Houston Rockets defeat New York Knicks, 88-86; photo (S)

Knicks Swallow Another Bitter Pill

Regina Schrambling comments on cooking duck legs; photos; recipes (M)

Duck Leg Confidential

Amanda Hesser profiles Nigella Lawson, English food writer, cookbook author and voluptuous hostess of television cooking show Nigella Bites, show that has created sensation in Britain, where it is one of country's most popular cooking programs; photos; recipes (M)

Sex and the Kitchen

With the South African rand continuing to struggle and accusations of market manipulation emerging, President Thabo Mbeki appointed a panel today to examine the currency's recent plunge.    During trading on Dec. 21, the rand reached a record low of 13.84 to the dollar, after losing more than 35 percent of its value in a matter of weeks; it traded at 9 to the dollar as recently as mid-October and had stayed around 8 for much of the year.   

South Africa Will Investigate The Sharp Drop in the Rand

 Hints of a Cosmic Starburst  Based on Hubble Space Telescope data, some astronomers think that light from the first stars emerged from a dark cosmos like a fireworks spectacular, not in the slow manner long assumed.   PAGE A20    Wendy's Founder Dies  Dave Thomas, the restaurateur who built the hamburger chain empire and was known to millions as the folksy character in TV commercials, was 69.   PAGE B9

INSIDE

Exhibition of color photographs of emergency workers, survivors and relatives of victims of terrorist attacks of Sept 11 go on view at Grand Central Terminal; exhibition, Faces of Ground Zero, has 9-by-4-foot framed portraits; Unexpected Journey: Plays by Women Influenced by Muslim Cultures to be presented at Sixth Immigrant Theater Festival at Tenement Theater; Renoir exhibition, A Passion for Renoir: Five Great Paintings From the Clark Art Institute, to be presented at High Museum of Art in Atlanta; photo; Andre Previn to conduct concert produced by Carnegie Hall Choral Workshop; photo (M)

Footlights

 White House Walks Away From Fuel Mileage Project  The Bush administration is walking away from a $1.5 billion, eight-year project to develop high-mileage gasoline-fueled vehicles. Instead it is throwing its support behind a plan to develop hydrogen-based fuel cells.    Environmentalists and energy experts favor the research. But critics said that the new program, like its predecessor, would let Washington and Detroit focus on vague, long-term aims while avoiding the more difficult task of improving the gas mileage of cars and sport utility vehicles in the short term. [Page A1.]

BUSINESS DIGEST

The Dutch-based retailer Royal Ahold reported a 100 million euro ($89 million) charge in the fourth quarter to cover losses from operations in Argentina, which accounts for 3 percent of the company's sales. The company, whose assets include the Stop and Shop and Giant supermarket chains, stuck to its projection of 15 percent growth in earnings per share for 2001 and 2002 and reported that 2001 sales had grown 27 percent, to 66.6 billion euros ($59.4 billion). The company will report full 2001 results on March 7.   Desmond Butler (NYT)  

World Business Briefing | Europe: The Netherlands: Retailer Reports Charge

downtown, his brightens an emerging playwright**Profile of and interview with playwright Melissa James Gibson, whose play 'sic', at SoHo Rep, is enjoying strong reviews; photo (M)

Downtown, Hit Brightens An Emerging Playwright

Many companies, alarmed by the increasing size of payouts to resolve harassment or discrimination claims by employees, have bought insurance policies over the last decade to protect themselves.    But insurers, who offered cheap premiums and low deductibles to encourage this new line of business, now find that they underestimated the number of small awards that companies make every year and did not anticipate the growing size of jury verdicts, one-fifth of which are now for $1 million or more.  

Surge in Bias Cases Punishes Insurers, And Premiums Rise

Reflecting the plunge in international travel since Sept. 11, the resort operator Club M&#233;diterran&#233;e said today that it would close six more of its locations and eliminate its dividend.    The company reported a loss of 70 million euros ($62.5 million) for the fiscal year ended Oct. 31, its first loss in four years and a sharp reversal of fortune from the previous year.   

Club Med Has First Loss in 4 Years and Closes 6 More Resorts

The Bush administration is walking away from a $1.5 billion eight-year government-subsidized project to develop high-mileage gasoline-fueled vehicles. Instead it is throwing its support behind a plan that the Energy Department and the auto industry have devised to develop hydrogen-based fuel cells to power the cars of the future, administration and industry officials said yesterday.     The new effort, to be announced in Detroit today by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, aims at the eventual replacement of the internal combustion engine. Fuel cells use stored hydrogen and oxygen from the air to create electricity, and the only emission from engines they power is water vapor.  

U.S. Ends Car Plan On Gas Efficiency; Looks to Fuel Cells

Clyde Haberman NYC column contends reinstituting New York's commuter tax would be relatively painless way to help relieve city's budget crisis (M)

Rebuilding, For the Price Of a Latte

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is free from political encumbrances because he financed his campaign himself; conversely, very few people owe him anything, and in world where personal history is currency by which business is conducted, this may prove to be disadvantage, as no one is especially invested in his success (M)

Political Memo; Bloomberg, Indebted to No One, Is Friendly With Few

Free-agent outfielder Juan Gonzalez rejects New York Mets and agrees return to Texas Rangers, with two-year, $24-million contract (S)

Gonzalez Says No to Mets, Yes to Texas

Major league baseball owners strongly defend commissioner Bud Selig amid suggestions that he played role in improper 1995 loan by Minnesota Twins owner Carl Pohlad to Selig's Milwaukee Brewers (M)

Baseball's Owners Come to Defense Of Selig on Loan

Japan's largest beer maker, the Kirin Brewery Company, is likely to miss its full-year profit target for 2001 because of sliding beer sales and higher marketing costs. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported that Kirin earned 21 billion yen ($159 million) in group net income last year, 36 percent less than it did the year before, and will miss its pretax profit target by 23 percent, numbers a company spokesman said ''sound right.'' Sales of Kirin's top brand, Lager, have declined for more than four years.   Ken Belson (NYT)  

World Business Briefing | Asia: Japan: Brewer To Miss Target

A hulking glass, stone and concrete 1970 eyesore in the heart of Moscow, the Intourist Hotel, shut its doors for good today and awaits demolition, as the city prepares to remove a major Soviet-era wart from its skyline for the first time since the fall of Communism.    The hotel, owned by the Moscow city government and situated half a block from the Kremlin at 3 Tverskaya Street, is 22 stories if you include the karaoke Chinese restaurant in the basement. The city says it wants a more glamorous, smaller building -- 12 stories are planned -- to better fit the otherwise elegant block, which includes a theater and another hotel, built in 1903.   

Soviet Hotel In Moscow To Be Razed

Newark Councilman Cory Booker kicks off his mayoral campaign, challenging incumbent Sharpe James, who has held office for nearly 16 years; in speech, he charges James with leaving most of Newark and its residents to languish in poverty, while downtown is restored; profile; photo (M)

Rising Star in Newark Starts Mayoral Run Against Sharpe James

P&O Princess Cruises rejected a request by the Carnival Corporation that it postpone a shareholder vote scheduled for Feb. 14 on whether to accept a takeover bid from Royal Caribbean Cruises. Carnival has made a competing offer for P&O Princess Cruises and is requesting that the shareholder vote be delayed until November, after antitrust regulators in the United States can rule on the deals. Micky Arison, Carnival's chief executive, above, first made the request privately to Lord Sterling of Plaistow, P & O's chairman, and its chief executive, Peter Ratcliffe, in a letter Sunday. When Mr. Arison received no response, Carnival made the contents of the letter public.   Suzanne Kapner (NYT)  

World Business Briefing | Europe: Britain: Cruise Vote Still On

The two largest American automakers are expected to announce the elimination of at least 15,000 jobs this week.    General Motors plans to offer buyouts to about 5,000 white-collar workers as part of continuing belt-tightening in an automotive industry reckoning with recession. Later this week, analysts expect that Ford Motor will cut more than 10,000 jobs as part of a major restructuring plan. Ford officials declined to comment today on reports that as many as 20,000 jobs would be eliminated.  

Thousands of Jobs Expected to Be Cut At G.M. and Ford

After months of financial and management turmoil, the Spanish-  and Portuguese-language Internet company StarMedia Network  sold one of its main Brazilian Internet properties, the search engine Cad&#234;, to Yahoo for an undisclosed sum. With the addition of Cad&#234;, Yahoo Brasil will become the third-largest Internet site in Brazil, Latin America's largest Internet market.   Jennifer L. Rich (NYT)  

World Business Briefing | Americas: Brazil: Search Engine Acquired

Entertainment deals are often made on the basis of a handshake, but NBC and its latest late-night star, Carson Daly, were mostly shaking fists at each other Monday night over an unsigned contract that resulted in a last-minute pre-emption of the premiere of Mr. Daly's show.    The move left more than a million viewers befuddled, wondering what had happened to a show that NBC promoted heavily for weeks. Mr. Daly has gained fame as the host of MTV's popular afternoon music and interview program, ''Total Request Live,'' and on Monday he taped his first NBC program, with the singer Alicia Keys as the guest.  

A Contract Dispute Keeps NBC Viewers Waiting for Naught

A tentative settlement was announced today in a federal desegregation lawsuit against the Yonkers public schools, a deal that could end more than two decades of bitter litigation and federal intervention in the state's fourth-largest school district.    At a news conference here, Gov. George E. Pataki said federal, state, city, school and N.A.A.C.P. officials had reached an ''agreement in principle'' that calls for the state to provide $300 million to the Yonkers school district in the next five years to pay for programs to improve the performance of black and Hispanic children, who now make up more than three-quarters of the district's students.  

ACCORD IS REACHED IN SCHOOL BIAS SUIT INVOLVING YONKERS

From his second-floor suite in the White House, Karl Rove, one of President Bush's most powerful advisers, not only plots the weeks ahead for the president but also ponders the past.    Particularly after Sept. 11, Mr. Rove, the de facto in-house historian who was the architect of Mr. Bush's election campaign, is mindful that Mr. Bush is playing for history.  

January 9, 2002

Headlines from January 9, 2002

Knicks Swallow Another Bitter Pill

Duck Leg Confidential

Sex and the Kitchen

South Africa Will Investigate The Sharp Drop in the Rand

INSIDE

Billboard 200

Weathered

[Hybrid Theory]

Now 8

Word Of Mouf

Silver Side Up

Historical Context for January 9, 2002