New York City officials say crucial factor in landmarking lobby of old AT&T headquarters at 195 Broadway will be configuring lobby for public access, which is denied at many interior landmark spaces in downtown Manhattan; L&L Holdings, which acquired building in 2005, wants some kind of public space in lobby; photos (M)

Finding a Public Use for AT&T's Parthenon

WHEN two former Enron chief executives go on trial in coming weeks, attention will focus on whether they lied to investors, and on the ways the company violated accounting rules as it showed rising profits when in fact there was so little there that the company collapsed after the lies were disclosed.     Already, many who bear responsibility for the Enron debacle have paid. Investment banks that helped the company mislead investors have paid large fines, and some bankers have been sentenced to prison. Enron's lead auditor with Arthur Andersen pleaded guilty to criminal charges, and Andersen collapsed after charges were filed against it.  

Accounting Board Needs Whistle-Blower

Interview with Cesar Rodriguez in Rikers Island jail, where he is being held in fatal beating of his 7-year-old stepdaughter, Nixzmary Brown; he says he would routinely beat girl, lock her in a room and bind her to chair all night to keep her from misbehaving; stops short of admitting he beat her to death; photo (M)

Stepfather Recalls Beatings: 'This Is for Your Own Good'

The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to compel Google, the Internet search giant, to turn over records on millions of its users' search queries as part of the government's effort to uphold an online pornography law.      Google has been refusing the request since a subpoena was first issued last August, even as three of its competitors agreed to provide information, according to court documents made public this week. Google asserts that the request is unnecessary, overly broad, would be onerous to comply with, would jeopardize its trade secrets and could expose identifying information about its users.  

Google Resists U.S. Subpoena of Search Data

Listening to CD's With article features picks of New York City drummer Paul Motian, who plays with three different bands, largely in West Village; photos; list of his CD choices (M)

Paul Motian: Rhythm Melodist

Steven P. Jobs could be considered the Walt Disney of his era, breathing new life into animated movies with hits like ''The Incredibles'' and ''Toy Story,'' and reinventing Apple Computer as a media darling with its popular iPod.     Now Mr. Jobs is in negotiations to join forces with the Walt Disney Company itself.  

Tomorrowland: Apple Chief Set for Disney Role

NEW YORK'S junior senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton, joined quite a group of substance abusers the other day. In this bunch, no one is likely to even try kicking the habit.     The substance is history. The abuse is taking some of its most brutal and shameful chapters -- slavery, the Holocaust, the massacre of American Indians -- and exploiting them for whatever issue happens to land on the agenda.  

Crying Much Worse Than Wolf

In late 2004, Goldman Sachs advised the city of Chicago on the $1.83 billion sale of a 99-year concession for its Skyway toll road. For its work, the firm received a nice $9 million fee. More important, Goldman also got inspiration.     Across the negotiating table was an Australian bank that until recently was little known outside its home country: Macquarie Bank. In recent years, Macquarie has become the envy of Wall Street by buying the rights to operate infrastructure projects including ports, tunnels and airports, as well as toll roads, packaging them in funds and reselling the stock in those funds to the public, minting money at each stage along the way.  

Turning Asphalt to Gold

''Bleak House'' is too good to be homework.     Unfortunately, it is such a fixture on required reading lists that many people forget to read Dickens's novel for fun. J. Hillis Miller's introduction in the old Penguin edition doesn't help: ''The novel calls attention to its own procedures and confesses to its own rhetoric, not only for example, in the onomastic system of metaphorical names already discussed but also in the insistent metaphors of the style throughout.'' (And he gets the girl?)  

A Very Modern Dickens, Still Haunting but Lively

NBA suspends New York Knicks player Antonio Davis for five games for entering stands to confront fan who he believed was interacting with his wife; photos (M)

Under Specter of Brawl, the Knicks' Davis Is Suspended

Harvey Araton Sports of The Times column discusses NBA commissioner David Stern's 5-game suspension of New YorK Knicks player Antonio Davis for entering stands to confront fan he thought was interacting with his wife; contends that Davis may have been justified in his actions (M)

Stern's Justice: It Is Swift, but Is It Fair?

SEDUCED by balmy breezes, scenic vistas and local charm, travelers have long been known to stuff their valises with impulsive purchases, many of which lose their appeal as soon as they resurface back home. Ill-fitting T-shirts, stone statuettes and gaudy textiles can be tossed pretty easily onto the scrap heap of what-was-I-thinking vacation booty. But the problem is more complex when the buyer has acquired the ultimate ill-considered souvenir: a contract to buy a vacation home or a time share.     Two and a half years ago, on her way out of Mendocino, Calif., after a short vacation, Rebecca Kopriva, a research professor and psychologist, drove by a cramped, shabby beach house. It looked as if it were about to slide into the ocean, but it was listed for around $350,000 -- a great price in an area where more conventional beach properties were starting at $1 million.  

Second Homes Without a Second Thought

On the first Monday morning of the year, four bulldozers, accompanied by nearly 300 police officers, arrived on a rocky patch of farmland on the edge of a wooded village and began leveling the earth. It was meant to be the first step in the construction of India's third-largest steel mill.      Soon, from the bowels of the wooded village came an army of resistance. Armed with scythes and swords, stones and sticks -- and according to the police, bows and arrows -- the indigenous people who live on these lands in eastern India advanced toward the police line by the hundreds. Exactly what happened next is a matter of contention, except that by the day's end, the land was littered with the gore of more than a dozen dead and a fury that lingers.  

Fatal Clash at Mill Site Shows Perils of India's Rise

New York Yankees infielder Alex Rodriguez will represent US in World Baseball Classic (M)

After Listening, Rodriguez Made a Tough Choice

As soon as she gave birth to healthy triplets, Raquel Villalba knew she wanted them to meet the woman whose donated eggs had made it possible. The donor, Marilyn Drake, was just as eager to meet the babies.      But the fertility clinic did not think it was a good idea. Ms. Drake had grown ''overly maternal,'' the counselor warned Ms. Villalba. Ms. Drake, in turn, was told that Ms. Villalba would blame her if anything went wrong with the triplets, so it was best to stay away.  

Are You My Sperm Donor? Few Clinics Will Say

YOUR brain does funny things when it's an inch from a sheet of ice hurtling along at 50 miles an hour.     First, it deduces that something must be wrong. Which explains the doubled heart rate, panting and faint ringing in the ears.  

Your Own Winter Olympics, at Lake Placid

THIS winter the most buzzworthy event in North American skiing isn't the opening of a new chairlift or the ribbon-cutting on yet another retooled base village. No, for skiers the most intriguing news is a burying of the hatchet in the cold, deep snows of Montana.      If well-known Big Sky Resort and its newer neighbor, Moonlight Basin, which share a border and 11,166-foot Lone Mountain, had simply kissed and made up after their well-publicized spat -- which reached its nadir in a lawsuit claiming that Moonlight endangered lives by misfiring avalanche-control explosives onto Big Sky's slopes, among other transgressions -- the ski world would have yawned. But rapprochement was just the beginning. The resorts then saw what had been obvious to hard-charging skiers whose imaginations weren't tangled in rancor and boundary ropes: these two together could be bigger -- literally -- than the sum of their parts.  

One Mountain, Undivided

Julie White plays an agent trying to go Hollywood in Douglas Carter Beane's ''Little Dog Laughed'' -- one who minces no words. That part of the role, she says, comes naturally.       Page 2

Career Advice

 A Bombing in Tel Aviv Stuns a Distant Arab Family  A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a Tel Aviv restaurant, wounding 20 others. The Islamic Jihad faction claimed responsibility. In Nablus, the bomber's family said his transformation stunned them.   PAGE A3    Warning on Malaria Drug  A World Health Organization official demanded that 18 pharmaceutical companies stop selling some forms of a promising new malaria drug, to prevent resistance.   PAGE A11    Long Mission To Pluto Begins  NASA launched the first space mission to Pluto as a rocket hurled the New Horizons spacecraft on a three-billion-mile journey. The craft is expected to make its closest approach to Pluto in 2015.   PAGE A13    Knicks' Davis Is Suspended  The Knicks' Antonio Davis received a five-game ban for entering the stands in Chicago when his wife was apparently involved in an altercation.   PAGE D1    Problems Persist at Border  Despite promises of tighter control along the border with Mexico, some Border Patrol agents said they still faced an uphill battle, with too many illegal immigrants and too few detention beds.   PAGE A12    Concern Over Iranian Oil  As world leaders debate how to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions, analysts are worrying about oil. If Iran stopped pumping oil, other producers would not be able to make up the loss.   BUSINESS DAY, PAGE C1    Old Troubles at Child Agency  The child welfare offices in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the neighborhood where Nixzmary Brown died, have faced high caseloads and low morale for at least a decade.   PAGE B1    Wilson Pickett Dies  A pioneer of soul music whose powerful voice turned songs like ''In the Midnight Hour,'' ''Mustang Sally'' and ''Land of 1,000 Dances'' into hits, he was 64.   PAGE B8

INSIDE

As world leaders and diplomats debate how to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions, the worry among analysts these days is the fate of the country's oil sector.      The prospect of sanctions against Iran might have been easily shrugged off a few years ago, when the world sat comfortably on millions of barrels of untapped oil capacity. But the picture today is quite different. Iran exports more oil than the world's current spare capacity.  

Oil Markets Are Jittery Over Iran

Skiers in Kitzbuhel (Austria) have made it tradition to head to pubs for drinks after World Cup competitions; photos (M)

Bode Miller Let the Genie Out of the Bottle, or Was That the Keg?

John Rockwell Critic's Notebook on Japanese Contemporary Dance Showcase at Japan Society, which features such companies as The Roussewaltz and Shinonome Butoh; discusses specifically Japanese dance characteristics and movement; photos (M)

The Enigmas, the Oddities: What to Make of Dance From Japan

Acting Gov Richard J Codey's deal to build new stadium in Meadowlands for New York Giants and New York Jets is gold mine for teams but something less than than for New Jersey taxpayers; state will not share in income from parking, luxury suites or advertising; will also have to acquire 20 acres in northern part of state for Jets headquarters and training facility (M)

Deal for Stadium in New Jersey Gives Teams Reason to Cheer

Seattle Seahawks and linebacker Lofa Tatupu prepares to face Carolina Panthers in American Football Conference championship (M)

Super Bowl Dream Passes From the Father to the Son

New York City's efforts to correct deficiencies at child welfare offices in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, long known for poor management, terrible morale and high caseworker turnover, come too late to save Nixzmary Brown, 7-year-old girl who was beaten to death; changes were made after young child drowned in bathtub in November while under care of office; Bloomberg administration says Administration for Children's Services will hire 525 additional child-protective workers to strengthen response to abuse cases and offset attrition and will exempt agency from directive to cut its budget; photos of Nixzmary, Sierra Roberts, Dahquay Gillians, all of whom died in last three months while under care of child welfare agency (L)

January 20, 2006

Headlines from January 20, 2006

Finding a Public Use for AT&T's Parthenon

Accounting Board Needs Whistle-Blower

Stepfather Recalls Beatings: 'This Is for Your Own Good'

Google Resists U.S. Subpoena of Search Data

Paul Motian: Rhythm Melodist

Billboard 200

Unpredictable

The Breakthrough

Curtain Call: The Hits

First Impressions Of Earth

Some Hearts

Historical Context for January 20, 2006