December 19, 2005

Microsoft Corp is spurned as Time Warner decides to renew its three-year-old partnership with Google as America Online's provider of search technology and to sell Google 5 percent stake in AOL for $1 billion; deal shows just how much Google has supplanted Microsoft as force to be reckoned with in technology and raises questions about Microsoft's stated goal of becoming leader in Internet searching, as well as about its emerging plans to offer more online services under new Windows Live brand (M)

North Korean defectors struggle to adapt Christian faith of South Korean missionaries; complicated relationship between defector and missionary symbolizes yawning gap of half-century of division; for South's missionaries, converting people from North dovetails with their dream of reunified peninsula; to North Korean defectors, some South Korean missionaries seem more concerned about brokering deals to smuggle them out of China and using them in Seoul as publicity tools against North Korea; to missionaries, who risk their lives to evangelize in China, some North Korean defectors appear ungrateful; missionaries report only fifth to third of North Korean defectors ultimately convert to Christianity; photo (M)

There was something insufferable about Benjamin Franklin, and many of his contemporaries knew it. John Adams wrote, ''Had he been an ordinary man, I should never have taken the trouble to expose the turpitude of his intrigues, or to vindicate my reputation against his vilifications and calumnies.'' Franklin could change positions when they seemed unpopular, compromise on principles and turn statecraft into a matter of personality. When he achieved any post of power, he stuffed relatives into remunerative positions while proclaiming that public servants should expect no payment at all.

New York Mets' new catcher Paul LoDuca, born in Brooklyn (NYC), could be one of Mets best acquisitions of offseason; photos (M)0

''King Kong,'' the big-budget, three-hour epic gorilla tale that is Universal Pictures' biggest bet of the year, tread rather gently into the moviegoing market on its opening weekend, taking in an estimated $50.1 million at the domestic box office. With the worldwide estimated box-office revenue for the film totaling $146.3 million for the weekend, the picture -- directed by the Oscar-winner Peter Jackson, who made the ''Lord of the Rings'' trilogy -- could be on track to be the blockbuster hit that Universal badly needs it to be. But it appears likely that achieving that will take more time than usual.