July 12, 2002

Pres Bush's speech promising crackdown on unethical executives fails to reassure Wall Street because Vice Pres Cheney, former chief executive executive, argued vociferously inside White House that creating new felonies or making it easier for shareholders to sue chief executives would drain corporate America of its risk-taking spirit and take toll on economy's growth; some analysts believe White House overestimated Bush's sway over markets; critics say Bush's economic team rarely seems to carry power of Bush's more influential national security advisers; others say Bush's political team spent too much time calculating how speech would play across America and too little time learning lessons of recent and not-so-recent presidential interventions in capital markets; photos (M)

Corning, NY, is participating in social experiment outlined by California psychiatrist Dr William Glasser called 'choice theory', which provides framework for happier existence; people learn how to get along better with other people; choice theory says unsatisfying relationships are source of almost all crime, addiction, mental illness, family breakdown and school failure; Glasser says one thing people can control is their own behavior; about 25 percent of teachers have been trained in choice theory; some residents find enterprise silly; other aspects of theory and its applications discussed; map; photos (M)

Burberry's initial public offeringï

Auto industry is baffled over Honda Motor Co's announcement that it hopes to build assembly plant in Guangzhou, 85 miles up Pearl River from Hong Kong; while Guangzhou, once known as Canton, has plenty of land and population approaching that of Los Angeles, its transportation links are mediocre and part makers are scarce there; even more puzzling is Honda's stated intention to export all of factory's initial production of 50,000 subcompact cars per year to Europe and rest of Asia other than Japan; executives say labor may be cheap in China, but country's auto parts industry is not yet big enough to achieve economies of scale necessary for inexpensive large-scale export production (M)

Prosecutors across nation have taken investigations of clerical sexual abuse before more than dozen grand juries in recent weeks, stepping up their inquiries into whether Roman Catholic bishops endangered children by ignoring the crimes; are using grand juries to obtain subpoenas for records from Catholic dioceses and to compel testimony of bishops and priests; some Catholic legal scholars say prosecutors are merely responding to public pressure for action or seeing opportunity to grandstand; prosecutors defend effort as way to penetrate secrecy with which church has shrouded its abusive priests; latest escalation is in Cincinnati, where prosecutors have convened special grand jury whose only responsibility will be to search for crimes in the church, with no limit on its tenure (M)