January 18, 2006

Selena Roberts Sports of The Times column contends that newly appointed New York Jets coach Eric Mangini, who is only 35 years old, can always blame Jets owner Woody Johnson if his stint is unsuccessful (M)

Airbus, for fifth straight year, claims it has booked more orders than rival Boeing in 2005; records show Airbus booked 1,055 orders, compared with Boeing's 1,002 but bulk of Airbus orders were for smaller single-aisle planes while larger percentage of Boeing's orders were for two-aisle, wide-body jets; while Boeing ended up with only 49 percent of market for orders, it had 55 percent of dollar value of market (M)

JETS

House Republican leaders laid out a proposal on Tuesday to rewrite House rules governing lobbying as they moved to contain the political damage from an election-year scandal over undue influence and access afforded to lobbyists. In the first of a series of competing packages of legislation, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert called for a ban on Congressional travel underwritten by outside groups, tougher restrictions on gifts and favors and the elimination of privileges for lawmakers turned lobbyists in response to three bribery and corruption convictions that have reached into the House. Inquiries related to those criminal acts are continuing.

Public outrage at failure of New York City's child welfare system to prevent brutal death of 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown far exceeds what occurred in similar cases in past; this raises questions about just how much any single death reflects system's overall effectiveness; incidence of child fatalities in city has moved up and down from year to year, with some of lowest totals occurring in years when child welfare system was thought to be at its worst and some of highest totals coming well on into reform effort that would be hailed as national model; death reports make clear that, for all system's improvements, frequent mistakes are made by caseworkers; photos (M)