November 21, 2005

Vice Pres Dick Cheney met privately last July with Republican Sens John W Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham to ask them to toe administration line on treatment of military prisoners, but senators would not budge from their push to regulate treatment of prisoners; meeting was early hint of feud that spilled into open as Senate Republicans openly challenged Pres Bush last week on American policy in Iraq and war on terrorism; though their views on war differ, they have much in common: each is member of Armed Services Committee, has strong maverick streak and has ties to military and to one another; relationships with Bush are respectful, though not close, and each has different political agenda, but their union has become powerful political force at time when Bush's popularity is sinking and Washington is consumed with debate over Iraq; they are firm in conviction that Congress must flex its muscles after ceding authority on military matters to executive branch; photos (M)

TV antennas were beginning to sprout on rooftops like spindly metallic weeds, the alternate-side parking minuet was just being choreographed and air raid sirens still rumbled daily at noon in 1955 when New Yorkers paused briefly to contemplate a city ''strained almost to bursting'' after the ''tensest quarter century'' in its history. Titled ''Our Changing City,'' a 20-part series of articles in The New York Times painted a largely optimistic panorama of the century's second half. It envisioned a sprawling cultural center and Fordham campus on the squalid West Side, a civic plaza in Downtown Brooklyn that Robert Moses promised would rival the Piazza San Marco in Venice, a grand development over the Sunnyside railroad yards in Queens, and a Palace of Progress devoted to world trade atop a reconstructed Pennsylvania Station.

More than 30 years have passed since Austin Avery, a detective with the White Plains Police Department, set out to find a 24-year-old aspiring journalist who had vanished from a boarding house here on a frigid winter night. Mr. Avery, now 77, never did find the man that evening, only a blood-splattered bedroom and other signs that his life had most likely ended in a violent confrontation. The body of the victim, Oscar Nedd, has never been found; the man who Mr. Avery suspects killed him was never questioned by the local police. And for years the case was all but forgotten, left to collect dust in the department's missing-persons file by officials who said there was not enough evidence to seek an indictment.

Tony Stewart wins second Nextel Cup championship with 15th-place finish at Ford 400; Greg Biffle wins race to tie Carl Edwards for second overall in points; photos (M)

Some pop stars (the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen) inspire love. Others (Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Madonna) demand worship. Between love and worship, there is a world of difference. Love is warm, trusting and generous and allows for forgiveness. Worship is cooler. It involves an exchange of power in which adoration is shadowed with fear. To watch ''Barbra Streisand: The Television Specials,'' a DVD anthology (Warner Strategic Marketing) of her five one-woman shows that were broadcast between 1965 and 1973, is to spend nearly five hours in the presence of a self-styled show business goddess. In these meticulously conceived three-act specials, Ms. Streisand wields her star power with a concentrated intensity that is magnetic, intimidating and ahead of its time. Turning her famous bump-in-the-nose profile to the camera, she challenges you to say she isn't beautiful. Directing her cold, critical gaze into the camera, she dares you to look away. But the force within that gaze is transfixing.