April 30, 2002

Article on controversy over unwillingness of fertility doctors and clinics to provide services to HIV-infected men and couples; focuses on clinic at Columbia University, which has treated 54 infected men and has made more than 103 attempts at producing pregnancies; 29 women have become pregnant and 30 babies, nearly half of them twins, have been born; photo (M)

New York City school system recruiters join recruiters from around nation at job fair for 1,000 students set to graduate from teacher training programs at upstate colleges, State University of New York at Cortland; city, which expects to need up to 10,000 new teachers in Sept, is wooing teachers from upstate schools at fever pitch, making on-the-spot job offers; photos (M)

Footlights column: New York City Ballet will open new season with all-Balanchine program; New York City Opera, directed by Mark Adamo, will open fourth annual series, free to public, of new American operas at Church of St Paul and St Andrew; violinist Stefan Jackiw, cellist Mark Kosower and pianists Meng-Chieh Liu and Orion Weiss will be awarded Avery Fisher Career Grants of $15,000 each at Lincoln Center ceremony; Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra names Mario Venzago music director; photos (M)

Sir Richard Branson plans to sell shares to public in at least eight of 270 companies in his privately held Virgin Group over next eight years; will probably retain his 51 percent stake in Virgin Atlantic, centerpiece of Virgin empire; Virgin director Will Whitehorn denies group is short of funds; says first public offering will be 20 percent to 30 percent stake in Virgin Blue, Australian airline; says Branson weighs moving bulk of group back to Britain from British Virgin Islands (M)

Vivendi Universal says it will ask Paris court to annul voting results of its shareholder meeting on April 24; Vivendi board would have to schedule new meeting if court agrees to vote again on management resolutions that were unexpectedly rejected--one of them plan to set aside 5 percent of company's shares for stock options to senior managers; jousting with shareholders by Vivendi's embattled chief executive Jean-Marie Messier is reflection of some of broader challenges facing his company; one challenge is fact that Messier's original vision of delivering media from vast Universal music and video libraries to mobile telephones and other wireless devices has largely failed to materialize; photo (M)