August 24, 2005

Silicon Valley, which for years hungered for company mighty enough to best Microsoft, now frets that phenomenally successful Google may be moving away from entrepreneurial culture that produced it, toward corporate culture that some consider arrogant; complaints like hoarding of top engineers and treatment of partners are fueled by latest plans to sell 14 million more shares, adding $4 billion to cash reserves; photo; chart; graph; Max Levchin, who founded PayPal, says he is surprised at how fast reputation is changing; Bill Gates himself says Google is more like Microsoft than any other competitor. spurring his company to develop own Internet search engine; earlier pretenders to throne recalled; Google is also making it difficult for start-ups to raise money, adding new services and aiming for platform so popular that outside software designers write programs and Web developers build new Google-related services (M)

Gap Inc opens its first Forth & Towne retail outlet, which caters to women over 35 years old, at Palisades Center in West Nyack, NY; some shoppers comment; graph; photos (M)

Movie industry executives and experts, offering theories about sharp drops in ticket sales and attendance from last summer to this summer, conclude that too many Hollywood movies these days are just not good enough; studio executives comment; photo (M)

Longtime NBC sports and talk show host Bob Costas, who has agreed to be occasional substitute host on Larry King Live, decides against hosting show devoted to interviewing guests about Natalee Holloway, who disappeared in Aruba on May 30; photo (M)

Holland Cotter reviews Endurance, multimedia art installation about homeless youth on view at Ajira, contemporary art center in Newark, NJ, by Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry; photos (M)

Israel Completes Pullout Earlier Than Planned Completing an emotional pullout unmarred by serious violence, Israeli soldiers and police officers finished their evacuation of 25 settlements in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and said all settler homes would be reduced to rubble within 10 days. The rapid conclusion, after predictions of three weeks or more, took Israel by surprise. PAGE A8 Robertson Causes a Furor Pat Robertson, the Christian broadcaster, set off a firestorm with his comments that the United States should kill the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, a leftist who sits atop huge oil reserves. PAGE A10 Peruvian Airliner Crashes An airliner with 100 people aboard crashed near a jungle town in Peru, and at least 37 were reported dead. The crew of the Boeing 737 was trying to make an emergency landing in bad weather. PAGE A8 Fetuses, Pain and Abortion A team of doctors has concluded that fetuses probably cannot feel pain in the first six months of gestation and therefore do not need anesthesia during abortions. PAGE A10 Seminole Mascot Reprieved The N.C.A.A. exempted Florida State from a ban against using Indian mascots in the postseason after an appeal by the university and the Seminole Nation. PAGE D1 New Plan to Conserve Fuel The White House released a plan to overhaul fuel economy regulations for sport utility vehicles. Environmental groups responded with harsh criticism. BUSINESS DAY, PAGE C1 Hollywood's Box Office Fizzle As the last of the summer blockbusters fade away, a weak box office has Hollywood executives wondering if many of their movies are just not good enough. THE ARTS, PAGE E1 Armstrong Under Fire Again Lance Armstrong has been accused by a French sporting newspaper of using an illegal performance-enhancing drug in 1999. PAGE D1

YOU don't usually find a college tour guide showing off the school cafeteria to prospective applicants. But at Middlebury College in Vermont this summer, that was where a student guide made her four-star sales pitch. ''The food here is amazing,'' she said. ''When I went home for spring break, I actually missed it.'' At a time when many school cafeterias are still serving traditional, mass-produced food, Middlebury has replaced ''mystery meat,'' canned vegetables and other institutional menu staples -- the butt of freshman-year jokes for generations -- with locally raised chicken and lamb, and heirloom tomatoes, emerald green broccoli and plump ripe strawberries grown within a few miles of the campus.

Replacement workers at Northwest Airlines are at center of airline industry's most significant labor dispute in more than decade, and they be taking part in another historic moment of different kind: busting unions, 21st century style; they are among 1,900 replacement workers deployed by Northwest to assume duties of 4,430 mechanics, cleaners and other members of Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association; replacement workers interviewed say they do not regret their move, despite being derided as 'scabs'; Northwest job for some replacement workers are chance for better pay, and for many, return to industry where they worked before getting caught in deluge of industry layoffs this decade; Northwest required replacements to sign confidentiality agreements on condition of their employment; photo (M)

There was never any doubt where the Seminole Tribe of Florida stood on Florida State University's nickname. The tribe helped university boosters create the costume for the Chief Osceola mascot, approving the face paint, flaming spear and Appaloosa horse that have no connection to Seminole history. Yesterday, the National Collegiate Athletic Association agreed with the 3,100-member tribe and the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, which had also endorsed the nickname. The N.C.A.A. removed Florida State from the list of universities banned from using what it called ''hostile and abusive'' mascots and nicknames during postseason play.

Bush administration is replacing Lawrence A Greenfeld as director of Bureau of Justice Statistics following his complaint that senior political officials at Justice Department played down data on aggressive police treatment of black and Hispanic drivers; demotion caps more than three years of simmering tension over alleged political interference at agency and compromising of key law enforcement analysis; Greenfeld, veteran statistician and supervisor, was named by Pres Bush to head low-profile agency that produces numerous reports on law enforcement issues and strives to avoid political taint; Greenfeld reportedly was ordered to delete references to disparities in how racial groups are treated after police stops; Greenfeld refused and Justice Department opted for online posting without news release or briefing to Congress; study found about 9 percent of all drivers were stopped nationwide in 2002 but that 11.4 percent of Hispanics and 10.2 percent of blacks were searched or had vehicles searched, compared with 3.5 percent of white drivers; graph (M)

Baltimore's new police chief Leonard D Hamm is also stepfather of 36-year-old drug addict Nicole Sesker, who has resisted nearly two decades of efforts to help her; Sesker sleeps in vacant buildings, living from trick to trick and fix to fix while dodging police on street corners, lapsing time and again after family's rehabilitation efforts; Hamm, who raised Sesker from age three, says that after nearly two decades of trying to help her he has reached painful conclusion that she will find strength to change only after she sinks even lower; explains department's outreach program for addicts; photos (M)

THIS massive city has a fourth dimension, a yawning black hole into which you can willfully dive or accidentally trip. The chance to slip into nothingness is the beauty of New York, and its horror, as when searchers vested in the vanished are left to divine answers from stone-silent pavement and lapping river waters. Once in this city, a young man named John Lake knew success in the competitive profession of sports journalism, first as a reporter at The New York Herald Tribune and then as the sports editor at Newsweek. Among those who chronicled sports for a living, he was a name.