January 6, 2006

With a crucial committee vote on Thursday, New Jersey lawmakers all but assured that the state's death penalty would be suspended for a year so that its fairness and expense can be studied. The review of the death penalty would be conducted a by a legislative commission, authorized by a bill that the State Assembly's Judiciary Committee sent to the floor after a 4-2 vote. The State Senate has already passed the measure by a wide bipartisan margin, and legislators now expect it to sail through the full Assembly on Monday. Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey has promised to sign it before he leaves office on Jan. 17.

UNDER the circumstances, upper lips were admirably stiff at Firebird, the Russian restaurant in the theater district with prices high enough to give even a czarina the vapors. The word from Moscow the other day was bleak. An international body that keeps a watchful eye on imperiled species had just ordered a worldwide halt to caviar exports.

I.B.M., which has long operated one of the nation's largest corporate pension funds, said yesterday that it would freeze pension benefits for its American employees starting in 2008 and offer them only a 401(k) retirement plan in the future. The company said that the shift, which is expected to spur still more major companies to move away from traditional defined-benefit pension plans, would save it as much as $3 billion through the next few years and provide it with a ''more predictable cost structure.''

With three days to go before Election Day, ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, held what was by far the largest rally of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's campaign. With searchlights bouncing across the Brooklyn sky and klezmer music blaring from speakers hoisted on cranes, thousands of Hasidic Jews, in black hats or head scarves, cheered the beaming mayor from rooftops and blocks upon blocks of bleachers. When one of the most revered Orthodox leaders, Rabbi David Niederman, addressed the throngs, he praised the mayor for his push to create more affordable housing, his takeover of the public schools and his support for the constitutional separation of church and state.

It's settled. The 80's were more fun. Aerobics, unlike elliptical machines and Pilates, were inclusive. Madonna would sing and dance and not preach. Michael Jackson still had a nose and some of his right mind. Fashion was more innovative, and so was white-collar crime: Compared with Kenneth L. Lay or Jack Abramoff, Michael Milken was a visionary genius.