December 2, 2005

Representative Robert Menendez has fought his way up the ladder of New Jersey politics, rung by rung, to an influential role as the highest-ranking Hispanic in the House of Representatives. He started his career in a cramped apartment in Union City, where he lived with his Cuban-born parents, and rose swiftly from school board member to mayor to assemblyman to state senator to chairman of the House Democratic caucus.

''Sleeper Cell'' is better than ''24.'' That is almost all that needs to be said about Showtime's new series about an undercover F.B.I. agent who infiltrates an Islamic fundamentalist cell plotting a bioterrorist attack in Los Angeles.

Oprah Winfrey ended a 16-year absence from David Letterman's couch in grand style last night, appearing as a guest on his ''Late Show'' on CBS and then receiving a personal escort from him down Broadway to the premiere of ''The Color Purple,'' the new musical she is producing. Even as Manhattan evenings go, this one featured especially high drama with plenty of back story, as two television titans held hands while crossing from the small screen to the live stage over the span of a single block -- West 53rd Street, which separates his theater (the Ed Sullivan) from hers (the Broadway).

Under mounting pressure to end her faltering campaign for the United States Senate, Jeanine F. Pirro broke her silence yesterday and said that she was committed to challenging Hillary Rodham Clinton next year. Yet plans for a meeting today between her and Gov. George E. Pataki led some Republicans to predict a forthcoming change in her plans. On another front involving the 2006 Republican ticket for statewide offices, Joseph L. Bruno, the State Senate's majority leader, met with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg late yesterday to try to persuade him to run for governor next year. An aide to Mr. Bruno cited the mayor's landslide re-election last month, but Mr. Bloomberg quickly rejected the proposal.

Merrill Lynch acknowledges that its pension consulting unit in Jacksonville, Fla, which advises nearly 100 funds in state, has received subpoena from Securities and Exchange Commission as part of probe into conflicts of interest among advisers to pension funds; SEC's interest in operation appears to have grown out of its study of pension consulting industry, in which it found conflicts at more than half consultants it examined (M)