October 2, 2003

September auto sales slowed from August but continued to show strength; General Motors Corp last month was giving away Dell computers to Saturn buyers, in addition to usual offer of zero-percent financing and big rebates that were heaviest on remaining 2003 models; GM announces new incentives for October, including cash-back offers as high as $4,500 for 2003 Chevrolet Avalanche; auto sales rose 1.8 perent last month from year earlier to seasonally adjusted selling rate of 16.7 million vehicles; Chrysler sales fell 15 percent; sales at Ford Motor Co were up 0.8 percent and up 12.1 percent at GM; Toyota sales rose 10.5 percent and Honda sales 0.9 percent and Nissan sales 19.7 percent; graphs (M)

Anna Kisselgoff reviews performance by William Forsythe's Ballett Frankfurt at opening of Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival; photo (M)

New products that have genome on computer chip will allow scientists to scan all genes in human tissue sample at once, to determine which genes are active, job that previously required two or more chips; whole-genome chips will lower cost and increase speed of widely used test that has transformed biomedical research; Stephen P A Fodor, chief executive of Affymetrix Inc, leading seller of gene chips, which are also called microarrays, says it is milestone event; company is expected to announce it is accepting orders for its whole-genome chip; announcement appears to be timed to steal some thunder from rival Agilent Techologies, which plans to announce it has started shipping test versions of its whole-genome chip; Applied Biosystems said in July that it would have whole-genome chip out by end of year (M)

White House's request for $87 billion in supplemental spending on Iraq and Afghanistan includes $600 million to continue hunt for conclusive evidence that Saddam Hussein's government had illegal weapons program; this comes on top of $300 million already spent on that search; budget figures for weapons search are in classified section of request and have not been made public; size of request suggests White House is determined to keep searching for unconventional weapons or evidence that they were being developed under Hussein; search so far has turned up no solid evidence of this; new money is intended to pay for activities of Iraq Survey Group, made up of teams of troops and experts managed by Pentagon but whose activities are coordinated by David Kay, former United Nations weapons inspector who reports to CIA Dir George J Tenet; Kay is scheduled to brief Congress in closed sessions on Oct 2 on interim report of group's findings so far; photo (M)

Britain's Royal and SunAllian