February 15, 2006

It's hard to be in a business where you literally -- as well as figuratively -- are tilting at windmills. But that business may have just gotten its biggest tail wind yet. When President Bush called last month for more effort in alternative energies, a business that last year attracted only about $7 billion in investment nationwide, the 300 engineers and financiers at GE Energy Financial Services were already in the game. But that does not mean they were not happy that the White House acknowledged the sector.

John Rockwell reviews annual festival British Dance Edition 2006 in Leeds, England; photos (M)

New York State sues federal Environmental Protection Agency over its refusal to turn over records detailing levels of smog-causing compounds found in household and industrial products, like paint and varnish; it needs records to draw up plan to comply with strict new rules on smog-forming pollution being phased in under Clean Air Act; EPA appears to be siding wth paint manufacturers, which have used courts to prevent state attempts to regulate their products; manufacturers say that releasing information about pollutants in their products would reveal proprietary secrets; some, like Sherwin-Williams, have paid fines to avoid reducing levels of volatile organic compounds; chart (M)

New York City rebukes Education Dept for allowing Lee D McCaskill, principal of Brooklyn Technical High School, to retire days before completion of investigation into his daughter's improper enrollment in Brooklyn elementary school; McCaskill and his wife, Cathy Furman McCaskill, who teaches at another city school, hid fact that they live in New Jersey; used address of lawyer friend Robin Kelly Sheares, who signed fraudulent lease that they used to avoid paying tuition as out of state residents; McCaskill is still being paid $125,282 salary; Education Dept reassigns Mrs McCaskill and seeks to fire her; Sheares role is reported to state court system's ethics commission; photo (M)

Trend of 'celebrity swag' is marketing scheme in which companies pay for opportunity to give products away at high-profile events in hopes that celebrities will wear or use products, thereby providing invaluable advertising; Lash Fary is entrepreneur in burgeoning field, charging $20,000 for arranging giveaways at celebrity-packed events; photo (M)