August 27, 2005

For many Americans, figuring out the monthly phone bill has become the consumer's equivalent of deciphering hieroglyphics, with baffling new fees creating a thicket of items at the bottom of the bill. Some providers like MCI have even started adding a ''paper bill'' fee to pay for the bill itself. Some of the add-ons are new, like the ''property tax allotment,'' ''carrier cost recovery fee'' and ''single bill fee.'' Others, like the ''subscriber line charge,'' are growing as a portion of an average monthly bill.

Ten years ago, the new Denver International Airport marched boldly into the future with a computerized baggage-handling system that immediately became famous for its ability to mangle or misplace a good portion of everything that wandered into its path. Now the book is closing on the brilliant machine that couldn't sort straight. Sometime over the next few weeks, in an anticlimactic moment marked and mourned by just about nobody, the only airline that ever used any part of the system will pull the plug. An episode bowing equally to John Henry, Rube Goldberg and Hal from ''2001'' will end.

When the bleachers are empty, the concessions stands are closed and the television cameras are off, the youngsters of the Little League World Series get together and just play ball. No one keeps statistics. No one cries after strikeouts. No one cheers except parents.

KPMG, the accounting firm under investigation for selling questionable tax shelters, will pay $456 million and accept an outside monitor of its operations under terms of an agreement with prosecutors that heads off an indictment of the firm, people briefed on the deal said yesterday. The agreement means that KPMG has dodged a potentially fatal indictment and avoided the fate of Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm that collapsed after prosecutors charged it with obstruction of justice in their investigation of Enron, an Andersen client.

The president of New York City Transit, Lawrence G. Reuter, has admitted that he accepted $633 in improper gifts, including golf outings and circus tickets, from companies that do business with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the State Ethics Commission announced yesterday. Mr. Reuter has agreed to pay a $1,200 fine to settle ethics charges filed by the commission.