An experiment in Illinois casts doubt on a new method in which witnesses are shown suspects one at a time.

Study Fuels Debate Over Police Lineups

The turnaround has come not from greater sales of healthy foods but from selling more fast-food basics.

Salads or No, Cheap Burgers Revive McDonald's

China's oil demand, which the U.S. has blamed in part for rising prices, will be a subject of President Hu Jintao's visit.

China's Oil Needs Are High on U.S. Agenda

New York City Mayor Michael R Bloomberg says he will not seek federal waivers for adults 18 to 49 to receive food stamps for longer periods of time; elected officials and advocates for poor are surprised; Bloomberg says refusal to work should not be rewarded and that city programs make sure nobody goes hungry; photo (M)

A City Hall Feeling Its Way in a Renewed Battle on Poverty

Japanese cooking star Harumi Kurihara, whose cookbooks, television programs and food magazines have propelled her to rock-star status in Japan; she has published her first book in English, Harumi's Japanese Cooking; photos (M)

Empress of Domesticity Drops In

William Grimes reviews book The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky: A True Story by Ken Dornstein; photos (M)

A Brother's Journey for the Truth About Lockerbie

The police lineup is a time-honored staple of crime solving, not to mention of countless cop movies and television shows like ''Law and Order.'' Each year, experts estimate, 77,000 people nationwide are put on trial because witnesses picked them out of one.     In recent years many states and cities have moved to overhaul lineups, as DNA evidence has exposed nearly 200 wrongful convictions, three-quarters of them resulting primarily from bad eyewitness identification.  

Reality show American Idol has become so popular that even songs performed on show, either by established artists making guest appearances or by contestants themselves, can receive sales boost; show has become coveted booking for established artists looking to return to mainstream or maintain their public appeal; photos (M)

Music Labels Jockey for 'American Idol' Exposure

Frank Bruni reviews Manhattan restaurant Jean Georges; photos (M)

The Steady Center of an Expanding Universe

Yahoo reported a 22 percent decline in first-quarter profit on Tuesday but met Wall Street's earnings forecast, helped by solid growth in advertising sales.     As a result, Yahoo's shares rose $1.92, or 6.1 percent, in after-hours trading, after closing up 33 cents, at $31.30, in the regular session.  

Yahoo Profit Falls 22%; Ad Sales Up

The Federal Reserve hinted Tuesday that it might stop its campaign to raise interest rates as early as next month, a possibility that set off a surge in stocks even as crude oil prices rose above $71 a barrel.     According to a summary released Tuesday of the Fed's policy-setting Federal Open Markets Committee meeting in late March, ''most members thought that the end of the tightening process was likely to be near, and some expressed concerns about the dangers of tightening too much.''  

Fed Signals Policy Shift on Rates

On a recent afternoon at McDonald's in Union Square in Manhattan, Chris Rivera and Shamell Jackson reviewed the menu, which includes a variety of healthy options, including salad and fruit. Then they each ordered the usual: two McChicken sandwiches from the Dollar Menu, fries and a McFlurry shake.      The two 15-year-olds, like many of their classmates at the nearby Washington Irving High School, go to McDonald's often. And it is customers like Mr. Jackson and Ms. Rivera, consistently ordering the cheaper and more fattening items on the menu, who have fueled a remarkable resurgence at McDonald's.  

The F.B.I. is seeking to go through the files of the late newspaper columnist Jack Anderson to remove classified material he may have accumulated in four decades of muckraking Washington journalism.     Mr. Anderson's family has refused to allow a search of 188 boxes, the files of a well-known reporter who had long feuded with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and had exposed plans by the Central Intelligence Agency to kill Fidel Castro, the machinations of the Iran-contra affair and the misdemeanors of generations of congressmen.  

F.B.I. Is Seeking to Search Papers of Dead Reporter

New York City will offer housing subsidies of up to $14,600 to entice new math, science and special education teachers to work in the city's most challenging schools, in one of the most aggressive housing incentive programs in the nation to address a chronic shortage of qualified educators in these specialties.     To be eligible for the subsidies, teachers must have at least two years' experience. City officials said they hoped the program, to be announced by the city Education Department today, would immediately lead to the hiring of an extra 100 teachers for September and, with other recruitment efforts, ultimately help fill as many as 600 positions now held by teachers without the proper credentials.  

New York Offers Housing Subsidy as Teacher Lure

Anthony Tommasini reviews Metropolitan Opera production of Wagner opera Lohengrin; photos (M)

In 'Lohengrin,' Robert Wilson Paints Wagner's Realm With an Abstract Palette

The auto industry's efforts to rein in employee health costs is drawing an expensive reaction, as union workers and their spouses hurry to Michigan doctors for knee replacements and other elective procedures before they lose their comprehensive medical benefits.      Hospitals, doctors and insurers have all noticed a surge in demand for elective surgery since last year when Rick Wagoner, the chief executive of General Motors, led a public relations campaign to prepare auto workers for health care cutbacks, and Delphi, the G.M. parts supplier, filed for bankruptcy protection. Hip, knee and shoulder replacements at the Henry Ford Health System were ''up 20 percent in the second half of last year and remain strong,'' said Robert Riney, chief operating officer of the system, the largest hospital group in the Detroit area.  

Benefits Threatened, Auto Workers Line Up for Elective Procedures

Your team is down by four runs with one out in the top of the first inning. When you finally come to bat, a future Hall of Famer will be facing you. What are you thinking in the home dugout?     ''You figure it's over,'' said John Gibbons, the manager of the Toronto Blue Jays, who faced that situation Tuesday night. ''Well, you don't think it's over, but you know it's not going to be easy.''  

Johnson Doesn't Know What Hit Him

It has become a daily ritual, the defense of the defense secretary, complete with praise from serving generals, tributes from the president and, from the man on the spot, doses of charm, combativeness and even some humility.     A session on Tuesday was the third time in five days that Donald H. Rumsfeld had sought to make a public case to remain as defense secretary.  

Here's Donny! In His Defense, a Show Is Born

Atlanta Braves defeat New York Mets, 7-1; photos (M)

Zambrano Is Efficient but Ineffective

New York City's main transit union overwhelmingly approves contract proposal previously offered, but rejected in January; Transport Workers Union Local 100 president Roger Toussaint calls for Metropolitan Transportation Authority ratification of contract proposal; authority insists that contract terms have been dismissed after initial rejection; Local 100 says it will go to court to have issue resolved; photo (M)

Transit Union Approves Contract That It Rejected Before

A FEW years ago, stories about a scary new kind of outsourcing began making the rounds. Apparently, hospitals were starting to send their radiology work to India, where doctors who make far less than American radiologists do were reading X-rays, M.R.I.'s and CT scans.      It quickly became a signature example of how globalization was moving up the food chain, threatening not just factory and call center workers but the so-called knowledge workers who were supposed to be immune. If radiologists and their $350,000 average salaries weren't safe from the jobs exodus, who was?  

Political Clout in the Age of Outsourcing

New Jersey Nets player Nenad Krstic has become standout player during Nets' 14-game winning streak; photos (M)

Nets' Spare Piece Becomes Part of Nucleus

Consciously or not, the tens of thousands of General Motors workers who face decisions about the company's buyout offers before an early June deadline are getting a crash course in medical cost-benefit analysis.      The prospect of losing General Motors health coverage can be terrifying for workers who went straight from high school into factory jobs and have few good prospects for employment beyond the assembly line.  

The Calculus of Taking the Buyout

New York Knicks player Eddy Curry has struggled with injuries this season, prompting some to wonder whether trade from Chicago Bulls for three players and draft pick was worth it; photo (M)

Knicks' Great Hope Carries Burden Forward

A four-minute trip on the Roosevelt Island Tramway yesterday turned into a harrowing ordeal that lasted hours as a series of power failures left about 70 people suspended hundreds of feet in the air, forcing a daring late-night rescue over the East River.     About 11 p.m., after the passengers on two tram cars, one headed in each direction, had been hanging for more than six hours, rescuers began moving them into a large orange wire gondola from the tram headed to Roosevelt Island, which was suspended over the East River. Passengers were pulled from the side door and loaded into the gondola, which had a capacity of about a dozen people. By midnight, 22 of the approximately 50 people in the Roosevelt Island-bound tram had been rescued in two trips, including 12 children and an elderly woman who was using a walker.  

Midair Rescue Lifts Passengers From Stranded East River Tram

Albert Scott Crossfield was an American naval officer and test pilot. In 1953, he became the first pilot to fly at twice the speed of sound. Crossfield was the first of twelve pilots who flew the North American X-15, an experimental spaceplane jointly operated by the United States Air Force and NASA.

April 19, 2006

Headlines from April 19, 2006

Study Fuels Debate Over Police Lineups

Salads or No, Cheap Burgers Revive McDonald's

China's Oil Needs Are High on U.S. Agenda

A City Hall Feeling Its Way in a Renewed Battle on Poverty

Empress of Domesticity Drops In

Billboard 200

Me And My Gang

NOW 21

King

High School Musical

Greatest Hits Vol 2: Reflected

Notable Deaths

Historical Context for April 19, 2006