July 13, 2005

Three federal appeals judges express reservations about jury's decision to convict Frank P Quattrone, former technology investment banker at Credit Suisse First Boston, on obstruction of justice charges; say behavior of lead prosecutor, Asst US Atty David Anders, and instructions given to jury by Judge Richard W Owen may have unfairly affected trial's outcome; express misgivings about prospect of reversing verdict and struggle with question of whether potential errors during trial were meaningful enough to have biased jury (M)

Holland Cotter reviews installation by artists Kelie Bowman and Sto at Cinders gallery in Brooklyn; photo (M)

Charles Isherwood reviews Public Theater's Central Park production of Shakespeare's As You Like It, directed by Mark Lamos; photos (M)

ONE of the wonderful things about wine is its seemingly infinite capacity to surprise. Consider, for example, white Riojas. The first surprise is that anybody would consider white Riojas at all. Rioja's red wines are renowned in Spain and the world over, but the whites? Few people think about white Riojas nowadays, least of all many Rioja winemakers, who have been making less and less white wine over the last 25 years.

LANCE ARMSTRONG's fabled career will end without his ever winning a stage at Courchevel. Doesn't matter. He will take a wonderful memory with him into retirement -- how he regained the yellow leader's jersey on the first major mountain stage of his final Tour de France, after a gallant duel with three worthy opponents.

William Grimes reviews book The Essence of Style: How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafes, Style, Sophistication and Glamour by Joan DeJean; photo (M)

White House Memo on whether Pres Bush can protect Karl Rove, his closest political adviser, from revelations that Rove talked with Time reporter Matthew Cooper about CIA agent Valerie Plame; those in administration say Bush will defend Rove as long as he faces no serious legal charges; Bush and press secretary Scott McClellan refuse to answer questions about contretemps over whether Rove tried to discredit Joseph C Wilson's criticism of Bush's Iraq claims by discussing Wilson's wife's role at CIA, while not saying her name; Wilson himself was first to accuse Rove of leaking wife's name for political reasons (M)

IN a perfect world, the Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers would be a proper carnival you could take your kids to, with cold lemonade at the Parkway Rest Stop, sword swallowing by Mister Snitch!, dunk-the-blogger booth at Mary's Lame Attempt at Fame, house of horrors at the Bad Hair Blog and the rest. But then who in New Jersey contemplates a perfect world? So, absent perfection, for another glimpse of New Jersey Ascendant, check out the weekly assemblage of all things Jersey that has taken on a life of its own on the Internet.

Stephen Holden reviews movie On the Outs, directed by Lori Silverbush and Michael Skolnik and starring Anny Mariano, Paola Mendoza and Judy Marte; photos (M)

The chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority acknowledged yesterday that the agency had been slow to spend more than $600 million budgeted for counterterrorism efforts, but he maintained that a lack of reliable technologies had made it difficult to determine how best to defend the transit network against a potential attack. ''The easy way out would be to spend the money quickly, without a thorough analysis of the cost and benefit,'' the chairman, Peter S. Kalikow, said in an interview. ''The technology for this kind of stuff is still emerging. When stuff is proven, we'll be there. We don't think we should be wasting money on unproven technology.''

Nani Dollison was stacking a color kaleidoscope of chips, which eventually added up to $448,500. She knew a woman had never won the main event of the World Series of Poker, and only one had ever made the final table in its 35-year history. She nodded to the lines forming at the bathrooms by way of explanation. The queue for the men's room snaked into the hallway and around a corner here at the Rio Hotel and Casino. No one was in line for the women's room.

Unexpected leap in tax revenue is expected to shrink federal budget deficit by nearly $100 million for fiscal 2005; Bush administration will announce that deficit will be far smaller than $427 billion estimated in February, decrease that Pres Bush will hail as validation of his tax cuts; Congressional Budget Office now estimates that deficit, which reached $412 billion in 2004, could be under $350 billion this year; tax revenues are running nearly 15 percent higher than in 2004, with corporate tax revenue soaring about 40 percent; increases come from stock market gains and business income of wealthy taxpayers, with 20 percent jump in quarterly payments on investment gains and business earnings; table; analysts warn lawmakers not to think economy is growing its way out of deficit, given that federal spending continues to rise rapidly, about 7 percent this year, surging for Iraq war and health benefit programs, particularly Medicare; Democrats say long-term fiscal outlook remains almost as grim as before (M)