February 10, 2006

A trip to the newsstand these days can be a dizzying descent into a blizzard of numbers. The March issue of Elle Girl promises readers ''375 excuses to shop.'' Harper's Bazaar offers ''783 new ideas to flatter you.'' Marie Claire trumpets not only ''71 easy hair and makeup how-tos'' but a mind-blowing ''1,157 hot looks (all shapes, all sizes, all prices).'' Magazines, particularly the ''service'' publications aimed at women, have long used numbers as a selling point while helping readers divine what's in, what's hot, what's cool, what's not. But today, these totals, scores and inventories seem both increasingly random and increasingly increasing, leaping exponentially beyond the sorry single digits of yesteryear to an incalculable proliferation of paths to a better you.

It has been a trend in American living rooms for decades: every year, the cable television bill goes up as consumers receive ever more channels they do not want or cannot find the time to watch. But in a frontal assault on business as usual, the Federal Communications Commission, in a report issued yesterday, said consumers would save as much as 13 percent on their cable bills if they could buy only the channels they wanted instead of being forced to pay for hundreds of them. The average household, the F.C.C. said, watches only 17 channels.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Bush administration officials said they had been caught by surprise when they were told on Tuesday, Aug. 30, that a levee had broken, allowing floodwaters to engulf New Orleans. But Congressional investigators have now learned that an eyewitness account of the flooding from a federal emergency official reached the Homeland Security Department's headquarters starting at 9:27 p.m. the day before, and the White House itself at midnight.

MATT, the love-starved then love-struck hero of the new play ''Red Light Winter,'' is the kind of guy who has somehow skidded through his 20's with all of his adolescent awkwardness rigidly in place. When a girl shows up at his door, Matt practically jumps out of his skin. The shoulders hunch forward in a pose of instinctive self-protection. The eyes dart around wildly, fixating on the ceiling or the carpet.

Stimulants like Ritalin could have dangerous effects on the heart, and federal regulators should require manufacturers to provide written guides to patients and place prominent warnings on drug labels describing these risks, a federal advisory panel voted on Thursday. The panel's recommendation promises to intensify a long-running debate about whether the medicines are overused. Nearly four million patients take the drugs to treat attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity, and committee members said they wanted to slow explosive growth in the drugs' use.