Alex Witchel interview with Dr Arthur Agatston, Miami cardiologist who created South Beach diet along with Marie Almon, dietician; he conceived diet as way to lower his patients' risk of heart attack and stroke, not as way to help them look better in bikinis; photo (M)

Doctor Wants 'South Beach' To Mean Hearts, Not Bikinis

Los Angeles Lakers success or failure in playoffs this season could depend entirely on effect Lakers guard Kobe Bryant's legal troubles have on team unity; Bryant is on trial for sexually assaulting Colorado woman; photos (M)

Harmony Is a Stretch for Bryant and Lakers

Intel reports its first-quarter profit rose 89 percent from year ago on strength of increased demand for new computers; disappoints Wall Street slightly with conservative forecast for second quarter; net income was $1.73 billion on revenue of $8.09 billion; earned $915 million on sales of $6.75 billion year earlier; photo (M)

Demand for PC's Spurs Chip Sales, Sending Profit Up 89% at Intel

 A CLERIC REMAINS DEFIANT -- A rebel cleric resisted disbanding his militia as American troops moved in to confront him, but there were reports a deal had been struck.   PAGE A10    ENVOY TO IRAQ TO BE NAMED -- John D. Negroponte, a veteran American diplomat, is expected to be appointed ambassador to Iraq.   PAGE A11

MORE ON IRAQ

Michael Kimmelman Critic's Notebook column compares Jewish Museum in Berlin, Daniel Libeskind's first built commission, with his plan for World Trade Center memorial; photos (M)

Critic's Notebook; Shattered Shapes: Architect's Rhetoric of Suffering

FBI comes under withering criticism from commission investigating Sept 11 attacks; Thomas H Kean, commission chairman, declares that agency does not work and that he does not know how to fix it; commission releases pair of interim reports that offer extensive and agonizing new details about how FBI and CIA may have bungled opportunities to thwart Sept 11 attacks; Kean says he welcomes Pres Bush's comments that White House will consider overhaul of nation's intelligence agencies, including FBI; Kean's criticisms of bureau are echoed by others on commission and come as panel conducts sometimes harsh questioning of Louis J Freeh, FBI director from 1993 until he retired three months before Sept 11 attacks, Thomas J Pickard, who was bureau's acting director during summer of 2001, Atty Gen John Ashcroft and his predecessor, Janet Reno; photo (L)

F.B.I. IS ASSAILED FOR ITS HANDLING OF TERROR RISKS

Judge Richard Owen, presiding over retrial of Credit Suisse First Boston former banker Frank P Quattrone, orders news media not to report names of jurors or potential jurors, apparently in response to outcome of trial of two former Tyco executives; outside lawyers say move is probably unconstitutional (M)

Media Told Not to Name Jurors in Trial Of a Banker

Japan's Nissin Food Products Co will buy 33.4 percent of China's Hebei Hualong F&N Industry Group for 20 billion yen ($187 million) (S)

World Business Briefing | Asia: Japan: Stake In Noodle Maker

Bank of Canada drops its overnight lending rate to 2 percent from 2.25 percent, fifth rate decrease in year; sharp rise in Canadian dollar in last year has dampened exports, and consumers, previously driving force behind economic growth, have turned more cautious; graph (M)

Canada Rate Is Lowered For 5th Time In Last Year

Tensions develop between New York City's large high schools and small ones that are being created within them as part of Mayor Michael R Bloomberg's effort to overhaul school system; Bronx Aerospace Academy High School, with 161 students, has uneasy time inside Evander Childs High School, which has 3,100 student and was recently named one of city's most unruly schools; Evander Childs students bang on classroom doors at Aerospace, tear down posters in its hallways and tease Aerospace students mocking their uniforms and their marching; friction has sometimes turned physical; balancing needs of small and large schools is likely to become even more elusive as dozens of new small schools take root within large schools across city, each with its own culture, philosophy about discipline, private financing and dress code; photo (M)

City's Small Schools Uneasy Inside the Big Ones

Profile of and interview with 38-year-old playwright and actor Tracy Letts, who is playing role of George in Alliance Theater staging of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in Atlanta; he comments on his earlier plays, his acting career and his background as third-generation Okie; photos (M)

For an Okie Playwright and Actor, A Life With Drama of Its Own

Royal Philips Electronics reports earnings of 550 million euros ($664 million) in first quarter compared to loss of 69 million euros; operating profit of 218 million euros ($263 million) falls below expectations; sales were up 2 percent from year ago, to 6.63 billion euros; photo (M)d

Philips Posts Profit and Hints of Deals

Prosecutors say that several US Secret Service cars listed as 'crushed' in Sept 11, 2001, attacks on World Trade Center were actually stolen by William Bennette, head of agency's motor pool at 7 World Trade Center, a retired police sergeant who received commendation for his rescue work that day; he confesses to giving cars to his mother and daughter after creating false paperwork on them, but pleads not guilty; lawyer says psychological effects from 9/11 may have caused his client's behavior (M)

Prosecutors Say Rescuer Stole Cars Recovered At Ground Zero

San Francisco Giants defeat Milwaukee Brewers, 4-2; Giants outfielder Barry Bonds hits 661st home run, inching past Willie Mays to third spot on career list; photos (M)

Bonds Breaks Tie With Mays by Hitting 661st Homer

Infosys Technologies, bellwether of Indian software services industry, posts more than $1 billion in annual sales for first time and celebrates news with giant party, special dividend of $2.28 a share and distribution of three shares for every one held; chief executive Nandan M Nilekani and chairman N R Narayana Murthy comment; photo (M)

Indian Services Giant Hits $1 Billion Mark

Greco-Roman wrestler Rulon Gardner, who won 2000 Olympics, has since experienced highs and lows of achieving success and looks to cap tumultuous four years with another win if he can qualify for 2004 Olympics; photos (M)

Unprepared for Fame, Yet Unable to Resist It

 Jewish Targets in Spain  Terrorists believed to be behind the Madrid train bombings last month also considered attacks on Jewish sites, an investigator said.   PAGE A6    Lung Cancer Gender Gap  Women with lung cancer survive longer than men and respond differently to at least one drug, researchers will report today.   PAGE A20

INSIDE

St John's University names Norm Roberts head basketball coach; photos (M)

St. John's Makes Call To Assistant From Kansas

Fleeting season for desert truffles, species of mushroom family that is distantly related to their more pungent, far more costly European cousins, is now at its height; numerous varieties grow from Morocco to Saudi Arabia, but desert of Syria and Iraq produces two main types, both known by Arabic name kamah; Bedouins who frequent wide sand plains that begin just east of Damascus and stretch to Baghdad are scouring ground for telltale grasses and cracks indicating that truffles lie just beneath surface; photos (L)

Beneath Desert Sands, An Eden of Truffles

Pres Bush plans to issue declaration that his aides say will recognize Israel's right to retain some Jewish settlements in West Bank as part of any peace accord with Palestinians; declaration, to be made when Prime Min Ariel Sharon visits White House on April 14, would represent subtle but substantial shift in American policy, which has viewed settlements as obstacles to peace and asserted that final borders must be arrived at through negotiations solely between Israel and Palestinians; administration officials say that Bush will also assert that Palestinian refugee families that once lived in Israel should live in a future Palestinian state in West Bank and Gaza Strip, rather than in Israeli lands they continue to claim; photo (M)

BUSH MAY ACCEPT WEST BANK PLAN

China reports bank lending rose in March, and central bank fails to sell all treasury bills offered at current interest rates; this is fourth consecutive week that People's Bank of China is unable to sell all its bills, indicating that investors expect inflation or interest rates to rise markedly; central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan gives one of grimmest assessments yet by Chinese official of risks that econony might overheat; China's inflation is important to US and Europe because it could start to affect prices in US; photos (M)

In China, Troubling Signs Of an Overheating Economy

Recent decision by Abbott Laboratories to quintuple price of its crucial AIDS drug Norvir will be at center of Federal Health and Human Servicers hearing in which AIDS groups and consumer advocates plan to argue that government should begin allowing import of cheaper drugs; hearing is result of last fall's Medicare drug legislation, in which Congress called for general inquiry into import question; but escalating protest over Norvir, whose average annual dosage cost rose to about $7,800 in January from $1,500, has suddenly given import issue unexpected urgency; table shows how costs for various prescription drugs in US exceed those in other industrial countries; photo (M)

Price of AIDS Drug Intensifies Debate On Legal Imports

Dan Barry column on Sam Zaman, Afghan-born street vendor whose coffee and doughnut cart on Eighth Avenue just north of 42nd Street is threatened by impending opening of European cafe; one of cafe's partners, John Giampilis, also an immigrant, wants Zaman to move his cart (M)

About New York; A Corner Gets Crowded With Dreams

Vice Pres Dick Cheney says Japanese government has invited US experts to consultations in Tokyo aimed at finding way for Japan to lift its ban on beef imports from US; Japan has blocked imports since December, when case of mad cow disease was discovered in Washington State (S)

World Business Briefing | Asia: Japan: Beef Talks Set

World Trade Organization says that US was justified in imposing antidumping duties on imports of softwood lumber from Canada two years ago, but that method used to calculate duties was flawed (S)

World Business Briefing | World Trade: Lumber Tariff Ruling

Micheline Charest was a British-born Canadian television producer and founder and former co-chairman of CINAR. In 1997, Charest was ranked 19th in The Hollywood Reporter's list of the 50 most powerful women in the entertainment industry.

April 14, 2004

Headlines from April 14, 2004

Doctor Wants 'South Beach' To Mean Hearts, Not Bikinis

Harmony Is a Stretch for Bryant and Lakers

Demand for PC's Spurs Chip Sales, Sending Profit Up 89% at Intel

MORE ON IRAQ

Critic's Notebook; Shattered Shapes: Architect's Rhetoric of Suffering

Billboard 200

Confessions

Damita Jo

Now 15

U Gotta Feel Me

Honkin' On Bobo

Notable Deaths

Historical Context for April 14, 2004