By its own admission, Russia's electricity monopoly is the world's largest corporate producer of greenhouse gases, accounting -- by itself -- for nearly as much carbon dioxide as is emitted by Britain.      From smokestacks across Russia's 11 time zones, the company, Unified Energy Systems, spews out 2 percent of all human-generated carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere.  

In Russia, Pollution Is Good for Business

New York Giants prepare to face Oakland Raiders; photo (M)0

Giants Juggle Linebackers as the Injury Toll Mounts

WITH a cup of hot coffee, Tom Seaver took an early morning stroll recently through his secluded three-acre vineyard on Diamond Mountain just south of this rustic Napa Valley town. As he stared at the cabernet sauvignon vines, which had just been harvested of grapes the day before, he said, a sense of sadness and loss came over him.     ''It was the weirdest feeling, like postpartum depression -- I'd never had that feeling before,'' he said, looking at leaves now yellowing in the cool air. ''There are 3,980 plants, and I've named every one of them.'''  

Warming Up in the Vineyard, Tom Terrific

Defense lawyers in some of the country's biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda.     The lawyers said in interviews that they wanted to learn whether the men were monitored by the agency and, if so, whether the government withheld critical information or misled judges and defense lawyers about how and why the men were singled out.  

Defense Lawyers in Terror Cases Plan Challenges Over Spy Efforts

Dr David Graeber, Yale University associate anthropology professor and self-proclaimed anarchist, holds that university did not renew his contract because of his political views; has been given one-year paid sabbatical in wake of outcry from colleagues and students regarding his initial dismissal; photos (M)

When Scholarship and Politics Collided at Yale

In a reversal that transforms the criminal case against Enron's former top officers, the company's former chief accounting officer has reached an agreement with prosecutors to plead guilty to violating federal law during his employment there, people briefed on the decision said yesterday.      The former accounting officer, Richard A. Causey, had been viewed by lawyers in the case as likely to strike a plea deal with prosecutors and possibly serve as a witness for the government in the coming trial of two former chief executives of Enron, Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling.  

Plea Deal Is Seen for Enron Figure

Nets Stop Cavaliers and Win 7th Straight

YOU can size up the new Napa and the old in a single sidelong glance down the 800 block of Main Street, where a jampacked tapas spot and a welcoming bistro rub shoulders with a bar that has been shuttered since 1975 and an Asian cafe whose fading sign advertises that great Chinese-American gastronomic anachronism chop suey.     This has always been a blue-collar city, home for decades to many of the workers at the nearby Mare Island Naval Shipyard, which is now closed. As vineyards filled the valley north of here over half a century, Napa has been content to leave the tourists, the inns, the boutiques and the fashionable watering holes to St. Helena, Yountville and other ''upvalley'' towns and villages.  

Blue-Collar Napa Joins the Gold Rush

The instructions boil down to one simple-sounding, endlessly complicated command: Connect. That's what a questing artist exhorts himself to do in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 1984 musical ''Sunday in the Park With George.'' And though it is one of those tricky words from a Sondheim show that always mean more than one thing, ''connect'' takes on even greater resonance when spoken in the stirring revival that has theatergoers lining up to jam into a cramped industrial space just south of London Bridge.     The place is called the Menier Chocolate Factory, a reference to the original use of the 1870 building. The theater, created less than two years ago, seats a not entirely comfortable 200. But this air of enforced intimacy makes you listen to the show as if it were an irresistible storyteller seated next to you at a bar. When George, played by Daniel Evans, tells himself to connect, he might be whispering the same advice in your ear.  

Only Connect: Sondheim's Intimate Core

Race for next New York City Council Speaker is dominated by candidates Christine C Quinn and Bill de Blasio; vote is expected next week; post is currently held by Gifford Miller, who, during his tenure, has increased awareness of its importance as second most powerful city official; photos (M)

Two on Council Seen as Strong in Contest for Speaker

Is the Verizon premium fading?     For the last few years, Verizon's stock has traded more than 30 percent above its Baby Bell peers -- AT&T, BellSouth and Qwest -- because investors felt it had more valuable, wealthier customers in the Northeast, and because its cellular group, Verizon Wireless, was the industry's most profitable.  

Verizon Loses Some Edge Atop the Bells

SOME people greet the New Year with totemic foods -- black-eyed peas and collards, soba noodles, even grapes -- as symbols of prosperity. But David Burke goes straight for the prime rib.     ''Decadent, decadent,'' the chef uttered over a magnificent standing rib roast that had just emerged from the oven at his restaurant David Burke & Donatella. But the roast is also relatively easy, a worthwhile consideration for someone like Mr. Burke, who was looking forward to a post-holiday sabbatical at his home in Fort Lee, N.J. ''Once this goes in the oven, you're done with it,'' he said, leaving you time to mingle with friends and family. The accompanying potatoes and sauce could all be done beforehand. ''Now that's your holiday meal.''  

Ringing In the New Year With Luxury and Ease

 Outspoken Putin Aide Quits, Scolding Kremlin  An outspoken Putin adviser and critic of Kremlin policy, Andrei N. Illarionov, abruptly resigned, warning that Russia's nascent political freedoms have been lost and the Kremlin's economic choices have been poor. He said he could no longer influence government policy and denounced the muzzling of the government's critics.    PAGE A8    Violence Surges in Sri Lanka  A rise in violence in Sri Lanka this month has the hallmarks of a war, yet the 2002 truce remains in force as the new president, Mahinda Rajapakse, is set to meet with India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, in New Delhi.    PAGE A11    Band and Label Reconcile  Linkin Park, the multiplatinum rap-rock group, is back with Warner Brothers Records after a feud that began in May. A $15 million advance on its next album and an increased royalty rate helped lure the group back into the fold.    THE ARTS, PAGE E1    A Maze of Property Courts  A family feud stretching from Texas to New Jersey involving an 85-year-old woman illustrates the checkerboard practices of local probate courts, which govern the transfer of property.    PAGE A12    Napa Joins the Revolution  The blue-collar town of Napa, Calif., has joined the culinary revolution with a dozen worthwhile dining destinations serving oysters and quail replacing pizza and burger joints.    DINING, PAGE F1    SPECIAL TODAY  The Year in Pictures  Reflections in the flood waters left after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans.    SECTION G    Food as a Natural Remedy  A growing number of food marketers are selling products that promise a host of health benefits, from cholesterol reduction to easing of intestinal problems.    BUSINESS DAY, PAGE C1    Woody Allen the Cynic  In Woody Allen's ''Match Point,'' the setting may be London, but the narrative engine is pure Dreiser -- lust, ambition and greed. A review by A. O. Scott.    THE ARTS, PAGE E1    Fields of Dreams  Tom Seaver now pours the same kind of intensity that made him a Hall of Fame pitcher into his tiny vineyard, which has yielded the grapes that in a few years will produce his first bottles of wine.    DINING, PAGE F1

INSIDE

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the transit workers' union announced a settlement yesterday in which the authority abandoned its demand for concessions on pensions and the union agreed to have all workers pay a portion of their health insurance premiums.      Last night the executive board of the union, Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, voted 37 to 4 to approve the tentative 37-month contract. One member abstained. The city's 33,700 subway and bus workers are expected to vote on the agreement early next month; some are expected to oppose it out of unhappiness over having to pay toward health premiums for the first time.  

Transit Workers in Deal to Share Health Plan Cost

Music group Linkin Park has signed lucrative new deal with Warner Music Group less than eight months after demanding to be released from contract, accusing label of being too weakened by cost cuts preceding stock sale to properly promote band; Linkin Park joins long list of major acts who have publicly threatened or taken legal action against their label only to back down after receiving hefty check; photo (M)

Linkin Park Will Stay With Warner Music

Because Woody Allen's early films are about as funny as any ever made, it is often assumed that his temperament is essentially comic, which leads to all manner of disappointment and misunderstanding. Now and then, Mr. Allen tries to clear up the confusion, insisting, sometimes elegantly and sometimes a little too baldly, that his view of the world is essentially nihilistic. He has announced, in movie after movie, an absolute lack of faith in any ordering moral principle in the universe -- and still, people think he's joking.  

London Calling, With Luck, Lust and Ambition

It may seem half a shame to get rid of a church tradition, however cruel and antiquated, if it can inspire poetry like ''The Inferno'' or spooky lines like these from Seamus Heaney: ''Fishermen at Ballyshannon/Netted an infant last night/Along with the salmon.''      But limbo, that netherworld of unbaptized babies and worthy pagans, is very much on the way out -- another lesson that while belief in God may not change, the things people believe about him most certainly do.  

Limbo, an Afterlife Tradition, May Be Doomed by the Vatican

William Grimes reviews book The Cold War: A New History by John Lewis Gaddis; photos (M)

If You Must Have a War, Make Sure It's a Cold One

Ever since she gave birth to her fourth child in 2003, Michelle Celona, a 43-year-old part-time teacher in Philadelphia, had suffered from annoying bouts of constipation. Figuring it was the stress of carting three children around or the result of something that had changed in her body after pregnancy, she learned to live with it.      But when the Dannon Company asked Ms. Celona in June if she wanted to participate in a two-week trial for Activia, a new fortified yogurt that the company said could help speed up what nutritionists delicately refer to as intestinal transit time, she jumped at the chance.  

Eating Your Way to Health; Companies Are Marketing Fortified Foods to the Drug-Wary

Rob Allyn, the political consultant, meet Rob Allyn, the punching bag.      A longtime Republican strategist, Mr. Allyn has found himself in the cross hairs of conservative critics in the last week after signing a contract with Mexico's foreign ministry to lead a campaign to strengthen the country's image in the United States.  

Republican Strategist Is Taking Heat for Taking Mexico as Client

Inflatable rubber rat, which is frequently used by labor organizations to protest unfair work conditions or publicize company use of nonunion employees, may be sidelined by National Labor Relations Board; board is considering whether erecting rat is form of picketing, which can be restricted, or is matter of free speech; case against rats was brought by Concrete Structures Inc in 2002; photo (M)

Labor's Huge Rubber Rat, Caught in a Legal Maze

Arizona State University defeats Rutgers University, 45-40, to win Insight Bowl; photos (M)

In a Shootout, Arizona State Outguns Rutgers

Roberta Smith reviews PBS documentary Imagining America: Icons of 20th-Century American Art; photos (M)

Artists' Personal Visions Reveal a Nation to Itself

The peasants surrounded the clerk in the busy court anteroom, badgering him to let them sue the officials who had seized their land.     No, no, the clerk said, shaking his head and waving his hands, as the peasants recalled it. They were wasting his time and theirs. But as they withdrew, their legal papers remained on his desk in plain sight. Maybe, the peasants hoped, that meant the clerk had tacitly accepted their application to sue.  

When Chinese Sue the State, Cases Are Often Smothered

Ben Brantley Critic's Notebook on London production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine musical Sunday in the Park With George; holds trend of minimalist revivals of Sondheim musicals allows viewer to see depth of characters once grand sets and over-the-top theatrics are stripped away; photos (M)

December 28, 2005

Headlines from December 28, 2005

In Russia, Pollution Is Good for Business

Giants Juggle Linebackers as the Injury Toll Mounts

Warming Up in the Vineyard, Tom Terrific

Defense Lawyers in Terror Cases Plan Challenges Over Spy Efforts

When Scholarship and Politics Collided at Yale

Billboard 200

Curtain Call: The Hits

Some Hearts

NOW 20

The Real Thing

The Road And The Radio

Historical Context for December 28, 2005