July 10, 2005

In 2003, abortion opponents took a calculated gamble and pushed through the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, a federal law very similar to a state law ruled unconstitutional just three years before. Critics asserted they were defying the court and doomed to fail in any legal challenge. Strategists for the anti-abortion movement were betting that the Supreme Court would soon be different: more conservative, and more open to an array of new abortion restrictions. With the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, part of the court's majority for abortion rights, that gamble may soon begin to pay off.

LEAH ABRAHAM is quick to admit it: As experienced as she and her husband had been in operating bakeries and cafes in Manhattan and Westchester County, ''we weren't on target'' in moving into another Manhattan neighborhood. A result was that two years of red ink flowed abundantly with the cappuccino and espresso at Settepani, their cafe in Harlem, before Ms. Abraham and her husband, Nino Settepani, came to understand their new market and took steps to accommodate it -- with, they now say, promising results.

Area straddling Fifth Avenue between 26th and 38th Streets is gaining foothold in residential development market as demand for housing in Manhattan grows; area's outdated and nondescript office buildings have become candidates for renovation or demolition; photos; map (M)

FOR a small but passionate group of men and women, myself included, Thursday will be the biggest night of the year. For weeks I've been windmilling in front of mirrors and limbering up my neck in preparation for excessive head banging. I'm watching my carbs and hitting the hay early. Because in four days, at the Key Club in Los Angeles, I will be representing New York against some of the fiercest competitors ever to take the stage in one of the most important events of our lives: The U.S. Air Guitar Championships.

TIGER WOODS was never better. He had won the 2000 United States Open at Pebble Beach by 15 strokes and now, on a sunny Sunday in Scotland, he was sitting behind a microphone in the British Open interview tent after having won not only by eight strokes, but, remarkably, without his golf ball thudding into the sand of any of the 112 mostly hidden bunkers at St. Andrews ''But,'' a questioner said to him, ''weren't you in a bunker on the seventh hole on Friday?''