October 22, 2005

Five bidders -- including the country's largest supermarket chain, Kroger -- have emerged as suitors for the Albertson's Inc. grocery chain, people involved in the auction said last night. At least three bidders are consortiums led by investment groups, these people said, including one led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, one by Thomas H. Lee Partners and one by the Yucaipa Companies, which earlier this year agreed to pay about $150 million for a stake in the Pathmark supermarket chain.

A SPARE few waited for her in the courtroom gallery on Thursday, almost all of them reporters, not friends. Clerks chatted near the bench. The stenographer chewed gum. Then the judge walked in after his lunch break, and a court officer called for order in the weary way you call for a disobedient old dog. A defense lawyer named John Nicholas Iannuzzi, wearing a red tie that complemented the handkerchief in his sharp suit, took a seat. A court officer whispered to him, ''She's on her way out.''

The execution-style killing of a defense lawyer in the trial of Saddam Hussein and some top associates shocked Iraqi and American officials on Friday and renewed doubts about whether it is possible to hold a fair trial in the midst of a war that has spurred a wave of revenge killings against people linked to Mr. Hussein. A group of a dozen armed men seized the lawyer, Sadoun al-Janabi, from his Baghdad office at 10 p.m. on Thursday and his body, with two bullet wounds to the head, was found in a rubbish-strewn lot nearby about an hour later, an Iraqi police spokesman said. The killing occurred less than 36 hours after Mr. Hussein's trial began on Wednesday, with live television coverage that identified Mr. Janabi by name and showed close-ups of him presenting arguments in the court on behalf of his client, Awad Hamed al-Bander, the former head of the Revolutionary Court under Mr. Hussein.

A State Supreme Court judge in Manhattan convicted an undercover police officer yesterday in the killing of an unarmed African immigrant during a raid on a Chelsea warehouse two years ago. Justice Robert H. Straus convicted the officer, Bryan Conroy, 27, of criminally negligent homicide for shooting the immigrant, Ousmane Zongo, 43, during a chase down a dead-end corridor.

As Fernando Ferrer struggles to raise much-needed campaign cash and to fight off the daily slings from his opponent, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, he is finding crucial help from the city's most politically powerful union, 1199/S.E.I.U. At a time when Mr. Ferrer can barely afford to run television advertisements, mail out campaign literature or hire foot soldiers to go door to door, members of 1199, the health care workers union, are providing him with the guts of a credible campaign operation.

Stars will not be twinkling in an enchanted nighttime sky, and goldfish will not be gliding through the fountain, but otherwise Paradise -- or at least the Bronx version of it -- is about to be regained. The Loew's Paradise, a 76-year-old movie palace that gave generations of working-class strivers a taste of Old World opulence and gave generations of teenagers a haunting setting for the taste of their first kiss, is scheduled to reopen next Saturday after more than 30 years of either being boarded up or sliced up into multiple screens.

President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Friday for urgent Security Council action in response to a United Nations report implicating high ranking members of the Syrian government in the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister. Noting that ''the report strongly suggests that the politically motivated assassination could not have taken place without Syrian involvement,'' Mr. Bush, in Simi Valley, Calif., said the world must ''respond accordingly.''

Tadahito Iguchi traveled 6,760 miles from Tokyo to New York last October because he wanted to see Game 1 of the World Series and witness the baseball excitement in the country where he hoped to play in 2005. After Iguchi made his hotel and airline arrangements, the Boston Red Sox ruined his initial plans by shocking the Yankees and winning the American League pennant.

Something weird is going on in New Jersey. The state is usually quick to bash, trash and kick its politicians to the curb, and perhaps with good reason, given all the recent scandals and corruption cases.

The Houston Astros woke up on the morning of May 25 with a pretty strong sense of where they would finish. It was not the World Series. Teams that average two losses for every three games do not expect to make franchise history. ''You're 15-30 -- you're two weeks out of .500,'' third baseman Morgan Ensberg said. ''That's not first place. That's getting back to even. You're playing with a bunch of guys that don't have much major league time, and you're getting dominated.

THEY have played 6,673 major-league games among the three of them. They are the billboard faces of their teams for the long-suffering fans of Houston and Chicago. But as of this morning, they had never played in a World Series game. That streak of epic proportions is about to end for Craig Biggio this evening. His stiff-shouldered teammate, Jeff Bagwell, is sure to take a swing somewhere along the line, maybe even tonight. But for the injured Frank Thomas of the White Sox, the wait goes on.

James Roberts is understandably bitter about the realignment of America's steel industry. ''It's hardly fair; hardly right,'' said Mr. Roberts, a 68-year-old retiree from the Bethlehem Steel plant in Steelton, Pa., who lost his health care coverage and a third of his pension as the company sank into bankruptcy. But for Jerry Ernest, a 54-year-old maintenance technician at the former Bethlehem plant in Sparrows Point, Md., the company's bankruptcy, reorganization and re-emergence this year as part of the global giant Mittal Steel was not quite as bad a deal. The money is better; so is the pension. ''I'm in my golden period,'' Mr. Ernest said. ''I'm doing better at this mill than I've ever done.''