March 28, 2004

SIX members of two restless clans called the Street Ninjas and Gravity Pac circled each other at Grand Central Terminal last Sunday. Each group sniffed out the other, taking in numbers, collective stature and most important, sneakers (mostly a collection of Adidas and New Balance). Satisfied, the Ninjas, from New Hyde Park on Long Island, and the Pac, from Putnam and Westchester Counties, started clasping hands, knocking elbows and throwing down French slang. ''I didn't do any parkour last night, because I knew I'd be doing it all day today,'' said Ben Gartman, 15, a Pac member from Cortlandt Manor, N.Y., as he rocked back and forth between the balls and heels of his feet. Andy Kelly, 17, also from Cortlandt Manor, started toward the subway. ''We have three other traceurs with us, but they couldn't wait,'' he said. ''They're downtown already.''

Kraft Foods will move about 300 employees to Tarrytown, NY, building from Rye Brook headquarters parent Altria Group plans to vacate and sell; plans to relocate another 200 workers outside of Westchester (M)

Israeli state prosecutor Edna Arbel reportedly will recommend to Atty Gen Menachem Mazuz that Prime Min Ariel Sharon be indicted for allegedly accepting bribes from real estate developer David Appel; Appel allegedly tried to win Sharon's help in real estate deals, including one on Greek island, starting in late 1990's, when Sharon was foreign minister; allegedly paid most of $700,000 in bribes to Sharon's son, Gilad; indictment could add to Sharon's political burdens as he tries to rally support in Israel and Bush administration for his plan to unilaterally withdraw soldiers and settlers from Gaza Strip and part of West Bank; legal experts are divided about whether indictment would automatically compel him to resign; he continues to dominate Israel's politics, but his popular support has faded; photos (M)

Online world is teeming with vigilantes who take matters into their own hands; George Washington University Prof Amitai Etzioni says cyberspace has turned into urban jungle and large parts of it are beyond law; vigilantes scan eBay and Yahoo auctions looking for fraud; they cruise Internet chat rooms for pedophiles and report their findings to law enforcement; they also release programs into cyberspace that repair damage done by computer viruses; appeal of online vigilantism stems from persistent sense that Internet remains very Wild West kind of place; drawing (M)

Connecticut University defeats Alabama University, 87-71, to advance to NCAA tournament Final Four; photos (M)

Caryn James article on BBC America, cable network designed to appeal to young, upscale audience that reaches 38 million homes; upcoming series State of Play and other current programming discussed; chief executive Paul Lee comments on his plans to attract wider audience; photos (M)

Richard Price article, marking 100th anniversary of New York City's subways, recalls growing up in apartment alongside elevated tracks where trains roared and screeched by outside his bedroom window, punctuatingrituals of his Bronx youth; drawings (M)

General Motors and Ford are taking back electric cars when leases expire and refuse to sell vehicles to leaseholders; are moving on to new technologies and do not want to be liable for any problems that might arise with electric cars; some leaseholders are considering filing class-action lawsuit to keep their electric vehicles; photos (M)

JUST a short car ride from the fierce ficus hedges, the aproned housemaids and the hand-buffed Bentleys of Palm Beach is a place that might as well be galaxies away. It is West Palm Beach, a city of 84,000 grown up around a service community that Henry Flagler established to house workers to build and staff Palm Beach, the utopian sandlot he conceived as a pleasure ground for his fellow plutocrats. In recent decades, West Palm Beach sank into bleached-out desuetude. Drifters congregated in $19-a-room motels. Drug dealers claimed whole neighborhoods. Prostitutes plied the strip malls that line the emblematic north-south route, the Dixie Highway. ''I've lived here for 25 years, and when I came, everything west of the highway was crack houses,'' Rico Baca, an antiques dealer with a shop on the South Dixie Highway, said earlier this month.

Florida's electoral practices, including its felon disenfranchisement law, are drawing renewed attention as state again becomes presidential election-year battleground; Democrats have made fighting disenfranchisement priority; charge Gov Jeb Bush and legislature back ban, which bars over one in four black men in state from voting, for partisan reasons; Florida is largest of seven states that permanently take away voting rights of all felons; voting rights map; photos (M)

Shortage of funds and patent battles are keeping antiretroviral drugs from reaching over 90 percent of infected people in world's poorest countries even though United Nations declared worldwide drive against AIDS three years ago and Pres Bush has pledged $15 billion for AIDS treatment in poor nations; progress in distributing drugs, which have sharply cut death rate in West, has been extremely slow despite steep price drops; World Health Organization says only some 300,000 people are getting drugs in world's poorest nations of six million who need them; experts agree delays, compounded by inadequate medical facilities and training in very poor nations, are likely to persist unless spending increases sharply; map of drug distribution; photos (M)

Would-be apartment buyers, priced out of much of Manhattan, have been treking uptown to Harlem, Hamilton Heights, Washington Heights and Inwood, places once off map of many brokers and buyers, to find more space and lower cost; trend is driving up co-op and condominium prices uptown; uptown area is now attracting more eclectic and increasingly affluent mix of buyers; graphs of rising Manhattan prices; photos (M)