June 18, 2004

Relative unknown David Roesch is tied for third after first round of US Open, which is first major he has played in; photos (M)

Companies in US and Europe are asking politicians not to make accounting reforms that will hurt their company reports; high-technology companies in US are campaigning against being forced to report value of stock options as expense; House Financial Services Committee, 45-13, has voted to gut proposed accounting rule; similar options rule is being approved in Europe; European banks are angry over international accounting rule that would force them to report how much their investments in derivatives have gained or lost in value, something American banks have had to do for years; European decision on reform may hinge on what Germany does; Klaus Pohle, who leads German Accounting Standards Committee, comments; photo (M)

Merck supports idea of government-run data base that would keep track of all late-stage clinical drug trials from start to finish; Merck's position is first major sign of pharmaceutical industry support for such comprehensive database (M)

Clyde Haberman NYC column examines whether it was mistake to create Sept 11 Victim Compensation Fund, which gave payouts to families of those killed in terrorist attack; legal opinions are split between those who believe fund created levels of unfairness in its attempt to measure value of life and may have set dangerous precedent, and those who believe it was appropriate response (M)

Pres Bush and Vice Pres Cheney say they remain convinced that Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq had long history of ties to Al Qaeda, despite Sept 11 commission report that classified intelligence shows no evidence of 'collaborative relationship'; photo; Bush says his administration never said Sept 11 attacks were orchestrated with Hussein, but does say there were 'numerous contacts,' as when 'Iraqi intelligence officers met with bin Laden' in Sudan; repeats that Hussein was 'sworn enemy' of US; Cheney calls The New York Times coverage of commission findings 'outrageous'; charges press confuses issue of Iraqi role in Sept 11 with other ties to Al Qaeda, for which he says there is 'overwhelming' evidence; Democratic candidate John Kerry demands Bush explain why he rushed to war; says Bush and Cheney, not press, are muddling distinctions (M)

Swiss National Bank raises target range for its reference rate, three-month Swiss franc Libor, by quarter-point, to 0.5 percent; bank president Jean-Pierre Roth expects Swiss economy to grow 2 percent this year, reversing contraction of 0.5 percent last year; photo (S)

Tom Hanks plays Viktor Navorski, a traveler from a fictitious Eastern European country who spends a year stranded in the International Arrivals Terminal at Kennedy Airport. What sounds like a nightmare turns out to be a soothing comic dream, thanks to Steven Spielberg's playful virtuosity, and also to the talents of the cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, who infuses the neutral, unwelcoming architecture of the airport with soft, radiant light. The story is a bit soft: Viktor is befriended by a motley group of airport workers, bedeviled by a Homeland Security apparatchik (Stanley Tucci) and beguiled by an unhappy flight attendant (Catherine Zeta-Jones). There is a bit too much easy sentiment and artificial sweetness, and Ms. Zeta-Jones's character is woefully underwritten. But these flaws cannot dispel the film's deep enchantment. Mr. Hanks, like Mr. Spielberg, has nothing left to prove, and the nuances lurking in his sly, genial performance emerge only in retrospect. Similarly, the movie's deepest engagement with some of the central anxieties of modern life can be found not in its plot but in its ambience. It is a visual tour de force that turns fear into optimism, loneliness into solidarity, and frustration into resourcefulness. — A. O. Scott

Potash Corp, world's largest fertilizer producer, says second-quarter earnings will be about quarter higher than expected; graph (S)

Russia's Pres Vladimir V Putin says government will do its best to assure that Yukos will not go bankrupt, one day before expected court ruling could cost company billions of dollars in back taxes; graph; photo (M)

William Grimes Just Browsing column on StubHub.com, Web site founded four years ago by Stanford Business School students Eric Baker and Jeff Flurh through which people who have bought tickets to live events can sell them and people looking for tickets can buy them; StubHub makes money by taking 15 percent cut from purchase price of ticket from seller and 10 percent from buyer; drawings (M)

Staff report by Sept 11 commission gives minute-by-minute account of harrowing morning of chaos as nation's aviation and military defenses struggled to comprehend that four civilian airliners had been hijacked by terrorists; describes air commander in upstate New York ordering interception by fighter jets that were mistakenly streaking east over ocean, Vice Pres Cheney being hustled into underground bunker at White House and Pres Bush's motorcade speeding away from Florida school in wrong direction for airport; details unflinching calm by air traffic controllers who landed all 4,500 flights over US as well as miscommunications, mangled coordination and broken chains of command; account shows civilians improvising air defense as senior administration officials struggled to understand, at times relying on television; timeline of late-summer day, starting with first takeoff from Boston and ending with crash in Pennsylvania; photos; chart; map; FAA had virtually no command-level contact with Norad and no one at headquarters ever requested military's help; Vice Pres Cheney's order to shoot down any threatening airliner was relayed to commanders at 10:31, after attack ended, but not sent down chain of command to pilots circling New York and Washington (L)

Argentina's industrial production rose larger-than-expected 11.2 percent in May from year-earlier period, and 1.7 percent from April; output is up 12.4 percent in first five months of year over same period in 2003 (S)