March 25, 2001

Special report, Waiting to Sleep, describes plight of homeless women and their children in New York City's shelter system; children's struggles to get to school each day from wherever they find themselves and families' long and tortured histories in welfare system recounted; photos (M)

Resident of 435-apartment rental building at 45 Wall Street are suing to remain after being told they will have to relocate because building is being condemned to make way for new trading floor for New York Stock Exchange, topped by 1.3 million-square-foot office tower; Rockrose Development Corp converted 28-story building from office to residential use only in 1997, and it was keystone of Giuliani administration's plan to repopulate Lower Manhattan; photos; map (M)

Article on troubling implications of data showing that 26 percent of Hispanic girls drop out of school, compared with 13 percent of black girls and 6.9 percent of white girls; Hispanic boys have even higher dropout rate, 31 percent, compared with 12.1 percent for black boys and 7.7 for white boys; Hispanic girls also leave school earlier than any other group and are least likely to return; photos; graph; Repr Ileana Ros-Lehtinen sees 'confusion' in 'young Latina psyche'; Hispanic researchers note regional differences between subgroups, with many Mexicans and Central Americans coming to US with very little schooling; also point to teenage pregnancy and family demands; girls themselves say they get mixed messages about schooling versus getting married and having children (M)

Maryland defeats Stanford, 87-73, to reach men's NCAA Basketball Tournament Final Four; photos (M)

Shoe designers have borrowed from automotive designs for years; Kobe basketball shoe from Adidas came out of Audi Design Studio, Simi Valley, Calif; drawings; photos (M)

Comment on shifting relationships between US and other countries, and decisions that Pres George W Bush will inevitably have to make on using American power (S)

George W Bush and John McCain, former presidential campaign rivals, are once again locked in battle on multiple fronts; Pres Bush opposes crucial parts of McCain's campaign finance reform legislation and tells Florida audience he will never sign McCain-backed bill to regulate HMOs; Republican party elders are comparing relationship to historic intraparty feuds; William Kristol comments; beneath tension, as McCain throws wrenches into Bush's agenda and White House tries to isolate senator, is key question of whether McCain will challenge Bush in 2004; photo (M)

Dog lovers in San Francisco carry dog-rights movement to new extremes with angry protests against National Park Service's plans to enforce leash laws; photos; anthropomorphizing of four-legged creatures has come to city halls and courtrooms around country, paralleling surveys showing that three-fourths of pet owners consider their animals akin to children; countering trend are dog attacks that have prompted New York and other cities to crack down on free-range pets; horrific death of Diane Whipple changed sentiment in San Francisco, with more people speaking out for leashing of dogs in Golden Gate National Recreation Area (M)

Pathmark supermarket will anchor $30.7 million, 10-acre shopping center in Crotona Park East section of Bronx; photo (M)

Consumers can now use Internet to gain access to so-called FICO scores used by lenders to measure applicants' creditworthiness (M)

Article on 23-year-old Eritrean poet Saba Kidane, who has gained reknown after being informally adopted by New York University Prof Ngugi wa Thiong'o following 2000 pan-African literature conference in Eritrea; Kidane has been denied visa to perform in US despite invitations from five American institutions; photos (L)

Cheryl Jensen reviews 2001.5 Passat, updated by Volkswagen; photos (M)