New York Mets pitcher Pedro Martinez throws 60 pitches in three innings in spring traning game against St Louis Cardinals, proving that his arm is sound enough to go deep into pitch count; photo (M)

Pitch Count Doesn't Faze Martínez

Artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude say they spent about $21 million on The Gates installation in Central Park, but they refuse to explain how they came to that figure; installation drew thousands of foreign tourists and pumped estimated $254 million into New York's economy; Christo and Jeanne-Claude paid for project entirely on their own, and therefore do not need to justify their expenses; they financed The Gates by selling other pieces of their own artwork; photos (M)

Enough About 'Gates' as Art; Let's Talk About That Price Tag

William C Rhoden Sports of The Times column discusses NCAA national basketball officials coordinator Hank Nichols, who has had to come down hard on referees this season for being lax about increase in physical play on court (M)

In a Brutal Winter, Referees Are Put on Notice

Specialists Azhar Ali and Wai Phyo Lwin, members of First Battalion, 69th Infantry Regiment of Manhattan and friends from Queens (NYC), are killed by roadside bomb in Baghdad, Iraq; photos (M)

Two Queens Soldiers Are Killed After Bomb Hits Humvee in Iraq

Dan Barry About New York column discusses various groups that have mobilized to save, protect, change or revitalize various fixtures within Washington Square Park (NYC) (M)

Defending the Hills of the Village

Martha Stewart, released after spending five months in prison, returns to her home in Bedford, NY; Stewart, who is to be fitted with plastic monitoring device for her ankle, must complete five months of home confinement as next part of her sentence; has until Sunday to report to probation officer; probation department will also install transmitter in her house, where she will be confined to single building, almost certainly the main house on her 153-acre property; other restrictions described; photo (M)

Home Sweet Home Confinement

BC bud, potent form of marijuana named for Canadian province where it is grown, has become center of what law enforcement officials say is increasingly violent $7 billion cultivation and smuggling industry; four Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers were shot to death in Alberta on March 3 as they were searching marijuana-growing operation; killings have stunned country; new wave of drug trafficking, with Northwest Washington and Seattle a major transit point, is challenge to US law enforcement agents stationed along northern border; situation is spotlighting sharp differences in way two countries deal with drug crimes; some officials on both sides of border say Canada's less stringent drug laws have made it harder to stem flow of contraband; graph; maps; photos (M)

Violent New Front in Drug War Opens on the Canadian Border

New Jersey police charge Edward McDonald and Hamilton Sanchez with murder of Jersey City family during bungled robbery attempt; McDonald and Sanchez bound, gagged and slit throats of Hossam Armanious, wife Amal Garas and children Sylvia and Monica in what was originally thought to be ethnically- and religiously-motivated crime against Egyptian Coptic Christians; photos (M)

2 Robbers Killed Jersey City Family of 4, Prosecutor Says

Pres Bush nominates Stephen L Johnson, scientist who rose through ranks during 24-year career at Environmental Protection Agency, to be agency's administrator at time when administration faces a battle in its effort to rewrite nation's air pollution laws; Johnson has been acting administrator since Jan, when Michael O Leavitt was chosen to be secretary of Health and Human Services Dept; photo (M)

E.P.A. Scientist Is Bush's Pick as New Chief

Connecticut University men's basketball team and coach Jim Calhoun will face Syracuse University and coach Jim Boeheim for 39th time; both coaches recently won 700th career victory; photos (M)

Coach vs. Coach, Clash Without End

US soldiers guarding checkpoint in Baghdad fire on car carrying Giuliani Sgrena, kidnapped Italian journalist who had just been released, wounding her and killing intelligence agent Nicola Calipari; Italian Prime Min Silvio Berlusconi says Calipari was instrumental in negotiating Sgrena's release; says two other intelligence agents were wounded in shooting; circumstances of Sgrena's release remain murky, and Italian officials have shed no light on how, or from whom, she was released; photos (M)

Italian Hostage Returns HomeAfter 2nd Brush With Death

Pres Bush, at Social Security forum in Westfield, NJ, and later at University of Notre Dame, tries to jumpstart his uphill drive for personal accounts; asserts that retirement system requires drastic change and challenges skeptics to put their own ideas forward; Democratic leaders amass in New York and elsewhere as part of weekend fly-around to counter administration blitz; Democratic National Committee runs radio advertisements in cities Bush has visited, and groups like AARP step up their opposition strategies; photos (M)

Pro and Con Line Up as Bush Presses Social Security Effort

Jury is deadlocked in trial of New York City police officer Bryan A Conroy, charged with shooting unarmed West African immigrant Ousmane Zongo in 2003; New York State Supreme Court Judge Daniel P FitzGerald tells jury to take weekend off and then try again to reach verdict (M)

Verdict Eludes Jurors in Trial of Officer Who Shot Man

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies files suit in Federal District Court in Northern California claiming that GS Magic Stor, with factory in Guiyang, China, stole crucial elements of patented design for miniaturized version of hard drive for Apple Computer's mini iPod; Apple, not named in Hitachi's suit, does not comment; some analysts say Apple may be forced, for image reasons, to drop Magic Stor as supplier; issue for Western companies doing business in China centers on intellectual property theft that has been fixture on trade agenda between US and China for years; photos (M)

Whose Patent Is It, Anyway?

Labor Department, offering new evidence that US economy remains on path of robust and sustained growth, reports employment grew by 262,000 jobs in February, twice as many as in January and biggest increase since last October; reports unemployment rate increased by 0.2 percent, to 5.4 percent in February, reflecting unexpected loss of 97,000 jobs and increase of 153,000 people seeking work; reports hourly wages for production and nonsupervisory workers remains stagnant at $15.90 an hour; graphs; charts; photo (M)

Job Growth Rises, to Delight of Investors

Orlando Magic defeats New York Knicks, 111-89; photos (M)

Knicks' Struggles on Road Continue

 F.D.A. Awaiting More Data On Lung Cancer Drug  Officials of the Food and Drug Administration are awaiting more data before deciding the fate of AstraZeneca's Iressa, a lung cancer drug that was rapidly approved for use by desperate patients but has failed to prolong lives in a clinical trial.     The case of Iressa has raised questions about whether the F.D.A.'s accelerated approval program might be allowing ineffective or unsafe drugs on the market. [Page A8.]    Aon Settles With Three States  Aon agreed to pay restitution of $190 million to its customers because top executives of the insurance broker directed transactions that helped mislead customers and possibly increased costs for them, the New York attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, said. The accusations were made in a complaint filed as the company reached settlements with Connecticut, Illinois and New York. [C3.]    F.D.A. Seizes Glaxo Tablets  The Food and Drug Administration, angered by quality-control problems it said had dragged on for two years, used marshals to seize millions of tablets of the antidepressant Paxil CR and Avandamet, a diabetes medicine, from GlaxoSmithKline plants. [A7.]    Cost of Medicare Raised Again  The Congressional Budget Office raised its estimate of Medicare spending and said the new drug benefit would cost more than it assumed when Congress passed it in 2003. [A14.]    Apple Suing Web Site Publishers  A California judge heard arguments in a lawsuit brought by Apple Computer to force three Web site publishers to reveal the names of sources who disclosed to them Apple's plans for future products. [C4.]    Four Investment Banks Settle  Lehman Brothers, Credit Suisse First Boston, Goldman Sachs and UBS, which helped sell WorldCom bonds to the public two years before the company collapsed, agreed to pay a little more than $100 million to settle with investors who lost money in the deals. [C4.]    Jurors in the government's case against Bernard J. Ebbers, the former chief executive of WorldCom, began deliberations to determine whether he orchestrated an $11 billion fraud that brought down the company in 2002. [C10.]    Management Shake-Up at Delphi  Alan S. Dawes, left, the chief financial officer of Delphi, resigned after the board expressed a ''loss of confidence.'' In addition, Delphi's chief accountant, Paul Free, resigned, and the board demoted the vice president of treasury, John Blahnik, who was also removed as a corporate officer. The management shake-up comes after the company admitted that it had inflated income statements. The scope of the accounting irregularities at Delphi, which are being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, appears to be wider than the company initially said. [C3.]    Germany Wins G.M. Car Contract  General Motors has decided to build midsize Opels and Saabs in Germany rather than in Sweden because it will cost $262 million less at a time when G.M. is trying to wring $655 million in cost savings a year out of its money-losing European operations. [C3.]    Boeing Suspension Ends  The Air Force ended a 20-month suspension on doing business with the rocket units of Boeing that began when Boeing was found to have improperly obtained proprietary documents and trade secrets from Lockheed Martin. [C2.]    ChoicePoint Faces Several Inquiries  ChoicePoint, the commercial data broker that inadvertently sold tens of thousands of consumer records to thieves masquerading as small business clients, announced that it was the subject of consumer lawsuits, a barrage of inquiries from state attorneys general, and two federal investigations. [C2.]    Nortel Names a President  Gary Daichendt, a former executive vice president at Cisco, was named president and chief operating officer of Nortel Networks. [C10.]  

BUSINESS DIGEST

Baseball executives and players who were invited to testify at hearings on steroid use could be subpoenaed if they decline (M)

Regrets Could Lead Congress to Subpoenas

 Syria May Announce Partial Pullout of Troops in Lebanon  Syria announced that its president, Bashar al-Assad, would convene a session of Parliament today to deliver a speech. The news raised expectations that he would announce a partial pullout of Syrian troops from Lebanon, where a soldier stood watch on a hilltop east of Beirut.   PAGE A5    Arrests in Jersey City Killings  Two ex-convicts have been charged with killing four members of an Egyptian Coptic Christian family in Jersey City. The authorities stressed that a botched robbery, not religious hatred, led to the crime, which exposed rifts between Jersey City's Egyptian Muslim and Coptic Orthodox communities.   PAGE B1    Push for Steroids Testimony  Baseball players and executives who were invited to testify at a Congressional hearing on steroids may be subpoenaed if they decline the invitation.   SPORTSSATURDAY, PAGE D1    Strong Growth in Jobs Pushes Market Higher  Employment grew sharply in February, as the government reported that the economy added 262,000 jobs, twice as many as in January. The report provided fresh evidence that the economy remained on a path of robust and sustained growth.    The jobs report also seemed to bolster confidence in consumer spending, and the stock market responded by rising to its highest levels since summer 2001. The gains came even as the price of oil remained above $50 a barrel.   BUSINESS DAY, PAGE C1  

INSIDE

Petroleos de Venezuela president and Venezuelan energy minister Rafael Ramirez, seeking to dispel uncertainty in energy markets, says Houston has nothing to fear over Venezuela's plan to exert greater control over Citgo Petroleum, which is owned by Venezuelan government and based in Houston, Tex; group of Venezuelan lawmakers are set to travel to Houston to interview officials as part of expanded investigation by Venezuela's National Assembly into reports of corruption at Citgo and PDVSA Services; photo (M)

Citgo's Status Is Giving Houston the Jitters

Dow Jones stock average rises 107.52 points, or nearly 1 percent, to 10,940.55; Standard & Poor's 500 stock index rises 11.65 points, about 1 percent, to 1,222.12; Nasdaq composite index rises 12.21 points, or 0.6 percent, to 2,070.61; price and yield for 10-year bond noted; chart on key US interest rates; graph (M)

Dow and S.& P. Close at Highest Since Mid-2001

Art Rock exhibition at Rockefeller Plaza (NYC) will feature work of unknown contemporary artists for one week inside giant cargo containers in effort to give unknowns access to highly public space usually reserved for high-profile names; photos (M)

Unknown Artists Find a Public Stage

Federal officials are considering proposal to remove hazardous material placards from railroad tank cars; their fear is that terrorists could use them to lock in on targets for highly toxic attacks; idea has sparked outcry from firefighters and rail workers, who say removing signs could endanger their lives; they say federal officials seem more focused on guarding against terrorist attack than on daily threat of accidents; dispute illustrates growing push to mask sensitive data about nation's industrial base from prying eyes of potential terrorists; photo (M)

Efforts to Hide Sensitive Data Pit 9/11 Concerns Against Safety

Air Force ends 20-month suspension of doing business with Boeing Co rocket units, which began when employees were found to have improperly obtained proprietary documents and trade secrets belonging to Lockheed Martin that helped Boeing win $1.9 billion competition for Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle booster rocket program; suspension cost Boeing more than $1 billion in government rocket business (M)

Air Force Ends Suspension of Boeing Unit

 INTERNATIONAL   A2-6    Freed Italian Journalist Fired on by U.S. Soldiers  American soldiers guarding a checkpoint in Baghdad fired on a car carrying a kidnapped Italian journalist who had just been freed, wounding the journalist and killing an Italian intelligence agent. The military said the car approached the checkpoint at a high speed and soldiers tried to signal it to stop, including firing warning shots.   A1    Two newly elected politicians announced they were withdrawing from the political alliance put together by Iraq's most powerful Shiite cleric, representing the first notable fracture within the alliance. The split signaled that any talks to form a new government would probably be protracted, as rivals try to take advantage of rifts in the alliance.   A6    Syria to Assemble Parliament  Syria said its president, Bashar al-Assad, would convene a session of Parliament to deliver a speech, raising expectations that he would announce a partial pullout of Syrian troops from Lebanon in an effort to ease the growing international pressure on his government.   A5    Ex-Ukraine Minister's Suicide  Ukraine's former interior minister, a man suspected of involvement in the abduction and murder of a prominent journalist in 2000, died in a cottage outside Kiev in what officials called a suicide. Yuri F. Kravchenko shot himself in the head hours before he was supposed to meet with prosecutors to be questioned for the first time in the case.   A3    U.S. Yields to Global Opposition  The United States bowed to global opposition at a United Nations conference on women's equality and dropped its insistence on inserting an anti-abortion amendment into a document that was then adopted unanimously.   A5    Restitution for Nazi Seizure  A German court ruled that the heirs of a once-prominent Jewish-owned department store chain were entitled to compensation for what has in recent years become one of Berlin's most valuable pieces of real estate. The decision resolved one of the biggest and most bitterly disputed claims for restitution of property seized by the Nazis.   A6    NATIONAL   A7-10, 14    Bush Tries to Reinvigorate Social Security Campaign  Stepping into a rapidly escalating battle for public support, President Bush tried to jumpstart his uphill drive for personal Social Security accounts, insisting the retirement system required a ''drastic'' change and challenging skeptics to put their own ideas forward.   A1    Scientist Picked for E.P.A. Post  President Bush nominated Stephen L. Johnson, a scientist who rose through the ranks during a 24-year career at the Environmental Protection Agency, to be the agency's administrator.   A1    Marijuana Violence on Border  The shooting death of four officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who were searching a marijuana growing operation in Alberta highlighted the expanding and increasingly violent marijuana trade along the Canadian border.   A1    Accuser Praised Jackson  In a videotape produced two years ago by aides to Michael Jackson, the boy he is charged with molesting said the singer was a ''loving, kind, humble man.''   A7    Of Democrats and Abortion  Robert P. Casey Jr., Pennsylvania's Democratic state treasurer and a strong opponent of abortion, announced that he will run for the U.S. Senate next year. Gov. Edward G. Rendell, a fellow Democrat, endorsed Mr. Casey.   A14    Religion Journal   A10    SCIENCE/HEALTH    Cancer Drug's Benefit Debated  A federal advisory panel began wrestling with whether to remove from the market a lung cancer drug that was approved for use by desperate patients but has failed to prolong lives in a large clinical trial.   A8    F.D.A. Seizes Millions of Pills  Angered by quality-control problems it said had dragged on for more than two years, the Food and Drug Administration used armed federal marshals to seize millions of tablets from plants operated by the drug giant GlaxoSmithKline.   A7    NEW YORK/REGION   B1-6    Arrests Made in Murders Of Jersey City Family  Two former convicts were charged with binding, gagging and cutting the throats of four members of an Egyptian Christian family last January in what prosecutors called a robbery that went awry in their Jersey City home. While the brutal killings appeared to have the characteristics of a hate crime, the authorities stressed that it was a bungled robbery, not the result of religious enmity.    Jury Is Stymied in Shooting  After five days of deliberations in the trial of a police officer who killed an unarmed man, the jury said in a handwritten note to the judge that they were deadlocked. The judge is expected to order them back to deliberations.   B1    Severed Hands Reattached  In a rare procedure, surgeons at Stony Brook University Medical Center simultaneously reattached both of a Long Island man's hands after they were accidentally sliced off while he was operating a vacuum form machine at a factory in North Bay Shore.   B6    FASHION   B6-7    SPORTSSATURDAY   D1-6    OBITUARIES   A11    Martin Denny  A bandleader who mingled easygoing jazz with Polynesian instrumentation and jungle sounds to exemplify the ''exotica'' sound that swept suburban America in the 1950's and 60's, he was 93.   A11    ARTS   B9-19    Bolshoi Theater Reconstruction  The main building of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow will close on July 1 for a long-anticipated reconstruction, the general director of the house said. The Bolshoi, which comprises both an opera company and a ballet company, will be leaving its historic home for the first time in 150 years.   B11    BUSINESS DAY   C1-10    Labor Market Grows  Employment grew by 262,000 jobs last month, the government reported, providing fresh evidence that the economy remained on a path of robust and sustained growth.   C1    Stewart Returns Home  Martha Stewart returned to one of her homes, beginning five months of home confinement as the next part of her sentence.   C1    ChoicePoint Woes Continue  ChoicePoint, the commercial data broker that inadvertently sold tens of thousands of consumer records to thieves masquerading as small-business clients, announced that it was the subject of at least two consumer lawsuits, a barrage of inquiries from state attorneys general and two federal investigations.   C2    Aon Reaches Settlement  Aon, the world's second-largest insurance broker, reached settlements with New York, Connecticut and Illinois, agreeing to pay restitution of $190 million for directing transactions that helped mislead customers and and possibly increased costs, the New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer said.   C3    Business Digest   C1    EDITORIAL   A12-13    Editorials: A fighting strategy for veterans; the Bush team's abortion misstep; AIDS drugs threatened; lobbyist as snapping turtle.    Columns: David Brooks, Nicholas D. Kristof.    Bridge   B17  Crossword   B17  TV Listings   B19  Weather   B20

NEWS SUMMARY

David Stuart Sheppard, Baron Sheppard of Liverpool was a Church of England bishop who played cricket for Sussex and England in his youth, before serving as Bishop of Liverpool from 1975 to 1997. Sheppard remains the only ordained minister to have played Test cricket, though others such as Tom Killick were ordained after playing Tests.

March 5, 2005

Headlines from March 5, 2005

Pitch Count Doesn't Faze Martínez

Enough About 'Gates' as Art; Let's Talk About That Price Tag

In a Brutal Winter, Referees Are Put on Notice

Two Queens Soldiers Are Killed After Bomb Hits Humvee in Iraq

Defending the Hills of the Village

Billboard 200

Genius Loves Company

American Idiot

The Documentary

Grammy Nominees 2005

Confessions

Notable Deaths

Historical Context for March 5, 2005