August 8, 2001

Mikom sues Russian Aluminum under American racketeering laws over 2000 takeover of Kochkanarsky GOK vanadium plant by company's associates; charges company and its agents with murder, extortion, bribery and other crimes linked to takeover (S)

Tampa Bay Devil Rays defeat New York Yankees, 3-2, St Petersburg, Florida; photo (M)1

Interview with Donald Richie, American expatriate and writer who has lived in Japan since 1946 after arriving as merchant seaman and is regarded as one of his era's most influential and ubiquitous writers on Japan; The Donald Richie Reader, collection of 50 years of his writing on Japan, has recently been published; photos (M)

Computer network managers continue to thrive throughout dot-com decline with higher-than-average wages; TechTarget, company that creates Web sites for technology specialists, conducts survey that shows growing job dissatisfaction as well as gender gap; graph (M)

Federal judges in Ninth Circuit Federal Appeals Court are in dispute with Administrative Office of Courts over monitoring software office installed on their computers to detect downloading of music, streaming video and pornography; suggest such monitoring is illegal and unethical; disabled software, move affecting two other circuits and about 10,000 court employees, for week in May until compromise was reached; Judicial Conference of United States will meet in Sept to resolve dispute; office held monitoring was aimed at enhancing security and curbing computer used unrelated to judicial work that was clogging system; Chief Judge Mary Schroeder held monitoring was driven by concern over 'content detection' (M)

Police investigators say that Officer Joseph Gray spent better part of 12 hours drinking beer at several locations before hitting 4-year-old boy, his pregnant mother and an aunt who were crossing street in Sunset Park with his car; nearly 1,000 people take to streets to express their anger over accident, especially fact that Gray, who has been charged with manslaughter and drunken driving, was released without bail by Brooklyn judge, over prosecutor's objections; Mayor Giuliani visits with grieving family; photos (L)

George Vecsey, in Sports of The Times column, profiles Matt Lawton, New York Mets' new outfielder; photo (M)

Review of race for New York City Council in Staten Island's 49th Council District, a Democratic stronghold that for two decades has elected same councilman, Jerome X O'Donovan; O'Donovan cannot run again because of term limits; endorses Michael McMahon; Deborah Rose is vying to become first black council member elected in Staten Island; Staten Island Democratic Party endorses Jon R Del Giorno; photos; map; table shows vital statistics for District (M)

Microsoft petitions Supreme Court to reverse recent appeals court finding of repeated violations of antirust law and to expunge all legal and factual findings because of disparaging comments about company made by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson; asks appeals court to temporarily suspend all other legal proceedings connected with government's antitrust case until Supreme Court, which reconvenes in October, can decide whether to hear case; Microsoft critics say company is seeking to cloud legal situation at least until release of Windows XP operating system, which incorporates many software applications; mingling of software was at heart of government's case (M)

Article discusses lack of job hunting skills of young job seekers; says they are poorly prepared for interviewing process and inappropriately attired, wearing clothing that is much too casual; many who are looking for work now never went through formal process and have unrealistic expectations of working conditions and wages; photo (M)

BP says it plans to meet output increase of 5 to 7 percent targeted earlier in year; reports first half net income rose to $3.8 billion, up from $3.6 billion in 2000 period (M)

Russia, under pressure from Western industrial democracies, adopts new law to combat money laundering; Russian officials say law brings nation into compliance with international standards; law requires banks and other financial institutions to report certain customer transactions; experts say law, which has no enforcement provisions, will likely have little effect (M)