August 7, 2002

Article on severe shortage of dentists in rural America, in places like Gregory, South Dakota, where Dr Donald E Nemer, 70, would like to retire but cannot find anyone to take over his thriving practice; photo; map; South Dakota has one dentist for every 2,359 people, compared with one per 1,714 people nationally, and one for every 1,254 in New York State; Nemer himself has 4,000-5,000 active patients; US has 166,383 dentists, up from 150,762 in 1991, but there are critical shortages in Plains, Northern New England and fast-growing suburbs of Southwest (M)

Lucian K Truscott IV article on how he and his wife prepare chicken with two vinegars, dish they ate in France, for their young children; recipe; drawings (M)

R W Apple on article on bouillabaisse prepared as it is prepared at restaurants in and around Marseille; recipes; photos (M)

New York Giants rookie tight end Jeremy Shockey proves in training camp and preseason game that he plays more like veteran; photo (M)

Mining company Anglo American PLC, which is confronted with crushing AIDS burden in Africa, says that it will begin supplying life-prolonging drugs to all its employees who are HIV positive; Anglo is a world leading in gold, platinum and diamond mining and one of Africa's largest private employers; Anglo, which for more than year had given mixed signals on issue, apparently decides it has no choice but to treat its workers, although it stops short of agreeing to treat their dependents (M)

Legal Aid Society lawyer Steven Banks files contempt motion against New York commissioner of homeless services Linda I Gibbs to force city to comply with decree barring illegal practice of allowing homeless families to stay overnight in Emergency Assistance Unit in Bronx; many families have been repeatedly returned to unit after one-night shelter stays, practice also prohibited by order; number of homeless families has escalated, with more than 8,000 sheltered during July; experts say situation is driven by high rents, hard times and shortage of low-income housing; some options for relief discussed; photo (M)

Ben Brantley reviews musical revue Harlem Song, written and directed by George C Wolfe with music by Zane Mark and Daryl Waters; photos (M)

Bush administration has followed up Pres Bush's decision limiting federal funding of stem cell research with little-noticed ruling telling federally financed researchers they may go beyond president's strictures as long as they do so with private money; National Institutes of Health says researchers may indeed study new stem cell lines, and even derive them from embryos, in university laboratories, provided they do not commingle federal and private money; interpretation was approved by senior administration officials, although they do not publicize it, and it has heartened proponents of such research; Drs Robert A Goldstein, Douglas Melton and others comment (M)

Malaysian utility YTL Power is removed from Standard & Poor's list of companies facing possible ratings downgrade, more than three months after taking over Enron's former British subsidiary Wessex Water; says it determined that YTL Power's $1.5 billion takeover of Wessex does not appear to threaten its creditworthiness after all (S)

New York City to mark anniversary of Sept 11 terrorist attack from sunrise to sundown, with readings, concerts and other tributes, many of which have grown out of suggestions from around world; Mayor Michael Bloomberg says city's business will not cease, but will yield to various events in all five boroughs, beginning with march of bagpipers into ground zero, and including visit by Pres Bush and reading of names of all World Trade Center victims; map; former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani will begin reading of names and family members will leave roses at site; Bloomberg arranges for readings from Declaration of Independence, Gettysburg Address and Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms as he balances remembrance and recovery; plans detailed (M)

Bhutan health secretary Dr Sangay Thinley is in New York seeking sponsors for cross-kingdom walk to call attention to one of world's most challenged health systems; he is trying to build $24 million fund and is visiting business leaders and others to plead his cause; money has been raised, but $9 million is still needed to proceed with initiative; map of Bhutan; photos (M)

Rome Journal on arrest of Roberto Cercelletta for his longtime practice of surreptitiously fishing coins tossed by tourists into famed Trevi Fountain; photos; daily take for perhaps 15 minutes of hurried work in predawn hours sometimes exceeded $1,000, money that is supposed to go to charity; 50-year-old Cercelletta, mentally unstable and otherwise unemployed, apparently was not breaking law until 1999, when new statute banned wading into public fountains (M)