December 15, 2002

Southern California University quarterback Carson Palmer is awarded Heisman Trophy; it is first time since 1981 that trophy goes to west coast player; photos (M)

Article on Ashtanga yoga, which has become trend among fashionistas; describes workshop conducted by Indian guru Sri K Pattabhi Jois in lower Manhattan; photos (M)

Calls for overhaul of Chapter 11 of bankruptcy code rise as more and more companies use it to hold off creditors while they reorganize to survive; several big companies have emerged from bankruptcy only to file again, and bankruptcies are frequently drawn out, with detriment to company's brand value and relations with suppliers; one problem is that Chapter 11 does not prevent various stakeholders and hired-hand advisers from pursuing their own interests at expense of company's value, lengthening process in the bargain; growing number of experts want courts to move cases along more quickly; others say bankruptcy should be replaced by new system in which auctions would be used to assess and parcel out quickly the valuable parts of a company; photos (L)

National Governors Assn warns that most states are grappling with biggest budget deficits since World War II, as consequence of slow economy, with unemployment up to 6 percent and big capital gains of flush 1990's evaporating, leading to plunging revenues; effects of national slump have tumbled to biggest cities and smallest towns and places in between, like Corvallis, Oregon, where abstractions of daunting budget numbers have become personal and concrete; photos; map (L)

ugly echoes: a sanitized past comes back to haunt tren

Pres Bush's replacement of his top economic aides shows how seriously he takes threat posed by weak economy; his concern so far has not extended to reconsidering his core policies; his key proposal remains package of long-term tax cuts, directed mainly at wealthy, remedy many mainstream economists say is bafflingly out of step with problems economy faces now; analysts see strategy intended to further political as well as economic goals (M)

New York Giants prepare to face Dallas Cowboys knowing loss would mean elimination from playoff contention (M)

Interview with Spike Lee, director of film 25th Hour, and film's star Edward Norton; Lee comments on how film's studio Disney agreed to make film only if Lee could get marquee star because many of Lee's films have not been financial successes; photo (M)

Sen Trent Lott's life has been touched by long shadows of segregation; interviews with those who knew him early in life, and previously unexamined documents from his pre-Congressional career, show how deeply segregation pervaded Lott's family and social environment; they show, too, how segregation served Lott well politically over the years--as Ole Miss student opposed to integration of his fraternity, as Congressional aide writing sympathetic letters to constituent who railed against 'gorilla race' and as member of Congress himself; detailed biography of Lott; photos (L)

New home of Lycee Francais of New York, on Upper East Side, has sleek, transparent, angular design that architects Susan Rodriguez and James Stewart Polshek say recalls Age of Enlightenment; drawings (S)

Article on practice of giving expensive holiday gifts to teachers in affluent urban and suburban American communities; drawing; photo (M)

Junior colleges across America are creating new niche for themselves as less expensive path to top universities; deans, professors and presidents are busily reshaping nation's community colleges, eager to entice best and brightest with promises of huge savings and easy transfer into premier university after two years; community colleges, long derided as repositories for underachievers, as trade schools devoid of academic rigor, are recasting themselves as wise first choices for serious student looking to sidestep crushing debt; at stake for colleges is more than just extra government money that often comes with higher enrollment; they also recognize that nearly two-thirds of nation's first-year undergraduates start at community colleges, yet few actually move on to four-year universities; to turn tide, community colleges are composing curriculums that so closely mirror what one might expect from liberal arts university that even pickiest admissions officers would be hard-pressed to call their students unprepared; examples cited; graph shows growing enrollments for four- and two-year colleges; photos (L)