September 10, 2005

If those five match points tempted her, a steely nerved Kim Clijsters refused to let their loss haunt her. Instead, deep into the third and final set, she dared her top-seeded opponent, Maria Sharapova, to keep striking winners. But the 18-year-old Sharapova, frustrated yesterday to the point of tears, had depleted her energy as she tried to survive in the match. Clijsters kept charging all over the court, once again seizing control of the match.

Private contractors, guided by two former directors of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other well-connected lobbyists and consultants, are rushing to cash in on the unprecedented sums to be spent on Hurricane Katrina relief and reconstruction. From global engineering and construction firms like the Fluor Corporation and Halliburton to local trash removal and road-building concerns, the private sector is poised to reap a windfall of business in the largest domestic rebuilding effort ever undertaken.

A CRUDE symbol has surfaced in New Orleans to displace for now the fleur-de-lis, the crescent and the string of beads. It is a large X sprayed with neon-orange paint onto the emptied homes, the violated stores -- even the city buses that litter streets like giant discarded milk cartons. The fleur-de-lis reflects the enduring French influence on life here. The crescent symbolizes the bend in the nurturing Mississippi River. The beads evoke Mardi Gras, though these days they dangle from trees like gaudy nooses. And now, scrawled across all of that, a large X the color of Halloween: the post-catastrophe symbol used by search-and-rescue units to signal that the space inside has been checked for signs of life or the remains of death.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, whose endorsement has been widely sought in the mayor's race, has decided to endorse Fernando Ferrer in hopes of pushing him over the top to victory in Tuesday's Democratic primary election, according to associates of Mr. Sharpton. Mr. Sharpton, who was taking part in hurricane recovery efforts in Louisiana yesterday, will return to New York today to discuss the endorsement with his advisers, his associates said. He plans to announce it on his radio program on Sunday morning, if not before, and appear with Mr. Ferrer this weekend.

Pam Stegner knows a lot about preparing for an emergency. After all, Mrs. Stegner, a former emergency medical technician in Collins, Mo., has been stockpiling for years now. To take care of her family of five during a catastrophe, she has a gravity-fed water purifier able to process 30 gallons of water a day, as well as 600 pounds of rice and beans, 18,000 dried eggs and 16 tons of organically grown hard winter wheat stored in a semi-tractor trailer and a temperature-controlled storehouse.