December 18, 2004

Five months after the Nets appeared to be dismantling their team and less than a week after their new owner admitted that trading Kenyon Martin was a mistake, they reversed course yesterday and acquired Vince Carter, the Toronto Raptors' unhappy superstar whose stock had dropped in recent seasons. More significant, bringing in the 27-year-old Carter, a five-time All-Star, gave Jason Kidd, the Nets' 31-year-old franchise player, a reason to consider staying in New Jersey.

IN the aftermath of a rash of coaching changes in college football, the most encouraging news of the week was a letter written by 62 former University of Illinois athletes. The letter, addressed to the athletic director, Ron Guenther, offered a list of experienced minority candidates for the football coach's job at Illinois. The letter was written in late November after Ron Turner was fired as the coach, and a copy of it was released this week in reaction to Illinois's hiring of Ron Zook, the former Florida coach, who was fired in midseason.

Lazard files for initial public offering, becoming last of old-line Wall Street partnerships to do so; seeks to raise $850 million from offering, which is subject to approval by Securities and Exchange Commission; Lazard, expected to command valuation of around $3 billion, will spin off its capital markets and merchant banking businesses in private company owned by current and former managing directors (M)

The city settled a long-running class-action lawsuit by victims of domestic violence yesterday, essentially conceding that children could not be placed in foster care just because their mothers had been abused. The settlement was not a surprise, as it came just months after the state's highest court had ruled explicitly that the city could not remove children in cases in which the sole problem in a family was domestic violence.

The Yankees, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers have done their parts. Now, the Yankees' acquisition of Randy Johnson -- and another left-hander, Kazuhisa Ishii -- depends largely on the wishes of Shawn Green. The teams reached agreement yesterday on a 10-player deal that could be presented to Commissioner Bud Selig this weekend, as soon as contract details are analyzed and adjusted. But the deal would come apart if Green rejected his trade from the Dodgers to the Diamondbacks.