February 10, 2000

Tense standoff between police and hijackers of Afghan airliner at Stansted airport outside London ends peacefully with hijackers releasing 150 or so people aboard plane and surrendering to authorities; police say they have not identified hijackers and refuse to discuss their demands (M)

Sarah Lyall interviews Dave Eggers, 29-year-old author of best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius; photos (M)

Thousands of Democrats and independents across South Carolina and country are transforming presidential race by voting for Sen John McCain; he has made great strides toward Republican nomination because of help of non-Republicans; experts estimate that 10 to 30 percent of voters will cross over party lines in South Carolina primary on Feb 19; say many Democrats are also switching their party affiliations in closed primary states, and attribute shift to McCain; photo (M)

Anne Raver column on Duisburg Nord, vast landscape park built on 500 acres of industrial wasteland in western Germany; project, designed by landscape architect Peter Latz, has left much of rubble untouched; slag heaps, blast furnaces abandoned ore bunkers and elevated rails from former steel mills form very fabric of park; photos (M)

New class of computers called Internet appliances, endowed with modest microprocessors and little memory, will give consumers cheap, quick and almost effortless Internet access; most will come with factory-set function keys for weather, e-commerce, news and services like e-mail and virtual address books; other devices will also increasingly give users easy Web access without personal computer; companies big and small plan to offer Internet-only terminals by summer; table comparing Internet appliance with low-priced notebook computer; photos (M)