary: His lawyer, Andrew G. Gordon of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison did not return a telephone call.


Summary: The group, led by Andrew S. Tanenbaum, an American computer scientist, will make the presentation at the annual Pervasive Computing and Communications Conference sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. Mr. Tanenbaum said that he should check all of his input all of the time, but experience showed this wasn't the case. Mr. Tanenbaum is the author of the Minix operating system, an experimental project that became the heart of the Linux open-source operating system.


Summary: Peter Neumann, a computer scientist at SRI International, said that it shouldn't surprise him that a system that was designed to be manufactured as cheaply as possible was designed with no security constraints whatsoever. Mr. Neumann is the co-author of an article to be published in the May issue of the Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery on the risks of RFID systems. He cited inadequate identification for users, the potential for counterfeiting or disabling tags, and the problem of weak encryption in a passport-tracking system being developed in the United States.


Summary: A retired New York City police lieutenant, Joseph Pollini, who teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said that even if the 15-year-old had seen her attacker, it is not certain she could have identified him. He also said that physical identification was the worst form that exists. Mr. Pollini said that fingerprints were good, and DNA was excellent. But when lineups were conducted, a strict protocol existed.


Summary: Mr. Littlejohn, communicating through his lawyer, Kevin P. O'Donnell, has maintained his innocence. Mr. O'Donnell could not be reached for comment, but he complained on Monday that leaks in the investigation would make it impossible for his client to get a fair trial.


Summary: Shortly after he was first questioned by the police in the murder of Imette St. Guillen, Darryl Littlejohn was mentioned by investigators as a potential suspect in three other attacks, two rapes and a kidnapping. Mr. Littlejohn, a bouncer in a downtown Manhattan bar called the Falls, has been linked by DNA evidence to the Feb. 25 murder of Ms. St. Guillen, according to the police.


Summary: He was first questioned by the police in the murder of Imette St. Guillen, Darryl Littlejohn was mentioned by investigators as a potential suspect in three other attacks, two rapes and a kidnapping. The law enforcement official said the process that would lead to a lineup had been compromised because of an apparent mistake involving a picture of Mr. Littlejohn and it was either accidentally shown to the victim, or pointed out to her from among a group of other photographs. Mr. Littlejohn, 41, a bouncer in a downtown Manhattan bar called the Falls, has been linked by DNA evidence to the Feb. 25 murder of Ms. St. Guillen.


CenterPoint
CenterPoint Properties Trust

Summary: CenterPoint Properties Trust, a leading developer of industrial property, has burnished its image over the last few years by transforming a former weapons factory in the Chicago suburb of Elwood into a successful intermodal railroad and warehouse complex. CenterPoint had been a publicly traded real estate investment trust since 1993, but its solid reputation was not reflected in its share price. As a public company, CenterPoint had to disclose information before a transaction was completed, giving its competitors an advantage.


Summary: At CenterPoint, the company president, Paul S. Fisher, said he was relieved to be free of the requirements of being a public company, including the more stringent accounting practices imposed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which he described as a distraction and that as a public company, CenterPoint had to disclose information before a transaction was completed, giving its competitors an advantage. In addition, he said that he and Michael M. Mullen, the chief executive, had to spend too much of their time explaining their business to Wall Street.


Summary: Blackstone Group will borrow $4.25 billion to complete its purchase of CarrAmerica, the REIT said last week in a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.


Summary: Since 2004, 12 real estate investment trusts, or REIT's, representing all commercial property sectors: office, industrial, retail, hotels and apartments, have been acquired by private companies, and two other buyout offers are pending, both involving the Blackstone Group, a private equity firm in New York. Last week, Blackstone agreed to buy the CarrAmerica Realty Corporation, a large national office REIT based in Washington, for $5.6 billion, the richest price so far. Blackstone declined to discuss its plans for CarrAmerica, which has buildings in two of the strongest office markets, Washington and Southern California, but is also well represented in Northern California, a market that has yet to recover from the technology bust.


Summary: While living on South 11th Street, Jim Fleming started Autonomedia, a nonprofit company that publishes criticism by authors like Dwight MacDonald, Guy Debord and Michel Foucault. Since 1997, Autonomedia has used a space the same size on the second floor, with a rent of about $1,100. Two members of the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus live in rooms they built in the Autonomedia space on the second floor.


Summary: Jim Fleming, 56, who has lived on the fourth floor of 55-65 South 11th Street since 1982, said that if they have to leave this building it'll almost certainly mean leaving New York City. While living on South 11th Street, Mr. Fleming started Autonomedia, a nonprofit company that publishes criticism by authors like Dwight MacDonald, Guy Debord and Michel Foucault. Mr. Fleming said the two warehouses on South 11th Street were completed in 1870 and housed McLaughlin Brothers, which at the turn of the 20th century was one of the country's biggest companies making board games and publishing children's books.


Summary: Gerard Proefriedt, a lawyer for the landlord, said his client had tried to negotiate with the tenants but without success. He said that through changes in the neighborhood and inflation and other market forces, the rental values have gone up and that the landlord, like any landlord who owns a building, wants to maximize rental income. Mr. Proefriedt refused to say what his client planned to do with the building.


Summary: On the floor above Jim Fleming, live Cindy Greenberg and Jennifer Miller, both members of the Circus Amok. On Thursday afternoon, Ms. Greenberg, 37, stood in her 1,500-square-foot loft, for which she and Ms. Miller were paying $450 a month.


Summary: Jim Fleming and his companion, Lewanne Jones, 53, an archivist, live in a 2,700-square-foot loft, with painted wooden floors and homemade wooden shelves holding Mr. Fleming's personal library of 60,000 volumes, for which they had paid $787.35 a month since 1985. Mr. Fleming and Ms. Jones, who have two children away in college, acknowledged that the rates they paid before joining the rent strike were well below market. At times in the 1980's, Ms. Jones said, she was awakened by the sound of cars burning in the street outside; she said thieves would bring the cares there, strip them, and set them afire to dispose of them.


Summary: Cindy Greenberg, 37, said that the circus performed a series of shows last year about a magical cat that comes to the aid of embattled tenants and that this is the headquarters, the storage, the rehearsal space, the living space, noting that the circus is able to perform free because of the low overhead.


Summary: Thomas C. McMahon, superintendent of the Barnegat Township School District, which serves about 2,200 students in five schools was also given the compensation. According to investigators, Dr. McMahon's base salary was $166,228. In that same year, he was given nearly $100,000 in additional compensation, including about $43,000 for work as the district's business administrator, more than $15,000 for cashing in unused leave and an $8,000 payment to a tax-deferred annuity.


Summary: Barry J. Galasso, executive director of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators, said that in response to an argument that they are overpaid, I can only say that they are paid at the level the local board believes they should be compensated.


Summary: Thomas C. McMahon, superintendent of the Barnegat Township School District, which serves about 2,200 students in five schools, was also given the compensation. According to investigators, Dr. McMahon's base salary was $166,228. In that same year, he was given nearly $100,000 in additional compensation, including about $43,000 for work as the district's business administrator, more than $15,000 for cashing in unused leave and an $8,000 payment to a tax-deferred annuity.


Summary: The exchange's shareholders had previously shrugged at offers from would-be acquirers like the Deutsche Börse and the Macquarie Bank of Australia, they made clear yesterday that they were ready for merger talks to begin, either with the Nasdaq Stock Market, whose $4.1 billion offer the exchange rejected on Friday, or the New York Stock Exchange. Analysts and investors said that Nasdaq's offer, which was not a formal bid, may force the management of the London exchange to come to the negotiating table earlier than it had hoped. Shares of Nasdaq closed at £9.50.


Skilling
Mr. Skilling
Jeffrey K. Skilling

Summary: Andrew S. Fastow, Enron's former chief financial officer, ended his testimony on Monday, still insisting that Jeffrey K. Skilling and Kenneth L. Lay joined him in telling investors that Enron was profitable and healthy when all of them knew otherwise. Defense lawyers for Mr. Skilling and Mr. Lay, two former Enron chief executives, continued to paint Mr. Fastow as a serial liar who had little proof that the former chiefs knew that partnerships directed by Mr. Fastow were being used to hide debt and manipulate earnings. Mr. Fastow struggled to further corroborate his testimony about the so-called Global Galactic list of illicit side deals he said he made with one of the former chiefs, Mr. Skilling, to guarantee profits.


Summary: Throughout the day Mr. Fastow tried the patience of both Mr. Ramsey and Daniel Petrocelli, Mr. Skilling's lead lawyer. Under questioning by Mr. Hueston, the prosecutor, Mr. Fastow said that he understood the calls from Mr. Skilling to mean he should toe the party line. Near the end of Monday's session, Mr. Petrocelli revealed a critical challenge facing the government concerning Mr. Fastow's testimony. There is not a single piece of paper, not a scratch of paper, that says Mr. Skilling gave you a guarantee? Mr. Petrocelli asked, referring to the ''bear hug'' Mr. Fastow claimed Mr. Skilling gave him to indicate that LJM would not lose money by buying Enron assets that the company was struggling to unload.


Summary: Andrew S. Fastow, Enron's former chief financial officer, ended his testimony on Monday, still insisting that Jeffrey K. Skilling and Kenneth L. Lay joined him in telling investors that Enron was profitable and healthy when all of them knew otherwise. Mr. Fastow struggled to further corroborate his testimony about the so-called Global Galactic list of illicit side deals he said he made with one of the former chiefs, Mr. Skilling, to guarantee profits. Mr. Fastow also tried to buttress his claims that he warned Mr. Lay, Enron's founder, in a private meeting that Enron was in desperate need of a massive restructuring. Mr. Fastow, considered a major government witness, stepped down from the witness stand in the trial's seventh week.


Summary: Mr. Ramsey asserted that Mr. Fastow became very proficient at looking Mr. Lay right straight in the face and telling him you were loyal and he could count on you, but you knew in your heart you were stealing from the house. Mr. Ramsey continued that they were successful in your lying and your deceit from 1997 all the way up to 2001. In an effort to support the defense lawyers' contention that the partnerships themselves -- not Mr. Fastow's side deals -- were proper and fully disclosed to investors and outside accountants, Mr. Ramsey showed jurors handwritten notes taken by Mr. Fastow of phone calls in October 2001 just days before he was forced to step down as chief financial officer.


Summary: Andrew S. Fastow, Enron's former chief financial officer, ended his testimony on Monday, still insisting that Jeffrey K. Skilling and Kenneth L. Lay joined him in telling investors that Enron was profitable and healthy when all of them knew otherwise. Defense lawyers for Mr. Skilling and Mr. Lay, two former Enron chief executives, continued to paint Mr. Fastow as a serial liar who had little proof that the former chiefs knew that partnerships directed by Mr. Fastow were being used to hide debt and manipulate earnings. Mr. Fastow has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and agreed to serve 10 years in prison in exchange for cooperating with prosecutors and testifying in the trial of Mr. Skilling and Mr. Lay, who are accused of conspiring to defraud Enron while enriching themselves.


Summary: Andrew S. Fastow, Enron's former chief financial officer, ended his testimony on Monday, still insisting that Jeffrey K. Skilling and Kenneth L. Lay joined him in telling investors that Enron was profitable and healthy when all of them knew otherwise. Mr. Fastow also tried to buttress his claims that he warned Mr. Lay, Enron's founder, in a private meeting that Enron was in desperate need of a massive restructuring. Mr. Fastow, considered a major government witness, stepped down from the witness stand in the trial's seventh week. But Mr. Fastow conceded that he never told Mr. Lay anything about illicit side deals used to siphon millions of dollars.


Summary: Mr. Fastow struggled to further corroborate his testimony about the so-called Global Galactic list of illicit side deals he said he made with one of the former chiefs, Mr. Skilling, to guarantee profits.


Summary: They related to the partnerships, including one called LJM, run by Mr. Fastow, which were being scrutinized by the news media. Mr. Petrocelli asked if here was not a single piece of paper, not a scratch of paper, that said Mr. Skilling gave you a guarantee. Mr. Petrocelli asked, referring to the ''bear hug'' Mr. Fastow claimed Mr. Skilling gave him to indicate that LJM would not lose money by buying Enron assets that the company was struggling to unload.


Summary: Under questioning by the prosecutor John Hueston, Andrew S. Fastow said that he understood the calls from Jeffrey K. Skilling to mean he should conform to the rules.


Summary: The New Jersey Schools Construction Corporation's own incompetence and mismanagement led to the fiasco that added more than $1 million to the cost of a piece of property for a new school, the mayor of this city and a lawyer for the landowners charged on Monday. Responding to accusations in a lawsuit that the owners had colluded with city officials to inflate the property's price, the landowners' lawyer said they had received so many mixed signals from the schools construction agency that they had gone ahead with plans to put an apartment building on the land. The Schools Construction Corporation has charged that the construction of the building, done hastily and shoddily, inflated the price of the land designated for a new school by $1 million.


Summary: The lawyer for the landowners, William J. Ward, said the collusion allegations were a smokescreen to divert attention from the troubled agency's own problems. He added that the S.C.C. has proposed almost 12 schools for Union City and they have only built 3 and that the Lopezes had ample evidence that what the agency proposed often did not actually happen. . Ward, citing another reason for skepticism about any school's being built on the site, also said that the agency had sent a similar letter of interest involving the site of the Lopez family's former home, next to the lot in dispute, but it had never followed through, despite efforts over the last three years to get the state agency to make an offer.


Summary: Jon S. Corzine is expected to receive recommendations this week for changes in the construction agency.


Lopez
Lopezes
Daniel
Samuel Lopez
Daniel Lopez

Summary: The state agency has filed to condemn the property, at 1501 Palisades Avenue, which is owned by three brothers, Daniel, David and Samuel Lopez. William J. Ward, citing another reason for skepticism about any school's being built on the site, also said that the agency had sent a similar letter of interest involving the site of the Lopez family's former home, next to the lot in dispute, but it had never followed through, despite efforts over the last three years to get the state agency to make an offer.


Summary: Mayor Brian P. Stack said in a statement that he is confident that once all the facts are revealed, this incident will be just another example of the Schools Construction Corporation's ineffectiveness. The state agency has filed to condemn the property, at 1501 Palisades Avenue, which is owned by three brothers, Daniel, David and Samuel Lopez.


Summary: The New Jersey Schools Construction Corporation's own incompetence and mismanagement led to the fiasco that added more than $1 million to the cost of a piece of property for a new school, the mayor of this city and a lawyer for the landowners charged on Monday. Mayor Brian P. Stack, who denied any collusion, charged that city and school officials had tried to warn the state agency that construction work was about to begin. But William J. Ward, the lawyer for the landowners, said the collusion allegations were a smokescreen to divert attention from the troubled agency's own problems and Mayor Stack accused the agency of trying to shift the blame to cover up its incompetence.


Summary: Anthony Casso, the former underboss of the Luchese family, later confessed to killing more than 30 men. Mitra Hormozi told the jury that Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa had found their way onto Mr. Casso's payroll through a go-between named Burton Kaplan, a wholesale clothier turned drug dealer, who had met Mr. Eppolito's cousin Frank Santora Jr. in jail.


Summary: the first day of testimony went in the racketeering trial of Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, which opened yesterday in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. In crisp opening arguments, a federal prosecutor, Mitra Hormozi, contended that Mr. Eppolito, 57, and Mr. Caracappa, 64, lent the power of their badges to a murderous Luchese family gangster, who corrupted them with monthly payments of $4,000 and employed them as his spies and the executors of his wrath. Ms. Hormozi told the jury that Mr. Eppolito and Mr. Caracappa had found their way onto Mr. Casso's payroll through a go-between named Burton Kaplan, a wholesale clothier turned drug dealer, who had met Mr. Eppolito's cousin Frank Santora Jr. in jail.


Summary: When Mr. Eppolito's lawyer, Bruce Cutler, rose, he launched into an apocalyptic aria, singing in his Brooklyn basso of the spiritual and moral cancer that had descended on the country and replaced men of honor in the mob with reprobates and louts, meaning, of course, the government's witnesses, a species of humanity that Edward Hayes, Mr. Caracappa's lawyer, derided in his own opening statements. Mr. Cutler, who has a penchant for rhythmic repetition, described the witnesses as men who kill, kill, steal, make money, beat up, steal, kill, kill, make money, and the like. He had two essential points, one of them is that the jury could not trust witnesses like Mr. Kaplan, who when the jail door closes, wet their pants and call for mommy i.e. the government.


Summary: In crisp opening arguments, a federal prosecutor, Mitra Hormozi, contended that Louis J. Eppolito, 57, and Stephen Caracappa, 64, lent the power of their badges to a murderous Luchese family gangster, who corrupted them with monthly payments of $4,000 and employed them as his spies and the executors of his wrath. She said that for years, the two defendants effectively armed one Mafia family, and one treacherous man within that family, with the power of the city of New York. That man was Anthony Casso, former underboss of the Luchese family, who later confessed to killing more than 30 men. Ms. Hormozi told the jury that Mr. Eppolito and Mr. Caracappa had found their way onto Mr. Casso's payroll through a go-between named Burton Kaplan, a wholesale clothier turned drug dealer, who had met Mr. Eppolito's cousin Frank Santora Jr. in jail.


Summary: Mitra Hormozi told the jury that Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa had found their way onto Anthony Casso's payroll through a go-between named Burton Kaplan, a wholesale clothier turned drug dealer, who had met Mr. Eppolito's cousin Frank Santora Jr. in jail. Mr. Santora told Mr. Kaplan he had once "done things" with Mr. Eppolito, and that Mr. Eppolito and his partner, Mr. Caracappa, were "capable guys," the government says. When Mr. Kaplan got out of jail, he remembered Mr. Santora and his "capable guys", and in 1986, the government contends, he asked the three for help.


Summary: Mitra Hormozi told the jury that Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa had found their way onto Anthony Casso's payroll through a go-between named Burton Kaplan, a wholesale clothier turned drug dealer, who had met Mr. Eppolito's cousin Frank Santora Jr. in jail. Mr. Santora told Mr. Kaplan he had once "done things" with Mr. Eppolito, and that Mr. Eppolito and his partner, Mr. Caracappa, were "capable guys" according to the government. When Mr. Kaplan got out of jail, he remembered Mr. Santora and his "capable guys", and in 1986, the government contends, he asked the three for help.


Summary: Pauline Pipitone's son, Nicholas Guido, was out on the street, showing his uncle the bright red Nissan Maxima he had bought two months before. Mr. Guido, 26, an innocent man who was shot, had the bad luck of sharing a name with a mob assassin who had tried to kill Anthony Casso a few weeks before that fatal Christmas Day. Mitra Hormozi told the jury that Mr. Casso had asked the two detectives for help in tracking down his attempted killers, and that they used their roles as lawmen to find Mr. Guido's house in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, but got the wrong man.


Summary: It was Christmas Day 1986, and Pauline Pipitone was washing the dishes. Suddenly, Ms. Pipitone testified, the door burst open, and in flew Uncle Anthony.


Summary: The first day of testimony went in the racketeering trial of Louis J. Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, which opened yesterday in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. In crisp opening arguments, a federal prosecutor, Mitra Hormozi, contended that Mr. Eppolito, 57, and Mr. Caracappa, 64, lent the power of their badges to a murderous Luchese family gangster, who corrupted them with monthly payments of $4,000 and employed them as his spies and the executors of his wrath. Ms. Hormozi told the jury that Mr. Eppolito and Mr. Caracappa had found their way onto Mr. Casso's payroll through a go-between named Burton Kaplan, a wholesale clothier turned drug dealer, who had met Mr. Eppolito's cousin Frank Santora Jr. in jail.


Summary: Geophysicists with the United States Geological Survey now say they have a good idea of precisely what was going on.


Summary: Charles W. Wicks, the lead author of the study, said that it could give a pretty good idea down to the subcentimeter level of what parts of the earth are going up or down. Dr. Wicks said the best model involved magma rising to within 10 miles of the surface at a spot in the caldera called Sour Creek dome. Dr. Wicks also said that it was like a pillow down there that fluffs up and caused the surface to rise.


Summary: Kevin Quinn, a spokesman for Governor Pataki, said the donations did not influence state actions. He said that any decisions that they made were based solely on the merits, on sound public policy and on what was in the best interest of New Yorkers.


Summary: Stephen M. Ross of the Related Companies, one of the developers chosen by the Pataki administration to turn the main post office in Manhattan into a new transit hub; and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, a Washington-based law firm that has won large lobbying contracts from the state in recent years. The donation from Mr. Ross and the Related Companies was made on March 3, a few days before Mr. Pataki was released from the hospital. Mr. Ross did not return a call seeking comment for this article.


Summary: George E. Pataki's Virginia-based political action committee has received three $25,000 contributions so far this year from groups with interests before New York State government, campaign filings show. The governor canceled a public appearance with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg that day, but later went to a book party for Edward Hayes, a prominent lawyer who has published a memoir. The donation from Mr. Ross and the Related Companies was made on March 3, a few days before Mr. Pataki was released from the hospital.


Summary: The large donations were made by the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, which is seeking changes to the governor's proposed budget; Stephen M. Ross of the Related Companies, one of the developers chosen by the Pataki administration to turn the main post office in Manhattan into a new transit hub; and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, a Washington-based law firm that has won large lobbying contracts from the state in recent years.


Summary: According to the calculations of George V. Sweeting, a city tax expert, even if neither the increase nor the rebate had occurred, the average tax bill would have increased to $2,346 this year from $1,849 in 2003. The average Class 1 tax bill this year is $2,365, factoring in the rebate, only $19 more than if neither the increase nor the rebate had ever happened, according to Mr. Sweeting, a deputy director at the budget office who oversees tax policy research.


Summary: Councilman David I. Weprin of Queens, who presided the hearing, reacted with astonishment.


Summary: Martha E. Stark, the finance commissioner, said that the $400 tax rebated that most city homeowners received each of the last two years. Ms. Stark testified at the Council hearing that the complexity and inconsistency of the state property tax laws made it difficult for them to administer the tax in a way that is transparent and fair, adding that the 1981 system contains several inconsistent and sometimes conflicting provisions. That complexity helps to explain why her comments were met with such surprise.


Summary: Mr. Wolfensohn, the former head of the World Bank, was appointed the envoy of the so-called quartet -- the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations to oversee Israel's pullout from Gaza last August and to help the Palestinians make Gaza a success through investment and job creation.


Summary: Mr. Wolfensohn also thought  it would be irresponsible to keep it open further without a clear quartet decision on policy toward the Palestinian Authority in the current circumstances. Israel is already withholding money due the Palestinians because of the Hamas election, but the United States and European Union, which consider Hamas a terrorist organization, expect to be forced to withhold much of their current aid to the Palestinian Authority once a Hamas-led government is installed. Although officials have suggested that they should continue to aid ordinary Palestinians while bypassing Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, there is no consensus on how to do it.


Summary: In another indication of international confusion over how to deal with a new Palestinian government led by the radical Islamic group Hamas, the Middle East envoy of the main Western nations involved in the dormant peace process, James. D. Wolfensohn, told his staff on Saturday that without a clear mandate on a policy toward Hamas. Mr. Wolfensohn said he had agreed to extend his work another month, through April, to avoid giving the wrong signal by shutting down his office just after the Israeli election on March 28.


Summary: Mr. Wolfensohn said he had agreed to extend his work another month to avoid giving the wrong signal by shutting down his office just after the Israeli election on March 28. Mr. Wolfensohn, the former head of the World Bank, was appointed the envoy of the so-called quartet - the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations to oversee Israel's pullout from Gaza last August and to help the Palestinians make Gaza a success through investment and job creation. He said that the quartet had asked him to stay on for April and that he had agreed.


Summary: In another indication of international confusion over how to deal with a new Palestinian government led by the radical Islamic group Hamas, the Middle East envoy of the main Western nations involved in the dormant peace process, James. Although officials have suggested that they should continue to aid ordinary Palestinians while bypassing Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, there is no consensus on how to do it. Israel is already withholding money due the Palestinians because of the Hamas election, but the United States and European Union, which consider Hamas a terrorist organization, expect to be forced to withhold much of their current aid to the Palestinian Authority once a Hamas-led government is installed.


Summary: In this she was little different from the other ideologues whom President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney picked to fill most of the administration's important environmental posts. The White House has hacked unmercifully at key departmental programs including the vital Land and Water Conservation Fund, which Mr. Bush vowed to protect without audible complaint from the secretary. Norton has been an extraordinarily faithful steward of the Bush agenda, but not, we are sad to say, of the lands she was obliged to protect.


Summary: It has remained essentially untouched since 1963, when Mollie Orshansky, an economist at the Social Security Administration, first came up with it. She never expected that it would be used today as a trigger for billions of dollars in government spending. Her method was to use the cost of a nutritionally adequate diet as the basis for a cost-of-living estimate and to adjust for families of various sizes and compositions.


Summary: Douglas J. Besharov, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, said that everyone agreed they needed a better measure.


Summary: It was conducted by Mahesh Pritamani, a senior research analyst at the Frank Russell Company, and two finance professors at the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech: Dilip K. Shome and Vijay Singal. Professor Singal says he believes that a big reason for this trend is the increase in international diversification among the largest companies. Professor Singal acknowledges that the largest multinationals may not be completely immune to a dollar decline.


Summary: Sanford I. Weill, the chairman of Citigroup, belongs to Augusta National, the holy grail for golf-loving businessmen, with two of his fellow directors: Kenneth T. Derr, the former chief executive of Chevron, and George David, the chief executive of United Technologies.


Summary: Indeed, it was just such criticism that contributed to the departure of Mr. Mack's predecessor, Philip J. Purcell, who along with four of his own directors belonged to the Old Elm Club, an all-male enclave in the northern suburbs of Chicago. Like Mr. Purcell, Mr. Mack has recruited other directors, as well as executives, who are diverse in makeup and background, and share no recreational ties with the chairman.


Summary: Two of the four Frank C. Herringer, the former chief executive of Transamerica, and C. Preston Butcher, a real estate developer belong to Cypress Point, another elite golfing enclave that counts Mr. Schwab as a member.


Summary: Charles R. Schwab, the founder and chairman of Charles Schwab, has one of the better handicaps among chief executives and together with four of his directors is a member of the San Francisco Golf Club, one of the most exclusive in the country. Two of the four Frank C. Herringer, the former chief executive of Transamerica, and C. Preston Butcher, a real estate developer belong to Cypress Point, another elite golfing enclave that counts Mr. Schwab as a member.


Summary: John J. Mack began his effort to recruit and promote new talent at Morgan Stanley, he did not have to stray too far afield or off the fairway, for that matter. And, like Mr. Purcell, Mr. Mack has recruited other directors, as well as executives, who are diverse in makeup and background and share no recreational ties with the chairman. Mr. Mack, whose 15 handicap puts him in the middle of the pack of executives ranked by Golf Digest magazine, opposed the club's development.


Summary: John J. Mack began his effort to recruit and promote new talent at Morgan Stanley, he did not have to stray too far afield. For the Morgan Stanley chief executive, an enthusiastic golfer who has promised to restore some shine to the old Morgan Stanley name, the selections hark back to an era when the firm was one of Wall Street's most exclusive partnerships. In all, there are 10 independent directors on Morgan Stanley's board.


Summary: Now the membership roster includes James B. Lee Jr., vice chairman at J. P. Morgan; E. Stanley O'Neal, the chief executive of Merrill Lynch; and Richard S. Fuld Jr., the chief executive of Lehman Brothers.


Summary: There could be a time in the not-too-distant future when the black population is below half of the city population if this trend continues, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington research group. Atlanta's upward shift in its white population is atypical, Mr. Frey said.


Summary: David Bositis, a senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington group that studies black issues, said he viewed the change as largely positive.


Summary: Kwanza Hall is a young black politician from the rapidly gentrifying Old Fourth Ward, a neighborhood that is part of a mostly white City Council district that includes affluent areas like Inman Park. But in the last election, Mr. Hall, who ran his campaign from a year-old coffee shop next to a soon-to-open men's spa, defeated two whites for an open seat.


Summary: William Boone, a political science professor at Clark Atlanta University, a predominantly African-American institution said they were talking about an era in which we see a conservative trend among certain sectors of the black community.


Summary: Mayor Shirley Franklin, who is serving her second and final term, plays down the significance of the change, saying that the city, now 54 percent black, will remain progressive and that voters here do not strictly adhere to racial lines. Ms. Franklin recently tried to impose a moratorium on McMansions, new houses bloated far beyond the size of their older neighbors. But critics say Mayor Franklin and her predecessor, Bill Campbell, betrayed their voter base by not doing enough to keep Atlanta affordable for poor blacks. Ms. Franklin, who has received high marks for restoring credibility to the city government and was re-elected in 2005 with 91 percent of the vote.


Summary: Critics say Mayor Franklin and her predecessor, Bill Campbell, betrayed their voter base by not doing enough to keep Atlanta affordable for poor blacks as property taxes increase and landlords sell out to developers.


Summary: Judge, Jeremy Fogel, required that the state use only barbiturates, rather than the ordinary three-drug potion, to assure that the condemned man would not suffer undue pain. To make certain, Judge Fogel also demanded that a medical professional supervise the injection of the drug dose. What led Judge Fogel to order a change in the procedure was evidence from witnesses and autopsies that the first drug, sodium thiopental, might not have been given properly or in a sufficient dose in some cases, leaving the inmate awake when the other drugs were administered and causing great pain. Judge Fogel said in a ruling that earlier decisions he issued in the case had been misinterpreted by the news media as raising questions about the constitutionality of lethal injection or the death penalty itself.


Summary: James A. McNamara, a spokesman at the union's headquarters in Manhattan said the porters who carry passengers' suitcases onto cruise ships on the West Side are longshoremen, he said. But Mr. McNamara said the union's members, who routinely work for companies based overseas, had no specific objections to the sale, only concerns about the role of the Dubai government.


Summary: James A. McNamara said that we don't think it's unreasonable to just review everything again and have the Bush administration reveal to the American people the exact nature of the background check and the security check to relieve the fears that are out there.


Summary: One of those workers, Pasquale Petrecca, 31, said he was not too concerned about who owns the companies that run the terminals.


Summary: Michael J. S. Seymour, president of P & O Ports, whose headquarters are in Iselin, N.J. assures that the change in ownership in no way changes who will be dealing with the day-to-day aspects of security. But those assurances have not doused the firestorm in Washington over what has been portrayed by several Congressional leaders as a foreign government taking over America's ports.


P & O Ports North America
P & O Ports
P & O

Summary: In interviews, port officials and executives with P & O Ports North America, a subsidiary of the British company, and other terminal operators said that while the Dubai-owned company would take on some security matters, for the most part the change in ownership would have little effect on the day-to-day life of the port. At the Port of New York and New Jersey, as at other big American ports, the heavy lifting is done by members of the International Longshoremen's Association who are not employees of P & O Ports or its competitors. For now, P & O Ports operates container terminals at Port Newark and other big ports, including Baltimore, Philadelphia and New Orleans, as well as the passenger cruise-ship terminal in Manhattan.


Summary: The busy, noisy docks were just about the only place where the escalating debate over Dubai Ports World's acquisition of a British port operator did not drown out the central questions of just what a terminal operator does and how much responsibility it bears for security. The union added its voice this week to the calls for a rigorous investigation of Dubai Ports World and how it would operate in America. In New Jersey, Dubai Ports World would provide stevedoring services and operate half of the Port Newark Container Terminal, which is the third-largest of six container terminals around New York harbor.


Summary: The leader of the Hamas faction in parliament, Mahmoud Zahar, said that there is an intention by all factions to participate in the coming government, including the brothers in Fatah.


Summary: In Cairo, the leader of Israel's Labor Party, Amir Peretz, asked Muslims to understand that Israel could not deal with Hamas. He told reporters it's a clear, moral position that we cannot recognize a party that calls for Israel's destruction, after meeting with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.


Summary: Fatah insists that Hamas accept Mr. Abbas's program of negotiations with Israel and only peaceful resistance to Israeli occupation.


Summary: A senior Iranian official pledged on Wednesday to provide financial support to a Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority, which is already in budget trouble and facing more aid cuts. Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, referring to the Palestinian Authority, said that they will definitely help this government financially in order to resist America's cruelty. Israel has blocked $50 million a month in customs and tax receipts collected for the Palestinian Authority, causing a monthly deficit of $110 million.


Summary: In Cairo, the leader of Israel's Labor Party, Amir Peretz, asked Muslims to understand that Israel could not deal with Hamas.


Summary: Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, referring to the Palestinian Authority, said that they will definitely help this government financially in order to resist America's cruelty. He spoke in Tehran after meeting with the senior Hamas leader, Khaled Meshal, but provided no details or figures about what kind or level of support oil-affluent Iran would give. Mr. Larijani said on Wednesday that America showed that it is not after democracy in the region after it cut its financial aid to Palestine even after Hamas was elected by popular vote. The United States has not yet cut its aid, but has announced a review, while demanding that the Palestinian Authority return $50 million it got last year to improve infrastructure, but that has gone almost entirely unspent for that purpose, after Israel pulled out of Gaza.


Summary: He spoke in Tehran after meeting with the senior Hamas leader, Khaled Meshal, but provided no details or figures about what kind or level of support oil-affluent Iran would give. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, who has called for Israel to be wiped off the map, hinted Monday after meeting Mr. Meshal that Iran would provide overt funding. He told Mr. Meshal that since the divine treasures were infinite, he  should not be concerned about economic issues.


Summary: A senior Iranian official pledged to provide financial support to a Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority, which is already in budget trouble and facing more aid cuts. The United States and Israel say Iran already helps to finance Hamas, though the Iranians deny it. European Union and United Nations officials are talking about seeing the Hamas government's program before cutting off money. Mahmoud Zahar, the leader of the Hamas faction in parliament, said, there is an intention by all factions to participate in the coming government, including the brothers in Fatah.


Summary: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, who has called for Israel to be wiped off the map, hinted Monday after meeting Mr. Meshal that Iran would provide overt funding. He told Mr. Meshal that since the divine treasures were infinite, he should not be concerned about economic issues.


Summary: Erik Hurst, an economist at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago, said all time away from work is not equal.


Summary: Using several different definitions of leisure, Professor Hurst and Mark A. Aguiar, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, analyzed time-use surveys done from 1965 to 2003. Some of that new leisure time undoubtedly comes from involuntary unemployment, but, Mr. Aguiar noted that these men are not spending it doing chores.


Summary: Erik Hurst, an economist at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago, said in an interview, that all time away from work is not equal. If one spends their off-hours cooking, Professor Hurst suggested that when they get richer, they can buy a microwave or order takeout. That seems to be what has happened over the last few decades. Using several different definitions of leisure, Professor Hurst and Mark A. Aguiar, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, analyzed time-use surveys done from 1965 to 2003.


Summary: The defense lawyer pushed Ms. Rieker to admit that directors had blessed the actions of Mr. Lay and the former chief executive, Jeffrey K. Skilling, that were related to financial structures set up by Andrew S. Fastow, the chief financial officer. Ms. Rieker, tried to rebut her earlier testimony that Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling had sought to mislead investors and had ignored pleas to provide more accurate information. Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling are accused of conspiring to defraud Enron by lying to investors about the financial results of Enron's businesses.


Fastow
Andy
Andrew S. Fastow
Andy Fastow.

Summary: The founder of Enron, Kenneth L. Lay pushed Paula H. Rieker to admit that directors had blessed the actions of Mr. Lay and the former chief executive, Jeffrey K. Skilling, that were related to financial structures set up by Andrew S. Fastow, the chief financial officer. The defense lawyer repeatedly pushed her to acknowledge that her notes showed that directors continued to believe that Mr. Fastow's stewardship of the LJM partnership, from which he personally made more than $40 million, was appropriate and had been properly vetted when it was set up in 1999. According to notes taken by Ms. Rieker, one director, John Duncan, said that a clear Chinese wall has been in place and directors did not know about Mr. Fastow's compensation from the transactions.


Summary: Mr. Collins pushed Ms. Rieker to recall the comment of one Enron manager at a heated managers' meeting on Oct. 22, 2001, that Mr. Fastow's LJM and Raptors financing structures were so stupid they could only have come from Andy Fastow. Ms. Mr. Collins asked Ms. Rieker why she would commend someone if she really believed he was involved in wrongdoing.


Summary: For the first time in the four-week trial of two former Enron executives, the actions of the company's directors in a critical month in 2001 came under scrutiny during a cross-examination. Rieker is a former managing director in investor relations who served as corporate secretary in the three months before Enron collapsed into bankruptcy in December 2001. Rieker continued to claim that she had told Mr. Lay that he was putting out misleading information about aspects of Enron's operations but that he continued to do so anyway. Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling are accused of conspiring to defraud Enron by lying to investors about the financial results of Enron's businesses.


Summary: Herbert Winokur, the chairman of the finance committee of the Enron board, said that his interpretation of many of those statements was that they were being made to support the board's previous decisions now that they were being challenged.


Summary: The scrutiny came as a defense lawyer for the founder of Enron, Kenneth L. Lay, sought to defuse testimony from a former corporate secretary, Paula H. Rieker. He pushed her to admit that directors had blessed the actions of Mr. Lay and the former chief executive, Jeffrey K. Skilling, that were related to financial structures set up by Andrew S. Fastow, the chief financial officer. Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling are accused of conspiring to defraud Enron by lying to investors about the financial results of Enron's businesses.


Summary: The scrutiny came as a defense lawyer for the founder of Enron, Kenneth L. Lay, sought to defuse testimony from a former corporate secretary, Paula H. Rieker. Rieker tried to rebut her earlier testimony that Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling had sought to mislead investors and had ignored pleas to provide more accurate information. Rieker continued to claim that she had told Mr. Lay that he was putting out misleading information about aspects of Enron's operations but that he continued to do so anyway. Rieker on an e-mail message she wrote in November 2001 praising Mr. Lay's leadership as invaluable. She sent the note on the day an Enron rival, Dynegy, announced plans to acquire Enron, which was once the nation's seventh-largest company.


Summary: Rieker, one director, John Duncan, said that a clear Chinese wall has been in place and directors did not know about Mr. Fastow's compensation from the transactions.


Summary: Rieker to recall the comment of one Enron manager at a heated managers' meeting on Oct. 22, 2001, that Mr. Fastow's LJM and Raptors financing structures were so stupid they could only have come from Andy Fastow.


Summary: Officials at Harvard University faced a divided campus along with fear that a search for a new president could put in limbo ambitious plans for an expansive new campus in Boston, an overhaul of undergraduate studies and a fund-raising campaign for $5 billion or more. The idea that Harvard had arrived at some indeterminate crossroads was reinforced by the fact that the university's governing corporation had turned to a soothing elder former Harvard President Derek C. Bok, who served from 1971 to 1991 to take over on July 1 on an interim basis. Harvard announced plans last week for a 500,000-square-foot science complex and a temporary museum space in Boston, across the Charles River from the Cambridge, Mass., campus.


Summary: One day after Lawrence H. Summers announced he was resigning as president in a standoff with the prestigious Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the campus seemed torn anew. Dr. Summers had been widely seen as a president who would serve 10, maybe 20, years and usher in landmark changes. Dr. Summers had also been expected to lead a $5 billion fund-raising campaign. Dr. Summers, an economist, had sought a major revision that he hoped would set a standard in American education. Some of his critics insisted that the school's governing corporation, concerned by his eroding support among faculty, pushed him out, despite his assertion that the decision was his own.


Summary: The Faculty of Arts and Sciences which led the rebellion against Dr. Summers may be without a permanent dean this summer, officials said, because Dr. Summers is not expected to pick a successor to the current dean, William C. Kirby. Dean Kirby announced his resignation last month under pressure from Dr. Summers. Dr. Kirby, who will remain as dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences through June 30, still intends to seek approval of the curriculum this semester.


Summary: One day after Lawrence H. Summers announced he was resigning as president in a standoff with the prestigious Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Harvard campus seemed torn anew. Harvard's largest school, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences which led the rebellion against Dr. Summers may be without a permanent dean because Dr. Summers is not expected to pick a successor to the current dean, William C. Kirby.


Summary: I.B.M., Oracle, Sun Microsystems and six other companies submitted a formal complaint to the European Commission, claiming that Microsoft continues to abuse its dominant position in the software market in spite of a 2004 European antitrust ruling against it. The European Commission says Microsoft has not complied with its antitrust ruling, and is threatening to fine the company as much as 2 million euros ($2.4 million) a day. The commission's spokesman for antitrust issues, Jonathan Todd, said competition officials would examine the new complaint carefully.


Summary: The other companies behind the complaint are Nokia, Red Hat, RealNetworks, Opera, Corel and Linspire.


Summary: Thomas Vinje, a partner in the Brussels office of the law firm Clifford Chance, said that open-source desktop operating system manufacturers had effectively been kept at bay by the lack of interoperability of the Office applications. Mr. Vinje said that they were well aware of the XML standardization initiative, and they reached the conclusion that it didn't solve the problem we are complaining about.


Summary: Microsoft's antitrust battle in Europe intensified Wednesday when some of its biggest rivals, I.B.M., Oracle, Sun Microsystems and six other companies, Nokia, Red Hat, RealNetworks, Opera, Corel and Linspire, filed a new complaint against it, accusing the company of a wide range of antitrust abuses.


Summary: I.B.M., Oracle, Sun Microsystems and six other companies submitted a formal complaint to the European Commission on Wednesday, claiming that Microsoft continues to abuse its dominant position in the software market in spite of a 2004 European antitrust ruling against it. It dismissed the trade association as a front for I.B.M. and a few other competitors adding that when faced with innovation.


Microsoft Office
Star Office
Microsoft
Office

Summary: The complaint focuses on the Microsoft Office bundle of applications, which includes the PowerPoint software, made for use in public presentations. The Office bundle of software applications are especially important to businesses and its inability to work smoothly with applications like those in Star Office software and has prevented rivals from gaining a foothold in the market for desktop operating systems. Microsoft has submitted Office 12 to Ecma International, the industry standards body, to be registered as a standard software format interoperable with all rivals.


Summary: Microsoft has submitted Office 12 to Ecma International, the industry standards body, to be registered as a standard software format interoperable with all rivals.


Summary: Thomas Vinje, a partner in the Brussels office of the law firm Clifford Chance, said that open-source desktop operating system manufacturers have effectively been kept at bay by the lack of interoperability of the Office applications.


Summary: Simon Awde, chairman of the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, said that day's complaint brought to the European Commission's attention anticompetitive Microsoft practices in a growing number of areas.


Summary: After a two-day stay in India, Mr. Bush is to travel to Pakistan to meet with its president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Mr. Bush praised Pakistan as an important ally in fighting terrorism and also said the country still had some distance to travel on the road to democracy.


Summary: President Bush said in a speech to the Asia Society at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington that this is not an easy decision for India, nor is it an easy decision for the United States, and implementing this agreement will take time and it will take patience for both our countries.


Summary: Representative Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency said that if India is allowed to have a nuclear program that is half safeguarded and half not, it will be ridiculed as half-baked and would make a mockery of the I.A.E.A. and of the Nonproliferation Treaty. Mr. Markey is a leading opponent in Congress of the nuclear agreement.


Summary: The agreement, reached in July 2005 with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, would permit India to buy nuclear fuel and reactor components from the United States and other countries and would allow international inspections of its civilian program.


Summary: President Bush pressed India to move more aggressively to separate its civilian and military nuclear programs so that a faltering nuclear agreement between the United States and India might win the approval of a skeptical Congress and America's nuclear-armed allies. Mr. Bush said in a speech to the Asia Society that this was not an easy decision for India, nor was it an easy decision for the United States, and implementing this agreement would take time and it would take patience for both our countries. Mr. Bush also said that he would continue to encourage India to produce a credible, transparent and defensible plan to separate its civilian and military nuclear programs.


Summary: The lawsuit, filed in New Jersey Superior Court in Newark, lays out a scheme by several hedge funds to send research reports, all negative to Camelback, an independent investment research firm based in Arizona now known as Gradient Analytics. Camelback would wait for the hedge funds to accumulate a short position on the stock a technique that allows traders to make money if the stock price falls and then Camelback would release the report. As a result of the reports of Camelback, shares of Biovail stock fell more than 50 percent. Biovail also accuses Camelback of holding up the release of its reports to allow clients to build meaningful positions in stocks to maximize the benefit of the negative impact from the report and contends that the research firm misrepresented to clients that it did not manage money.


Summary: The complaint, which seeks damages of $4.6 billion, lists 22 defendants, including Steven A. Cohen, the founder of SAC; various of his affiliate funds and their employees and the Gerson Lehrman Group, a company based in New York that connects investors with experts in fields like pharmaceuticals. The lawsuit accuses the Gerson Lehrman Group and other defendants of paying two doctors in 2003 to give false information to reporters suggesting Biovail had set up a program to bribe them to prescribe a Biovail drug.


Summary: Last year, Citigroup sold its fund division to Legg Mason, and Morgan Stanley came close to reaching a similar deal with BlackRock this year before talks collapsed over the issue of which firm would control the combined business.


Summary: It's billions. His decision, he said, which was based exclusively on pressure from President Vladimir V. Putin on any business that does not accept his authoritarianism. In politics, he helped propel Mr. Putin to the presidency in 2000. But after his election, Mr. Putin began a campaign of tax claims against a group of rich and powerful Russians, including Mr. Berezovsky, and the two are now foes.


Patarkatsishvili
Badri Patarkatsishvili
Badri

Summary: Mr. Berezovsky said his partner, who is Badri Patarkatsishvili, a Georgian citizen who is also wanted in Russia, would buy him out, though Mr. Berezovsky did not say for how much. After that, Mr. Patarkatsishvili worried about mounting political risk, said by Mr. Berezovsky. Mr. Patarkatsishvili, who lives in Tbilisi, Georgia, is wanted by Russia for reportedly trying to break an associate out of prison five years ago.


Berezovsky
Boris A. Berezovsky
Boris
Boris Yeltsin

Summary: Boris A. Berezovsky, is a self-exiled Russian tycoon, said that he would sell his remaining business interests to a partner, to free them from what he called unrelenting political pressure from the Kremlin. Mr. Berezovsky, at one time Russia's richest man, is wanted by Russian authorities, who accuse him of fraud and other offenses. He has been living in Britain, where he was granted political asylum.


Summary: Steve Diller, is director of the Center for Animal Behavior and Canine Training in Elmsford, New York, said it was a good idea to get a dog trained in the presence of other dogs. Mr. Diller said that if you just train it in your kitchen, you'll have a highly trained dog in your kitchen. In comparison, Mr. Diller's school charges about $350 for a six-week program of one-hour obedience classes.


Summary: Diane Whitney, who is the president of the Certification Council for Pet Dog Trainers, a nonprofit organization said that anyone can take a puppy to puppy class and said that, it was fun, and he will be a dog trainer. Whitney's group is trying to change that by certifying dog trainers. Whitney said, about 1,000 trainers have been certified since the organization was established in 2001; they are listed on the Website www.ccpdt.org.


Summary: Dr. Daniel G. Schultz, who is the director of the Center for Devices and Radiological Health at the agency, kept moving the application along and eventually decided to approve it, as said by the report. Dr. Schultz could not be reached for comment, but Susan Bro, an spokeswoman of F.D.A., said the device had been approved because many people with persistent depression are otherwise on their way to institutionalization, because of the seriousness of their illness.


Summary: The scientists at the Food and Drug Administration repeatedly and unanimously recommended rejecting the application of its maker, Cyberonics Inc., to sell it as such a treatment, said the report, written by the staff of the Senate Finance Committee. That approval did follow the backing of a divided F.D.A. advisory committee.


Summary: The scientists at the Food and Drug Administration repeatedly and unanimously recommended rejecting the application of its maker, that is Cyberonics Inc., to sell it as such a treatment, said the report, written by the staff of the Senate Finance Committee. When some epilepsy patients reported that their moods had changed after receiving the devices, Cyberonics, based in Houston, implanted them in 235 depressed patients and turned the machines on in half of them. Cyberonics then turned the devices on in all 235 patients and determined that 30 percent showed significant improvement after six months or more.


Summary: The first report was released in April 2002, when the city was reeling from the 9/11 attacks and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who was newly elected, faced astonishing deficits. In contrast, the preliminary budget Mr. Bloomberg released last month, at the start of his second term, projects a $3.3 billion surplus, driven by taxes on real estate transactions, personal income and business profits. Mr. Bloomberg rejected the idea, but months later, New Jersey enacted just such a tax in its budget.


Summary: The potential benefit to the Siegel and Herson household from the appropriations could set off Senate rules governing conflicts of interest. Vicki Siegel Herson, who until recently was Mr. Specter's legislative assistant on the Appropriations Committee, is married to Michael Herson, a top executive of the lobbying firm American Defense International.


Summary: Executives of three other companies like Gestalt, Power + Energy, and Gentex, approached Mr. Specter's office personally, as sais by his spokesman.


Vicki Siegel
Herson
Michael Herson
Vicki Siegel Herson
Siegel

Summary: Vicki Siegel Herson, who was Mr. Specter's legislative assistant on the Appropriations Committee, is married to Michael Herson, a top executive of the lobbying firm American Defense International. Siegel had a role in helping her husband's clients receive millions of dollars is coming to light at time when recent scandals have drawn new scrutiny to lobbyists' influence on Capitol Hill.


Congressional Research Service
Congressional
Congress

Summary: The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service recently said that the number of earmarks climbed last year to 15,877 items with a value of $47.4 billion from 4,126 with a total value of $23.2 billion in 1994.


Summary: A third, Universal Space Network, of Horsham, Pennsylvania, worked through the firm Capitol Resource Group.


Summary: Senator Arlen Specter defended himself and a member of his staff after the disclosure that clients of a lobbyist married to the staff member had received money through the senator's actions. Vicki Siegel Herson, who until recently was Mr. Specter's legislative assistant on the Appropriations Committee, is married to Michael Herson, a top executive of the lobbying firm American Defense International. Mr. Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, and his staff confirmed that six of Mr. Herson's clients received a total of about $50 million over the last four years through items Mr. Specter inserted into military appropriations bills in a process known as ''earmarking.'' The earmarks were first reported Thursday in USA Today.


Summary: A call for Hamas to re declaration of its past positions came last month from the United States and its partners in the so-called Quartet and Russia, the United Nations and the European Union which has overseen Middle East negotiations since 2002. Where the American administration is issuing warnings, the European Union hopes for a solution that would avert a confrontation with the West. On Thursday, for example, Javier Solana, who is the top foreign policy envoy of the European Union, said in Ramallah, the provisional Palestinian capital that he wished to underline that the European Union will not abandon the Palestinian people.


Summary: The Bush administration is trying to maintain a united front with its European and Arab allies to stick to a warning to cut off financial aid to the Palestinian Authority if Hamas does not declare again its anti-Israel positions, American officials as said Thursday. Secretary Rice repeated this week that the Bush administration did not wish to damage the welfare of Palestinians and would continue food and maintenance aid, presumably including aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, which gets about $85 million a year from the United States.


Summary: A call for Hamas to renounce its past positions came last month from the United States and its partners in the so-called Quartet. Russia, the United Nations and the European Union which has overseen Middle East negotiations since 2002.


Summary: The Bush administration is struggling to maintain a united front with its European and Arab allies to stick to a warning to cut off financial aid to the Palestinian Authority if Hamas does not renounce its anti-Israel positions, American officials. A trip to the Middle East next week by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is intended in part to make sure that Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations do not try to make up the difference if the West cuts off its portion of the $1 billion a year of outside assistance that has kept the Palestinian Authority suspended.


Summary: Three former top executives at a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary, the General Reinsurance Corporation, and a former senior executive of the American International Group requested not guilty to federal fraud and conspiracy charges. The defendants are Ronald E. Ferguson, the former chief executive of General Re; who is Elizabeth A. Monrad, the company's former chief financial officer; who is Robert D. Graham, a former assistant general counsel; and M. Christian Milton, the former head of reinsurance at A.I.G. The charges against the four stem from a two-part reinsurance transaction, which was executed in 2000 and 2001, that federal prosecutors have called a sham, intended to inflate A.I.G.'s financial position and mislead investors.


Summary: Even among the countless bits of gimmickry taking up space on the Internet, the ads for Pherotones did look a little fake. the ad holder promised that experiencing the ring tone secretly that he discovered in Denmark that's too hot for mainstream science, as he is directing visitors to a Web site, pherotones.com. But rather than the revolutionary product that Pherotones promised, the ads were the beginning of a buzz marketing campaign under the guise of a fake product (Pherotones) and a fake doctor whose name is (Dr. Myra Vanderhood) with a fake Web site (Pherotones.com), all for a real client with less than $250,000 to spend.


Summary: Oasys, based in Raleigh, N.C., enlisted the advertising firm McKinney & Silver, in Durham, N.C., to introduce its brand inexpensively, with a nontraditional campaign that it hoped would grab the attention of its desired 18-to-24-year-old demographic. So McKinney manufactured the idea of Pherotones, enlisting an actress to play the part of Dr. Vanderhood, the fictional Danish spokeswoman pictured in the ads for Pherotones. McKinney also hired the Viral Factory, an agency in London that specializes in viral campaigns, to create a video that they hoped would spread around the Web.


Summary: The real client is Oasys Mobile, a little-known cellphone content provider that sells games, cellphone wallpaper and ring tones that can be downloaded. Oasys, based in Raleigh, N.C., enlisted the advertising firm McKinney & Silver, in Durham, N.C., to introduce its brand inexpensively, with a nontraditional campaign that it hoped would grab the attention of its desired 18-to-24-year-old demographic.


Pherotone
Pherotones.com
Pherotones
Pherotones Web

Summary: Even among the countless bits of gimmickry taking up space on the Internet, the ads for Pherotones did look a little fake. Directing visitors to a Web site, pherotones.com, the ad promised the experience of the ring tone secret, the company discovered in Denmark that's too hot for mainstream science. But rather than the revolutionary product that Pherotones promised, the ads were the beginning of a buzz marketing campaign under the guise of a fake product (Pherotones) and a fake doctor (Dr. Myra Vanderhood) with a fake Web site (Pherotones.com), all for a real client with less than $250,000 to spend.


Summary: In 2004, Volvo ran ads in European car magazines claiming that 32 people in Dalaro, a small village in Sweden, all bought Volvo S40 sedans on a single day, more than the local Volvo dealer would typically sell in a year. A short video posted on the town and the sale on Volvo's Web site became an Internet cult phenomenon in Europe, with more than 400,000 people visiting the Web site in the first six weeks. The Mystery of Dalaro campaign resulted in impressive sales figures; in the first half of 2004, Volvo sold double the number of S40's it had sold in the first half of 2003.


Summary: Gary Ban, the chief executive for Oasys Mobile, said that the consumers in that target demographic do not want in-your-face marketing, rather they wanted something that is risqué, funny and something that involves the consumer. He also said that raising the ire of people who initially believed in the power of Pherotones is simply a negative consequence of the whole effort and that one runs the risk in any campaign like this that you might offend somebody.


Summary: Marian Salzman, the executive vice president of JWT, said that nearly 80 percent of marketers spend money on buzz marketing. When asked how the company judge the effectiveness of the campaign, she replied by saying that it is assessed in the same way any other ad campaign is assessed. She also thinks that one measure it first in brand momentum and then in sales.


Summary: NASD will unveil today a financial education program it has developed exclusively for members of the armed forces and their families. According to NASD, more than $5 million of that settlement has been used to reimburse military customers for excessive sales charges they paid for the high-cost mutual funds sold to them by First Command. The remaining money was paid into the NASD Investor Education Foundation and earmarked for military financial education. The NASD foundation is also paying for 200 current or surviving military spouses to become accredited financial counselors under an unusual fellowship program it has developed in partnership with the National Military Family Association and the Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education.


Summary: In an unusual move for a highly charged case turning on fine points of law, Justice Carol R. Edmead of State Supreme Court in Manhattan ruled from the bench immediately after a long and at times raucous hearing in a suit brought by opponents of the $3.5 billion Atlantic Yards project. State law forbids developers to alter the site of any proposed project until it has been approved, but the law makes an exception for emergency actions. Justice Edmead said that there was no basis for challenging the agency's determination that Forest City Ratner's buildings merited the exception, and that the agency was under no obligation to obtain an independent engineering review. But in another decision, Justice Edmead found that a prominent environmental lawyer's earlier work on behalf of Forest City Ratner disqualified him from representing the Empire State Development Corporation in the Atlantic Yards case.


Summary: In an unusual move for a highly charged case turning on fine points of law, Justice Carol R. Edmead of State Supreme Court in Manhattan ruled from the bench immediately after a long and at times raucous hearing in a suit brought by opponents of the $3.5 billion Atlantic Yards project. But in another decision, Justice Edmead found that a prominent environmental lawyer's earlier work on behalf of Forest City Ratner disqualified him from representing the Empire State Development Corporation in the Atlantic Yards case. In December 2003, Forest City Ratner retained the lawyer, David Paget, to consult on environmental compliance for the Atlantic Yards project.


Summary: In December 2003, Forest City Ratner retained the lawyer, David Paget, to consult on environmental compliance for the Atlantic Yards project. A year later, after the development corporation assumed oversight of the project, it arranged for Mr. Paget to serve as outside counsel during the coming environmental review. When that review formally began in September 2005, Mr. Paget stopped advising Forest City Ratner on the project, although his firm, Sive, Paget & Riesel, continued to advise the developer on unrelated matters.


Forest City Ratner
Forest City Ratner Companies

Summary: The Forest City Ratner Companies, the developer of a proposed Brooklyn real estate project, can proceed with the demolition of six buildings it owns on the site, a state judge ruled yesterday. The demolitions were approved in December by the Empire State Development Corporation, the agency supervising the state's environmental review process, after Forest City Ratner officials said the buildings were in danger of collapse and posed an imminent threat to public safety. State law forbids developers to alter the site of any proposed project until it has been approved, but the law makes an exception for emergency actions. Justice Edmead said that there was no basis for challenging the agency's determination that Forest City Ratner's buildings merited the exception, and that the agency was under no obligation to obtain an independent engineering review.


Summary: The special commissioner of investigation for the city school system rebuked the Department of Education yesterday for allowing the principal of Brooklyn Technical High School to retire days before the completion of an investigation into his daughter's improper enrollment in a Brooklyn elementary school. The commissioner, Richard J. Condon, wrote that all objective evidence and information examined in this investigation leads to the conclusion that the McCaskills deceived the D.O.E. and obtained more than three years of free education for their daughter, which is reserved for residents of New York City. Department of Education officials said Mrs. McCaskill had been reassigned to a regional office and that the department would move to fire her.


Summary: Last week, when the department announced the agreement that he would retire, Carmen Fariña, the deputy chancellor for teaching and learning, praised his leadership of Brooklyn Tech, telling reporters that she wishes him well. She thinks he's done a lot of good in that school. Mr. Condon's investigation started in October, after the department's general counsel informed him of rumors that the McCaskills' daughter was improperly attending P.S. 29. It is a coveted school where Ms. Fariña herself taught for 22 years and sent her own daughters.


Summary: The commissioner, Richard J. Condon, included the criticism in a report describing a web of deception by the principal, Lee D. McCaskill, and his wife, a teacher at another Brooklyn school, to hide the fact that they lived in New Jersey. When faced with an investigation, Mr. Condon said, they gave contradictory testimony and submitted fake leases and other misleading documents to create the impression that they lived at the Brooklyn address. Mr. Condon said it was not prudent for education officials to enter into a settlement with Lee McCaskill before it could consider our findings. He said that since the Education Department did not wait for the investigation's results, we can only note that McCaskill should be placed on the ineligible list and barred from future employment in the city schools.


Mrs. McCaskill
McCaskill
McCaskills
Dr. McCaskill
Cathy Furman McCaskill
McCaskills'
Lee McCaskill

Summary: The commissioner, Richard J. Condon said it was not prudent for education officials to enter into a settlement with Lee McCaskill before it could consider our findings. He said that since the Education Department did not wait for the investigation's results, we can only note that McCaskill should be placed on the ineligible list and barred from future employment in the city schools. He also recommended that Dr. McCaskill's wife, Cathy Furman McCaskill, be dismissed from her position as a teacher at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn. Department of Education officials said Mrs. McCaskill had been reassigned to a regional office and that the department would move to fire her.


Summary: Investigators found that while the school listed the family as living at 606 Hancock Street in Brooklyn, voting and vehicle registration records showed they live in Piscataway, N.J. The Brooklyn address is the residence of Robin Kelly Sheares, a close family friend who is a lawyer.


Summary: James A. Farley Building is to be called Moynihan Station, after Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the senator who was its champion until his death in 2003. Some urban planners and preservationists also wonder whether an arena at the west end of the Farley building would overwhelm the very things that Senator Moynihan had sought to create, a train station that would allow Pennsylvania Station, which serves 550,000 commuters a day, to expand to the west and create a public space akin to Grand Central Terminal.


Summary: The owners of Madison Square Garden, the storied arena that is inextricably tied to the city's sports history, are close to an agreement with two developers to move one block west to a new $750 million home on Ninth Avenue, according to real estate executives and government officials. Under the proposed agreement, the Garden would move to the western half of the block-long James A. Farley Building, the post office that is being transformed into a $930 million transit hub to be a gateway to New York City. Moving the Garden to what would be its fifth home in 131 years would open up the possibility of transforming the dowdy site where the Garden now sits, on Eighth Avenue between 31st and 33rd Streets.


Summary: Under the proposed agreement, the Garden would move to the western half of the block-long James A. Farley Building, the post office that is being transformed into a $930 million transit hub to be a gateway to New York City. Robert D. Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association said that this project has to respect the integrity of the Farley Building and create a grand gateway to the city but it would be a big plus for the city and the region if we could also gain transit capacity and regain the amenities of the old Penn Station by moving the Garden. The owners of the Garden and the developers have been discussing the feasibility of the project for six months. The Farley is two structures: The original 1913 building, with the grand staircase on Eighth Avenue and two-block-long row of Corinthian columns, and an annex built in 1935.


Summary: The reporter, James Buckley, 50, of Brookhaven, who has worked for more than 20 years at WALK-FM (97.5), was arraigned on Tuesday morning in United States District Court in Central Islip. Allen Bode, an assistant United States attorney, said in a telephone interview that Mr. Buckley was caught trading pornography, including some hard-core material involving toddlers, with undercover agents in Germany and the United States. Mr. Buckley faces up to 19 years in federal prison if convicted.


Summary: In a victory for the Bloomberg administration, the state's highest court narrowly ruled yesterday that the mayor does not have to enforce city laws that he deems to be illegal. The ruling gives Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg a powerful weapon in that he does not have to enforce laws that the City Council passes through mayoral overrides, as it has often done in recent years. In siding with the mayor, the majority seemed to give legal standing for the first time to what has been a common, if disputed, practice in the Bloomberg administration, as well as previous mayoralties.


Summary: In that sense, the ruling was the latest skirmish in a 15-year struggle between mayors and the City Council over just how much power the 1989 City Charter revisions gave to each side.


Summary: In a 4-to-3 ruling, the State Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling that the mayor had the authority to refuse to enforce a 2004 law on domestic partner benefits that he said violated state and federal laws.


Summary: The ruling gives Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg a powerful weapon in that he does not have to enforce laws that the City Council passes through mayoral overrides, as it has often done in recent years. The City Council had pushed through the so-called equal benefits law over the mayor's veto. In that sense, the ruling was the latest skirmish in a 15-year struggle between mayors and the City Council over just how much power the 1989 City Charter revisions gave to each side.


Summary: The state's highest court, in a victory for the Bloomberg administration, narrowly ruled yesterday that the mayor does not have to enforce city laws that he deems to be illegal. The ruling gives Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg a powerful weapon in that he does not have to enforce laws that the City Council passes through mayoral overrides, as it has often done in recent years. In a 4-to-3 ruling, the State Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling that the mayor had the authority to refuse to enforce a 2004 law on domestic partner benefits that he said violated state and federal laws.


Summary: After trying for two years to obtain the records, New York State sued the E.P.A. on Tuesday, saying that the agency has violated the Freedom of Information Act by denying the state's repeated requests for the records detailing the levels of smog-causing compounds found in common household and industrial products like paints and varnishes. New York officials say the information should be made public, arguing that the agency, despite a request under the Freedom of Information Act, has not made a sincere effort to determine, as required by law, whether companies were making valid claims that the data was a trade secret.


Summary: As New York and other states grapple with the gradually tightening requirements of the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency is refusing to turn over records detailing the levels of smog-causing compounds found in common household and industrial products like paints and varnishes. After trying for two years to obtain the records, New York State sued the E.P.A. on Tuesday, saying that the agency has violated the Freedom of Information Act by denying the state's repeated requests for the records. In refusing to turn over the records, the E.P.A. appears to be siding with paint manufacturers, which have been battling in court to prevent state attempts to regulate their products.


Summary: In a statement on Tuesday, New York's attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, said that the state is entitled by law to this critical information so it can effectively implement its clean air programs to preserve public health. He added that the E.P.A. has no grounds on which to deny such a request. Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, is suing on behalf of the state's Department of Environmental Conservation, a branch of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California wrote a letter to President Bush asking him to preserve their ability to set stricter environmental rules.


Summary: The stalemate is the latest in a series pitting states, including those like New York and California, which have Republican governors, against the environmental policies of the Bush administration. The Bush administration has rejected such state moves. The new lawsuit comes as the Bush administration has come under criticism for restricting the flow of information on issues related to smog-forming pollutants and global warming emissions.


Summary: As New York and other states grapple with the gradually tightening requirements of the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency is refusing to turn over records detailing the levels of smog-causing compounds found in common household and industrial products like paints and varnishes. An E.P.A. spokesman, John R. Millett, said in a statement on Tuesday that the agency's intent is to provide New York with all the information it is entitled to. The agency is looking into the matter in order to provide the state a final response to its request.


Summary: In a statement on Tuesday, New York's attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, said that the state is entitled by law to this critical information so it can effectively implement its clean air programs to preserve public health. He added that the E.P.A. has no grounds on which to deny such a request. Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, is suing on behalf of the state's Department of Environmental Conservation, a branch of Gov. George E. Pataki's administration.


Summary: Last month, a top NASA scientist said that Bush administration officials were trying to censor his views on climate change.


Department of Environmental Conservation


Summary: The paint companies have been aided in the past by at least one influential friend, Senator George V. Voinovich, an Ohio Republican who personally appealed to the E.P.A. on behalf of Sherwin-Williams, based in Cleveland. A letter he wrote in October 2004 asked the agency to heed the industry's objections to allowing some states to tighten their regulations of volatile organic compounds.


Summary: As New York and other states grapple with the gradually tightening requirements of the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency is refusing to turn over records detailing the levels of smog-causing compounds found in common household and industrial products like paints and varnishes. Such volatile organic compounds are not only significant contributors to smog, but they have also been linked to a variety of health problems, including the rising asthma rates in cities like New York and Los Angeles. After trying for two years to obtain the records, New York State sued the E.P.A. on Tuesday, saying that the agency has violated the Freedom of Information Act by denying the state's repeated requests for the records.


Summary: Bruce Reingold, general manager of Hunts Point Cooperative Market, a wholesale meat market that serves about 200 tractor-trailers a day, said that food distributors in the Bronx saw their delivery operations brought to a crawl because of the snow, but most remained open or were closed for only a short time. He said that Sunday is a heavy day for us, because everyone's inventory runs low at the end of the week and they need deliveries.


Summary: The city's sanitation commissioner, John J. Doherty, said he was particularly concerned about removing the snow piles at 300,000 street corners and making sure that the adjacent sewer drains were clear. Mr. Doherty said his department gave building and property owners four hours after the end of the snowfall to clear their sidewalks. Only a very small number of summonses, if any, were issued to violators, he said, in part because his enforcement agents were being used to oversee squads of temporary workers hired to shovel snow for $10 an hour, or $15 after 40 hours.


Summary: Keeping Up With an Eruption It cannot hold a candle to Krakatoa, but Augustine, a volcano in the Cook Inlet, 170 miles southwest of Anchorage, has been erupting for the past month. And Augustine has something Krakatoa never had, monitoring over the Internet. Augustine has explosively erupted six times in the past two centuries, the last time in 1986.


Summary: Volcano's Cold, Cold Shadow The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia ranks among the most powerful volcanic blasts in history. Krakatoa's reputation hardly needs burnishing, but Peter J. Gleckler of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and his colleagues have done so anyway. The findings, published in the journal Nature, show that Krakatoa immediately lowered ocean surface temperatures, as gases and dust from the eruption reduced the amount of sunlight hitting the earth.


Summary: Male marmosets and tamarins are known for being good parents, said the study's lead author, Toni E. Ziegler of the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center at the University of Wisconsin. The hormones involved were associated with paternal infant care, and Dr. Ziegler and colleagues at the center wondered whether they might affect the animals' bodies. In the monkeys, however, Dr. Ziegler said, hormones are probably at work. She said that if it is this hormone prolactin, which we suspect, it can actually change the metabolism of the monkey. She also said that the hormonal changes are most likely set off when the male detects some chemical produced by the pregnant female.


Summary: Mark Smith, the spokesman for the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said 15 families had already checked into an emergency shelter in Shreveport, a five-hour drive from New Orleans, and more than 100 people were on their way there.


Summary: In the largest single step in its phaseout of emergency housing assistance for victims of the hurricane, the Federal Emergency Management Agency ended the hotel payments for 12,000 families across the country, including 4,400 now living in New Orleans. FEMA, which is ending the program over the strenuous protests of Louisiana officials, says it is time for families to find a more permanent situation. Even on FEMA's housing Web site, the pickings were slim, only five two-bedroom apartments in the New Orleans area met the agency's budget of less than $800 a month.


Summary: Gary Martin, who worked as a waiter for 27 years at the Fairmont Hotel, said his benefits had been denied because, he was told, someone else had used the same phone number as he did. He said he and another man had rented rooms in the same house before the storm. Mr. Martin said that in a few weeks he would have earned enough doing asbestos removal to get an apartment without help from FEMA, he just needed some more time at the hotel.


Summary: Bryan Mauldin, president of From the Lake to the River, a FEMA watchdog group that aids victims of Hurricane Katrina, said that evacuees shouldn't have to come up with a permanent housing plan.


Summary: Donna Lee, 44, said she had also taken an apartment in Houston, but on Christmas Eve someone knocked on the door. Her 28-year-old son, the one who had kicked a hole through the roof to pull her out of rising water in New Orleans East, answered it, and the caller fatally shot him. She returned to New Orleans to bury her son, bringing his children with her.


Summary: Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said in what by this White House's standards was a forthright admission that it had been a rough couple of days, that one can always look back at these issues and look at how to do a better job. In one of two raucous news briefings, Mr. McClellan told reporters that he first learned in a 6 a.m. phone call on Sunday, some 12 hours after the accident, that Mr. Cheney had sprayed Mr. Whittington with his shotgun. Mr. McClellan said he had urged the vice president's office to get the information out ''as quickly as possible.'' But Mr. Cheney's office does not appear to have taken that advice.


Summary: The press secretary was in a verbal brawl with David Gregory of NBC, who repeatedly asked why the press corps did not learn of the Saturday shooting, which took place at 5:30 p.m., just minutes into Scott McClellan's early briefing. The exchange quickly escalated after Mr. McClellan told Mr. Gregory that the cameras aren't on right now and that he can do this later. Mr. Gregory retorted to not be a jerk to him personally. Mr. McClellan then asked David to calm down to which Mr. Gregory shot back saying that he'll calm down when he feels like calming down.


Summary: The vice president told the nation of the incident via Katharine Armstrong, a member of the hunting party and an owner of the Texas ranch where the accident occurred. Armstrong called her local newspaper, which is The Corpus Christi Caller-Times, and informed it of the shooting. Armstrong had informed the press corps through her local newspaper.


Whittington
Whittington.
Harry Whittington

Summary: Aside from Harry Whittington, who is 78-year-old Texas lawyer who was in stable condition after being peppered with shotgun pellets by Mr. Cheney, who is the person who had the worst time on Monday was Mr. McClellan. In one of two sharp news briefings, Mr. McClellan told reporters that he first learned in a 6 a.m. phone call on Sunday some 12 hours after the accident that Mr. Cheney had sprayed Mr. Whittington with his shotgun.


Summary: That was the question the White House grappled uncertainly with, after Dick Cheney made history as the second vice president to fire a gun at someone though accidentally in this case while in office. By the end of a bizarre day in Washington, with only Aaron Burr as a precedent and the late-night comedians and Cheney Internet shooting games going at it full force, the only answer for the White House seemed to be to run for cover.


Summary: Mr. McClellan could not say for certain, although he did say that Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, had informed Mr. Bush about an accident involving Mr. Cheney's hunting party


Summary: Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force, which is focused here at the corps' Engineer Research and Development Center, involves a byzantine system of checks and review, with hundreds of participants and dozens of organizations inside and outside of government.


Summary:
Donald Resio, a senior scientist at the center who will be reconciling the data from the physical and computational models, said It's not about being on the hook or off the hook Any effort from above to taint the results of the investigation, he said,
 it would be met with absolute rejection from everybody on this team. The ultimate goal, Dr. Resio said, is to learn how to make better flood control systems, not just in New Orleans but across the nation.


Summary: The Army Corps of Engineers is building the 13,000-square-foot model to try to recreate the conditions that occurred in Hurricane  and to help the agency figure out why things went so tragically worse.


Summary: Prof. John Logsdon, a member of the Columbia board , said  It seems to him any comprehensive investigation of a major failure should be looking at organizational as well as technical issues. Dr. Mlakar said organizational issues were not part of their charge , he also added that it has to be addressed by a lot of people with a lot broader perspective than what he bring to bear. He did not accept any comparison to the NASA report.


Summary: Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld asked the American Society of Civil Engineers to form a board to provide an external review of the data and analysis from the corps.


Summary: The combined work will, in turn, be reviewed by a panel drawn by the National Research Council.


Summary: Several council members were moved to less desirable seats , and Councilor James Sanders Jr. of Queens lost the chairmanship of the Economic Development Committee.


Summary: The City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, may have secured her position through secret deals with party bosses, but she is seeking to curb many of those same backroom tactics as a somewhat unexpected champion of government reform. she has proposed giving lawmakers more input on bills and hearings, which have historically been tightly controlled by the speaker. she has also called for broad changes in the budget process to promote more meaningful negotiations between the legislative and executive branches, and, in what may be her most ambitious effort yet, she has pledged to address abuses by lobbyists seeking to influence city officials an issue also raised by  Michael R. Bloomberg.


Summary: Peter F. Vallone Jr., the former Council speaker, said that in New York and elsewhere, the days of a few powerful officials making decisions behind closed doors are disappearing.


Summary: Councilman Joel Rivera, whose father, Jose, is the Bronx Democratic leader, was named the majority leader and also inherited the leadership role.


Summary: Several council members were moved to less desirable seats on the floor, and Councilman James Sanders Jr. of Queens lost the chairmanship of the Economic Development Committee. Mr. Sanders protested with an impassioned speech on the Council floor, in which he blamed outside influences for losing his committee and invoked the spirit of Friedrich Nietzsche, saying, What doesn't kill me makes me stronger.


Summary:
Gene Russianoff, who is a staff lawyer for the New York Public Interest Research Group, said that while he was encouraged Ms.
Quinn's interest, he had yet to decide whether her proposals were the start of serious reform or merely token gestures. Mr. Russianoff said that Chris is untested, and she's going to face some very tough choices and at that point in her tenure, their philosophy is to hope for the best, and be on guard for the worst.


Summary: So far only a single company, the trash-bag maker Glad Products, has said it will contribute to the cause. Glad, which is a subsidiary of the Clorox Company, announced an unspecified six-figure donation to the city and a gift of 100,000 trash bags. Mr. Collins says that although he doubts a white knight will sign up as a marquee sponsor, he still hopes that other corporations will follow Glad's example and help defray the costs of Mardi Gras.


Summary: Ernest Collins, the city's director of arts and entertainment said that anyone who understands the local economy here knows this is a significant event. He says that although he doubts a white knight will sign up as a marquee sponsor, he still hopes that other corporations will follow Glad's example and help to cover the costs of Mardi Gras. He further said that they knew this would be an uphill struggle to find corporate sponsors in so short a time frame.


Summary: Phil Strober, the vice president for corporate alliances at Wakeham & Associates Marketing said that corporations expect a return on investment for these kind of sponsorship deals, which has offices in New York and Los Angeles. For their contribution, Mr. Strober said, companies typically want to produce marketing materials that will help them maximize their bang for the buck and see their logo displayed prominently in advertising campaigns efforts that require months of preparation.