March 31, 2006

The board that writes accounting rules for American business is proposing a new method of reporting pension obligations that is likely to show that many companies have a lot more debt than was obvious before. In some cases, particularly at old industrial companies like automakers, the newly disclosed obligations are likely to be so large that they will wipe out the net worth of the company.

Education activists charge that New York State allocates education aid among 677 school districts using arcane mathematical formulas that are supposed to provide objectivity but are stew of political calculations; court has ruled that New York City children are being shortchanged and has directed state to develop plan to fix problem, but Legislature's expected budget does little to break from decades-old rules; diagram showing allocation of differing aid to similar school districts (M)

TRAVELERS come to the Florida Keys for the sun, the sand and the scenery of America gone Caribbean. They come for bone-fishing in the morning, margaritas at midday and sunset celebrations at dusk. And before it's time to depart, everybody wants a piece of Key lime pie. Never mind that most Key limes -- golf-ball-size and yellowish, in contrast to the larger, greener Persian lime -- are grown these days in Mexico. Or that first-rate Key lime pie can now be had in places like Brooklyn. A theme still hums through this island chain, audible to every tourist: ''I eat Key lime pie, therefore I am vacationing in the Keys.''

SITTING in the reading room of the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia, I was immediately struck by how little the concerns of writers had changed in the last century and a half. Among some correspondence written in 1865 by Charles Dodgson (a k a Lewis Carroll) are several letters to Macmillan, his publisher. Just as a contemporary novelist might anxiously send e-mails to her publishing house, Dodgson wrote to his editor, shortly before the publication of ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'': ''You have not yet answered my two questions: -- (1) When will the book be really out? (2) What newspapers etc. do you propose to send copies to?''

Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found. And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers suggested.