February 13, 2006

Shiite lawmakers decided by a one-vote margin on Sunday to retain Ibrahim al-Jaafari as prime minister in Iraq's next government, after a bitter internal struggle that exposed the growing power of anti-American fundamentalists within the new Parliament. As the largest single bloc in the Parliament, the Shiites have the right to choose a prime minister under Iraq's Constitution, and they will now begin negotiating with the leaders of other political groups to fill out Iraq's first full-term, four-year government.

New York City mobilizes thousands of workers to clean up after 26.9-inch snowfall; subways, trains, buses and airports dig out; thus-far mild winter results in plenty of working equipment and supplies remaining for snow removal; advanced warning and timing of storm at end of weekend contribute to fast recovery; photos (M)

The snowstorm started slow and wet, and as the night and the next day wore on, it did a lot of things -- it paused, it got stronger, it got weaker, it got stronger again. But one thing it didn't do, for 24 hours, was stop. It made its point in fits and starts, trading brief lulls for blinding whiteouts in minutes. It arrived late Saturday, and by the time most people woke up yesterday morning, the city was already cloaked in white.

New Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb will draw from 20 years of experience as artists' manager, producer and record company executive to determine direction of organization; will bring to bear his enormous list of contacts to populate future seasons at world's largest opera house; replaces longtime manager Joseph Volpe; Gelb comments; photo (M)

The wild ride of luckless ol' Oedipus -- accidentally offing dad, marrying mom, being dissed by the kids -- is pimped to the nines in ''The Seven,'' a frisky and funny new riff on the classic story, which opened last night at New York Theater Workshop. Written by Will Power, who also composed the music (with Justin Ellington and Will Hammond), and directed by Jo Bonney, the show is a freewheeling adaptation of one of the more static, less revered Greek tragedies, Aeschylus' ''Seven Against Thebes,'' with a big handful of back story thrown in. Mr. Power slaps his old record on a new turntable, and then proceeds to spin and scratch it, freely sampling contemporary musical styles and mixing in jokes spanning a couple of millenniums of pop culture to create a strange new hybrid: a hip-hop musical comedy-tragedy. If the needle eventually begins skipping, as the nifty conceit wears thin and Mr. Power's playful instincts clash with Aeschylus' ritualistic grandeur, that's only to be expected in a risky adventure in aesthetic cross-pollination.