November 1, 2005

Pres Bush names Judge Samuel A Alito Jr to succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on Supreme Court; he is federal appeals court judge with conservative record on abortion and history of prosecuting organized crime in New Jersey; announcement is largely celebrated by conservatives, whose scathing attacks prompted withdrawal of Bush's previous choice, Harriet E Miers; Democrats express widespread dissatisfaction with selection, and confirmation fight appears inevitable; if confirmed, Alito would be swing vote that could shift balance of court and change laws of nation well into century; legal scholars call Alito's jurisprudence respectful of precedent and solidly conservative, not only on abortion but on other issues like death penalty and separation of church and state; photos (M)

Harry C. Dorer roamed New Jersey for four decades with his boxy Speed Graphic camera, capturing for a weekly newspaper the sepia-toned images of what is now a vanished New Jersey. There are the farms of the southern, central and western parts of the state, which gave it its Garden State nickname before the 1950's, when the ribbon of concrete called the New Jersey Turnpike transformed the state in most minds. There are the coastal dunes spiked with spindly grasses rather than condominiums. And there are the grand steam locomotives of the private rail lines that once crisscrossed the state.

The portal to the fifth dimension, sadly, is closed. There used to be an ice cream parlor in the student center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And it was there, in the summer of 1998, that Lisa Randall, now a professor of physics at Harvard and a bit of a chocoholic, and Raman Sundrum, a professor at Johns Hopkins, took an imaginary trip right out of this earthly plane into a science fiction realm of parallel universes, warped space and otherworldly laws of physics.

The three shiny Larry O'Brien championship trophies that Phil Jackson won as coach of the Los Angeles Lakers sat on a table at the team's practice court, props for a season-ticket-holder event in late October. Answering a fan's question, Jackson broke down his signature triangle offense in two minutes. Then, as fans lined up for photographs with the trophies, he walked gingerly to the film room to actually teach his system, which can confound even the most talented of players.

Bernyce Edwards's daughter was 42 in 1997 when she died of breast cancer. It was just 69 days from diagnosis to death. And through her shock and grief, Ms. Edwards had a terrible worry: what if she got breast cancer, too? ''That's my biggest fear,'' she said.