October 4, 2004

New York Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina prepares for playoffs and chance to win his first championship; photos (M)

Walt Disney Co hopes to bring bit of Disneyland to its new flagship Manhattan World of Disney store, even as it looks to sell off bulk of its money-losing retail outlets elsewhere; seeks to draw on success of other retail experiments that feature in-store activities and entertainment based on products; offers rooms dedicated to interactive games and jewelry-making, kiosks to book Disney vacations and live theater like program on becoming princess; photo (M)

Supreme Court's most pressing task during new term that begins Oct 4 is to resolve fate of federal criminal sentencing system; court itself threw matter into limbo in June by declaring unconstitutional Washington State's similar, although not identical, system; in both state and federal systems, sentencing guidelines provide starting point for calculating criminal sentence, and judges then make findings about variety of factors to determine how much time defendant will actually serve; since ruling, federal judges around country have ruled that they could no longer treat federal sentencing guidelines as binding; justices have accepted 49 cases for review, enough to fill their argument calendar into early Feb and leaving room for two dozen more to be accepted over coming weeks; sketches of other important cases court has agreed so far to hear during its new term; photo (M)

Article on The Gourmet Cookbook, new cookbook with recipes from Gourmet magazine that weighs in at 1,040 pages and has been two and half years in making; photos (M)

Record surge of potential voters swamps election boards across nation, as biggest of crucial swing states reach registration deadlines; Oct 4 is registration deadline for new voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Florida and 12 other states; who many of newly registered will vote for is matter of some debate, but it is clear pace is particularly high in urban areas of swing states, where independent Democratic groups and community organizations have been running huge voter registration campaigns for over year; parties have been registering voters as well, with Republicans especially active in critical states in effort to counter independent groups; big unknown is whether new registrations will result in higher turnout; election officials say some of big groups seem to be signing up anyone on strets to reach quotas, with half-filled-out forms suggesting something less than true enthusiasm; photos; graph (M)