August 8, 2002

Article in Notes From Music Camp series on violinist Itzhak Perlman, who has been slowly growing into role as conductor for teenage musicians at his wife Toby's Perlman Music Program summer music camp on Shelter Island, NY; photo (M)

Congressional investigators say Bush administration improperly allows some states to spend federal money intended for Children's Health Insurance Program on childless adults instead; health care experts say states are stretching children's health program beyond its original purpose because they are short of money and have large numbers of uninsured people; senators say practice violates intent of Congress and vow to stop it if administration does not; General Accounting Office says states like New York, which use their full allotments of federal money for children, could suffer as result of misuse of federal money in other states; Dept of Health and Human Services and three states named by GAO--Arizona, Illinois and Utah--disagree with findings; Tommy G Thompson, secretary of health and human services, says debate over technicalities of law should not overshadow goal of providing health care benefits to low-income people (M)

William Clay Ford Jr, Ford Motor Co chairman and chief executive, asserts that credibility gap on environmental issues has eroded America's love for cars, speech to industry management conference, Traverse City, Mich; says he wants to 'lower the temperature' of industry's often-contentious relationship with California regulators; photo (M)

Many small nonprofit groups that currently use four piers along Hudson River in Lower Manhattan may be permanently displaced by construction of $400 million Hudson River Park; maps; photos (M)

WorldCom was already financial and operational shambles in Jan 2000, even as chief executive Bernard J Ebbers was proposing multibillion-dollar acquisition of giant Sprint Corp; analysts and former employees say WorldCom management team did poor job of integrating many disparate businesses company had acquired; say dozens of acquisitions were never consolidated into single, seamless enterprise, and accounting maneuvers allowed company to report higher per-share profits with each new acquisition, even when its core business was barely growing, or losing ground; say Ebbers was out of his league in rough and tumble world of telecommunications; company is now in bankruptcy, and way it was run will be central to expected prosecution of former chief financial officer Scott Sullivan and former controller David Myers; criminal lawyers say Ebbers' legal team could argue that he was hands-off manager who had little involvement in sticky details, and that if there was fraud at WorldCom, Ebbers' poor management skills may be held up as evidence of his innocence; photos; graph (L)