June 8, 2005

CIA is reviewing stringent security rules that turn away large numbers of badly-needed Arabic speakers and other potential recruits with skills sought since 2001 terrorist attacks; many are first-generation Americans who have linguistic facility and cultural knowledge agency needs to gather intelligence and penetrate terrorist groups; many also have relatives abroad, posing problem for background checks and potential blackmail; CIA has strictest guidelines in government, recruiting only US citizens with top-secret clearance and only those under age 35 for clandestine work; officials caution that in some cases security concerns have been well-founded; spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise explains recruiting; House intelligence committee urges director John D Negroponte to use skills of unconventional hires (M)

RECENTLY, I was lying next to a hotel pool, keeping an eye on the children, when the guy on the next chaise swore like a sailor. He was peering at his little digital camera, looking furious. I couldn't help myself. ''Do you need help with that?'' I asked.

The leak in the roof of Miller Park dripped steadily to the right of the plate, but Alex Rodriguez never even noticed. With one swing, he reminded everyone of his enormous strength and ability, crushing a home run off the video board high above the center-field wall. Unfortunately for the Yankees, Rodriguez did this about 6 p.m. Central time, during batting practice. When the game started more than an hour later, Rodriguez and his teammates reverted to the feeble hitting that has characterized this trip, losing to Ben Sheets and the Brewers, 2-1.

General Motors will cut about 25,000 blue-collar jobs in US, about 22 percent of hourly work force, by end of 2008 in broad response to declining grip on American car market; cuts would bring nationwide employment to 86,000 hourly workers, about number once employed in Flint alone, and include unspecified plant closings by company that has already eliminated nearly 30,000 workers over last five years; total GM work force will be 125,000, compared with more than 600,000 in 1979; chairman Rick Wagoner tells discontented shareholders at 97th annual meeting that changes are must be made for long-term viability; photo; company needs UAW approval to close plants before contract expires in 2007; union warns GM cannot shrink its way out of problem and must rebuild market share, sharply eroded by robust foreign competitors; GM is nation's largest provider of health care benefits, covering 1.1 million Americans, including 450,000 retirees and spouses, at annual cost of nearly $6 billion (M)

THE Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, which returns to Madison Square Park this weekend, is an event that invites comparison from pit to pit and encourages discussion on sauce and smoke: there will be seminars for those who prefer their barbecue musings structured. The block party also affords New Yorkers a chance to compare their local barbecue with some of the best of what the rest of the country has to offer. And those comparisons lead to all sorts of questions about style, about the culinary and cultural hurdles specific to trying to cook and serve barbecue commercially in the big city. They raise the question of how good it is in New York and how good it's going to get, and force the city's barbecue proprietors to answer.