February 7, 2006

Business travelers like Michelle Madhok used to consider online hotel reviews a reliable reference. Whenever she traveled to an unfamiliar city, Ms. Madhok said, she clicked on sites like TripAdvisor.com or IgoUgo.com, where she found thousands of ratings written by real guests.

President Bush decided against allowing the National Security Agency to intercept purely domestic phone calls and e-mail messages after the Sept. 11 attacks in part because officials realized such a decision would provoke intense opposition if made public, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales testified Monday. Mr. Bush was intent on striking ''the right balance'' between national security and privacy interests, Mr. Gonzales said at the start of Congressional hearings into the N.S.A. program.

No mountain peak or halfpipe can scare a young woman who grew up in a house with four older brothers and only one bathroom. That bathroom, perhaps more than any ski resort, was the Olympic training ground for Hannah Teter. Every morning was another trial. To get inside was to cross the finish line. She had to be brave, and she could not be shy.

Elephants have never lost the capacity to astonish and delight. But in New York City in the not-so-distant future, they will not be doing their astonishing and delighting at a zoo. The Bronx Zoo, the only zoo left in the city that keeps elephants, said yesterday that it planned to shut down its exhibit after the death of two of its three elephants, or even one.

Americans are taking sleeping pills like never before, fueled by frenetic workdays that do not go gently into a great night's sleep, and lulled by a surge of consumer advertising that promises safe slumber with minimal side effects. About 42 million sleeping pill prescriptions were filled last year, according to the research company IMS Health, up nearly 60 percent since 2000.