The U.S. military casualty system has failed to competently guide families through the casualty process.

In Notification of Military Deaths, More Pain

NEVER mind Windsor Castle, or Buckingham Palace with its rooms full of Rembrandts and Vermeers. Forget the royals' summer digs at Balmoral. Whenever Sue Best and her husband, Malc, travel from their home north of London to their vacation house in Orlando, they've got just one castle on their minds -- Cinderella's.     Despite its lack of pedigree, Cinderella's Castle, with all the other attractions at Walt Disney World Resort, has made Mrs. Best's heart skip a beat ever since she first visited on a holiday in 1994. The theme parks and sunny climate lured the couple back year after year, finally convincing them in 2003 that they should buy their own castle, a five-bedroom house with a pool in a gated community in Orlando, for $310,000.  

A Second Home, Complete With Mouse

House Republican leaders abandoned efforts to approve a budget after they were unable to bridge differences in their party. Page A22.  

House Budget Effort Dropped

Housing Here and Now, New York City advocacy group, and two large banks that hold mortgages on hundreds of city apartment buildings have formed coalition under which they will use banks' leverage as lenders to pressure landlords into repairing dilapidated buildings; banks will take into consideration past housing code violations and emergency repair liens and litigation in assessing loan applications and require that run-down conditions and violations be fixed before closing on sale; banks are Citibank and New York Community Bank (M)

Banks Press Landlords on Repairs

SOME bets simply should not be made, for history indicates they are extraordinarily unlikely to pay off.     One such bet is that American consumers will prove to be overextended, leaving those who lend to them in deep trouble. Half a century ago, credit cards were unknown to the vast majority of Americans. As their use grew, there was a lot of fretting from those who were sure that the end had to be near. They were wrong, repeatedly.  

Risky Forecast: This Time Is Different

Albert Einstein, below, figures in one of 10 pivotal days that reshaped events in the United States and beyond in a new History Channel series.       An article is on Page 26.

America's Turning Points

 U.S. Will Not Seek Seat On U.N. Rights Council  The United States said it would not be a candidate for the new United Nations Human Rights Council, which was approved last month with Washington nearly alone in opposition. But the Bush administration has agreed to help finance the panel and pledged to support it.   PAGE A6    Gonzales on Wiretapping  Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales suggested that the president might have the legal authority to order wiretapping without a warrant on communications between Americans in the United States.   PAGE A23    Safety Review of Heart Units  The Food and Drug Administration plans to strengthen the way it monitors heart devices by appointing outside medical experts to help it review the safety of units already on the market.   BUSINESS DAY, PAGE C1    The Evolution of Complexity  By reconstructing ancient genes from extinct animals, scientists have demonstrated the evolutionary progression that created a new piece of molecular machinery by reusing existing parts.   PAGE A21    On Time . . . or Else  Latecomers are a fact of life for any public performance in New York, but classical music and opera are special cases. At Lincoln Center, tardy audience members have to wait until intermission for some performances before they are permitted to enter.   WEEKEND, PAGE E1

INSIDE

Harvey Araton Sports of The Times column discusses New York Mets' game against Washington Nationals in which Mets pitcher Pedro Martinez was source of contention when he hit Jose Guillen with pitch; photos (M)

On Day for New Park, Martínez Is Still the Story

The Food and Drug Administration plans to strengthen how it monitors critical heart devices like defibrillators by appointing outside medical experts to help it review the safety of units already on the market, a top agency official says.     The move would be the first time the F.D.A. would have outside experts regularly advising it about the safety of medical devices being sold, said Dr. Daniel G. Schultz, director of the agency's Center for Devices and Radiological Health. Traditionally, the F.D.A. has used its advisory panels to help it decide whether to permit the sale of a new device.  

F.D.A. Plans to Intensify Oversight of Heart Devices

Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff testified that he was authorized by President Bush, through Mr. Cheney, in July 2003 to disclose key parts of what until then was a classified prewar intelligence estimate on Iraq, according to a new court filing.     The testimony by the former official, I. Lewis Libby Jr., cited in a court filing by the government made late Wednesday, provides an indication that Mr. Bush, who has long criticized leaks of secret information as a threat to national security, may have played a direct role in authorizing disclosure of the intelligence report on Iraq.  

Cheney's Aide Says President Approved Leak

Senate leaders reached agreement Thursday on a broad, bipartisan compromise that would put the vast majority of the nation's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship, but its prospects for passage grew more uncertain as Republicans and Democrats clashed late into the night over parliamentary procedure.     Both sides said that without a quick resolution of the differences they would not have a vote on the final legislation before Congress leaves for its spring recess on Friday, raising the possibility that the painstakingly negotiated compromise might unravel as it is exposed to intense political scrutiny during the two-week Congressional break.  

Senate Deal on Immigration Falters

Two highly decorated former New York City detectives were convicted yesterday of using their gold shields and the flashing lights of an unmarked patrol car to enhance their true role: that of mob assassins who helped to kill at least eight men in one of the most spectacular police corruption scandals in the city's history.      The verdict, coming 20 years after their first victim, Israel Greenwald, was gunned down in a parking garage and 13 months after both defendants, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, were arrested at the coat check of a Nevada restaurant, brought to a close a trial that stretched from the gangland prefectures of southern Brooklyn to the palm-lined subdivisions of Las Vegas.  

2 Ex-Detectives Guilty in Killings

After four years of enjoying private life, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani is taking several steps that could lay the groundwork for a presidential bid, strengthening alliances with Republicans nationwide and especially with conservative leaders of the party.     Mr. Giuliani's advisers say he will decide around the end of the year whether to seek the Republican nomination for president in 2008.  

Decided or Not, Giuliani Charts a Path to 2008

The new Massachusetts plan to achieve nearly universal health coverage represents an important bipartisan political milestone -- one that people in many other states hope will serve as a model solution for the thorny national problem of the uninsured.      But policy analysts and state officials say Massachusetts now faces an even greater challenge: creating a viable market in affordable insurance policies, so that businesses and individuals will buy the coverage mandated by the bill the state's legislature passed on Tuesday.  

Bold Goal Confronts Fine Print

An early Christian manuscript, including the only known text of the Gospel of Judas, has surfaced after 1,700 years, and it portrays Judas Iscariot not as a betrayer of Jesus but as his favored disciple and willing collaborator.     In this text, scholars reported yesterday, the account of events leading to the Crucifixion differs sharply from the four gospels in the New Testament. Here Jesus is said to entrust Judas with special knowledge and ask him to betray him to the Roman authorities. By doing so, he tells Judas, ''you will exceed'' the other disciples.  

In Ancient Document, Judas, Minus the Betrayal

Political Memo on alliance forged between Mayor Michael R Bloomberg and Gov Jon S Corzine of New Jersey to pressure Gov George E Pataki into reconsidering his negotiations with Larry A Silverstein in redeveloping World Trade Center site and financing for Freedom Tower; says their shared history allows them to see ground zero in similar terms (M)

Political Memo; Handshake Across Hudson Is Forged at Ground Zero

After Neil Santorello heard the news that his son, a tank commander, had been killed in Iraq, from the officer in his living room, he walked out his front door and removed the American flag from its pole. Then, in tears, he tore down the yellow ribbons from his tree.     Rather than see it as the act of a man unmoored by the death of his 24-year-old son, the officer, an Army major, confronted Mr. Santorello, saying,  

William Kissel says fatal stabbing of his son Andrew in basement of his home in Greenwich, Conn, is culmination of many difficult years; says Andrew, who was scheduled to plead guilty to charges of bank fraud, will be buried next to his brother Robert, investment banker who was drugged and beaten to death by his wife in Hong Kong in 2003; photo (M)

Recalling the Failings of a Son Lost in Greenwich

Vijay Singh takes first-round lead at Masters tournament; photos (M)

Singh Takes Advantage on a Dry Day at Augusta

Each day as Henry M. Paulson Jr. walks down the lushly carpeted hall to his 30th-floor executive suite at the Goldman Sachs headquarters in Lower Manhattan, he is reminded of the firm's tradition of sending its best and brightest to Washington.      On the walls are oil portraits of his predecessors: John C. Whitehead, Robert E. Rubin and Stephen Friedman, all of whom left the firm for careers in government. (His most recent predecessor, Jon S. Corzine, now governor of New Jersey, has yet to sit for his painting.)  

Is Paulson Going Public?

New York Yankees prepare for three-game series against Los Angeles Angels (M)

Up Next, The Yankees Are Facing True Nemesis

IN the final scene of Nicole Holofcener's ''Friends With Money,'' a bittersweet comedy about the drama of being alive -- with and without a fistful of dollars -- the actress Jennifer Aniston summons up a small smile that looks a lot like a frown. It would be a stretch to say that at that moment her character, a vaguely depressed pot-smoking housekeeper named Olivia, is actually happy, but neither is she exactly unhappy. It's just that she, much as the rumpled man tucked into bed next to her says about himself, has ''some issues, you know  problems.''      Most of Olivia's problems involve money, though she also has serious man troubles (she doesn't have one) and career woes (ditto). What she does have are three older married friends -- played by Frances McDormand, Catherine Keener and Joan Cusack -- who live in degrees of cocooned comfort in the kinds of Los Angeles neighborhoods where the only people of color are either taking care of the children or white folks working on their Malibu tans. Unlike her friends, Olivia seems to expect little from life and never seems surprised when that's what she gets. Having left her high school teaching job (the brats tossed her quarters for food), she now cleans up after other people, restoring to their lives a sense of order lacking in her own.  

Three Cocooned Haves, One Aimless Have-Not in 'Friends With Money'

New York Mets defeat Washington Nationals, 10-5; photos (M)

Theme for Martínez Could Be From 'Rocky'

New York gyms that offer white-collar boxing nights, in which bankers fight brokers in three-round matches, are told by state that these unsanctioned events are illegal because of their potential for serious injury; participants say white-collar boxing is friendly competition, heavily supervised, with either doctor or experienced trainer at ringside; photos (M)

White-Collar Boxers vs. a Long-Armed Rival

Latecomers to concerts and operas in New York are now met with greater restrictions and may miss more of performance; while some venues allow latecomers to linger in back of theater until there is convenient break, many herd them into small rooms where they can watch and listen on small monitors until they are ushered in at predetermined time; photos (M)

April 7, 2006

Headlines from April 7, 2006

In Notification of Military Deaths, More Pain

A Second Home, Complete With Mouse

House Budget Effort Dropped

Banks Press Landlords on Repairs

Risky Forecast: This Time Is Different

Billboard 200

3121

High School Musical

Back To Bedlam

The Greatest Songs Of The Fifties

In My Own Words

Historical Context for April 7, 2006