To reduce the chance of H.I.V. in men, health workers are pressing to make circumcisions broadly available.

Circumcision Studied in Africa as AIDS Preventive

Randal McCloy Jr. said that at least four of the oxygen masks meant to protect the Sago miners did not work. 

Surviving Miner Says Air Masks Failed

Forecasters expect the Commerce Department to report that the economy grew about 5 percent in the first quarter, the biggest increase since 2003.

U.S. Economy Still Expanding at Rapid Pace

Proposals include rebates for taxpayers,  possible taxes on oil-industry profits, and the opening of drilling in the Arctic.

G.O.P. Senators Hurry to Quell Furor Over Gas

The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, indicated on Thursday that the central bank was ready for a cautious experiment.     Despite unexpectedly strong economic growth in recent months, and some evidence of a risk of higher inflation, Mr. Bernanke told Congress that the Fed's policy-making committee might pause temporarily in its two-year campaign to raise interest rates.  

The Fed May Stand Back and Watch the Numbers for a While

IT was a beautiful day in the Santa Fe National Forest. Mike and Kathy Serk, hikers from the suburbs of Santa Fe, N.M., were taking a break along the Raven's Ridge Trail, sitting on fallen logs in a pool of sunlight for a leisurely lunch of sandwiches and potato chips. Around them, towering spruce trees and pale green aspens swayed gently in a mountain breeze. Songbirds flitted among the branches. Nearby on the clear, dry trail, hikers and mountain bikers occasionally passed by.      But something was out of kilter.  

Dry Southwest, Uncertain Summer

Profile of 15-year-old Quashay Everett, whose body was found in March in Queens after having been missing for nearly a year; cause of death has not been determined photos (M)

A Life Too Short, With Cruelty as Its Bookends

BUY high, sell low. That may not be what companies try to do, but all too often it happens when they set out to buy the asset you might think they would know best: their own shares.     When that occurs, the result is perverse. Companies, particularly ones that pay no dividends, wind up providing cash to shareholders who were disloyal (or wise) enough to bail out. Those who followed the old advice of ''buy and hold'' get no cash, and they suffer more than they would have if the company had not purchased overvalued stock.  

Why Do Firms Pay Investors Who Sell?

What was once the site of Wall Street's quintessential power lunch is preparing its last meal.     The Stock Exchange Luncheon Club, a wood-paneled dining room that has served members of the New York Stock Exchange and other Wall Street power brokers since 1898, is closing at the end of business today.  

Where Wall Street Meets to Eat, the Last Lunch

For well over a decade, southern Africans have battled the spread of H.I.V. with everything from condoms and abstinence campaigns to doses of antiretroviral drugs for pregnant women -- and yet the epidemic continues unabated.      Now a growing number of clinicians and policy makers in the region are pointing to a simple and possibly potent weapon against new infections: circumcision for men.  

Suffolk County, NY, plans wireless, or Wi-Fi, system to provide free Internet access to residents; combined area and population would make it bigger than any other local network now in existence in United States; rush to create municipal Wi-Fi systems has provoked debate, with critics questioning whether systems should be run by government or private industry (M)

Suffolk County Plans to Offer Free Wireless Internet Access

 Face Only a Fan Could Love  The N.H.L. playoff series between the Devils and Rangers has not been competitive on the ice, but it has been in the stands, where the teams' fans are wearing their allegiances, well, all over their faces.    SPORTSFRIDAY, PAGE D1    Kicked Off the Board  Residents of Atlantic City are dismayed to learn that Hasbro plans to drop their city from its flagship version of Monopoly. It's the latest bad news for the gambling town.    PAGE B1    Publisher Recalls Novel With Copied Passages  Just a day after saying it would not pull ''How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life'' from bookstores, the publisher Little, Brown said it would recall all editions. The author, a Harvard sophomore, had confessed to copying passages from another writer's books.    PAGE A16    Iran Says It Will Defy U.N.  Iran vowed to defy any United Nations Security Council resolution on its nuclear activities on the eve of a major report by atomic inspectors on the status of the nation's nuclear program.    PAGE A10    9/11 on the Big Screen  Paul Greengrass's ''United 93'' is the first Hollywood feature film to address the events of Sept. 11, but it won't be the last. A review by Manohla Dargis.    WEEKEND, PAGE E1

INSIDE

The Week-End Book, originally published in Britain in 1924, is useful mini-encyclopedia of weekend activities; Overlook Press will reissue book for American audience; drawings (M)

Time Off for Good Behavior: The Weekend as We Know It

Chicago Cubs pitcher Greg Maddux is 4-0 this season; photos (M)

Cubs Ace Maddux Is Holding a Winning Hand This Season

In the final desperate hours of the Sago Mine disaster that left 12 men dead in West Virginia, at least four of the air masks meant to protect the miners from dangerous smoke and fumes did not work, the sole survivor wrote in a letter to victims' families this week.     ''The first thing we did was activate our rescuers, as we had been trained,'' wrote the miner, Randal McCloy Jr. ''At least four of the rescuers did not function. There were not enough rescuers to go around.''  

A PERSUASIVELY narrated, scrupulously tasteful re-creation of the downing of the fourth and final plane hijacked by Islamist terrorists on Sept. 11, ''United 93'' is the first Hollywood feature film to take on that dreadful day. It won't be the last. (Next up, ready or not: Oliver Stone's ''World Trade Center.'') Preceded by both the expected bluster and genuine relief that the film is as good as it is -- and it is good, in a temple-pounding, sensory-overloading way that can provoke tears and a headache -- it was written and directed by the British filmmaker Paul Greengrass, who has crossed the pond to make the feel-bad American movie of the year.      Mr. Greengrass cut his teeth in British television working on a current-affairs program and directing factually grounded films. His breakout film, ''Bloody Sunday,'' released in 2002, recreates a violent clash in 1972 between peaceful Irish protesters and trigger-happy British paratroopers that left more than a dozen marchers dead. Though produced for television, it toured the international film festival circuit and led directly to his next gig, ''The Bourne Supremacy,'' a hyperkinetic Hollywood spy thriller about an amnesiac C.I.A. operative (played by Matt Damon). With jerky hand-held camerawork and nanosecond editing rhythms, Mr. Greengrass ratcheted up the action to Mach 5 and walked away with a canny box-office hit. Thrilling and gloomy in parts, it was the perfect warm-up for this new film.  

Defiance Under Fire: Paul Greengrass's Harrowing 'United 93'

China's central bank raised lending rates on Thursday for the first time in a year and a half, in a move by Chinese leaders to rein in the world's fastest-growing economy.     The action aims to slow a spectacular surge in investment and it may potentially brake China's voracious appetite on world markets for oil and other commodities.  

China Raises Rates to Slow Its Economy

They came, they shuffled, they conquered.     Eighteen ''grannies'' who were swept up by the New York City police, handcuffed, loaded into police vans and jailed for four and a half hours were acquitted yesterday of charges that they blocked the entrance to the military recruitment center in Times Square when they tried to enlist.  

Setting Grandmotherhood Aside, Judge Lets 18 Go in Peace

Gas prices are rising, as are mortgage rates. House prices in many once-hot markets have started slipping. The American automobile industry shows no sign of recovery. And the paychecks of most workers have not even kept up with inflation over the last four years.     Yet the national economy continues to speed ahead, with families and businesses spending money at an impressive pace. Forecasters expect the Commerce Department to report this morning that the economy grew at a rate of around 5 percent in the first quarter, the biggest increase since 2003.  

HOW quickly our dreary yesterdays become bright, cute and endlessly repackageable. The 1980's, it seems, are to today what the 1950's were to the 1970's (and to part of the 1980's): a supposedly more innocent, picturesquely dopey time when people wore quaint clothes, listened to infectiously inane music and danced goofy tribal dances. Ah, how we laughed.     Hence the return of big hair and shoulders to fashion's runways; the preponderance of Web sites with names like ''inthe80s.com''; and animated television scrapbooks, like ''I Love the 80's'' on VH1, where third-tier celebrities provide snarky commentary about their favorite period bands, movies and celebrities. And now, mining the same much-plundered vein, is ''The Wedding Singer,'' the assembly-kit musical that opened last night at the Al Hirschfeld Theater and might as well be called ''That 80's Show.''  

Something Borrowed, Something Renewed: The Return of the 80's in 'The Wedding Singer'

Clyde Haberman NYC column on high school and college students suing New York City over new law that prohibits anyone under age of 21 from possessing graffiti instruments like indelible markers, aerosol paint and etching acid; presents city argument that most graffiti vandalism is committed by people under 21 years old; gives students' argument that possessing outlawed implements may be necessary for art classes; says law permits possession if person under age 21 has written permission (M)

Labeled by Their Own Markers

Indiana Pacers defeat New Jersey Nets, 107-95, to lead first-round playoff series, 2-1; photo (M)

Pacers' O'Neal Slams Door on the Nets

Microsoft reported strong third-quarter revenue growth on Thursday, but analysts said the company also telegraphed a significant increase in spending, an indication that it was preparing to take on its big online rivals, Google and Yahoo.     The company reported a 13 percent increase in sales for the quarter, to $10.9 billion, and a 16 percent rise in net income, to $2.98 billion, or 31 cents a share, from $2.56 billion, or 28 cents, in the period a year earlier.  

Is Microsoft Preparing a Big Attack?

Run, run like Wile E. Coyote,'' yelled my instructor. His directions boomed like the voice of God from the small radio clipped to my helmet as I charged off a 200-foot-high hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Santa Barbara, Calif.      If all went as planned, I wouldn't punch a coyote-shaped hole in the ground -- I'd swoop gently back down to earth, suspended by the colorful fabric of the parachute-like canopy, and join the small band of Americans who have flown a paraglider.  

Paragliding: It's the Alone Way to Fly

Senate Republicans tried on Thursday to get the upper hand in the escalating political battle over high gasoline prices by proposing a $100 rebate for taxpayers and by suggesting that they might increase taxes on oil-industry profits.     The Republican proposal also called for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil production, a provision sure to draw opposition from many Democrats and even some Republicans.  

Steven Roy Howe was an American professional baseball relief pitcher. He played 12 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Minnesota Twins, Texas Rangers and New York Yankees, spanning 1980 to 1996. His baseball career ended in 1997 after a stint with the Sioux Falls Canaries of the independent Northern League.

April 28, 2006

Headlines from April 28, 2006

Circumcision Studied in Africa as AIDS Preventive

Surviving Miner Says Air Masks Failed

U.S. Economy Still Expanding at Rapid Pace

G.O.P. Senators Hurry to Quell Furor Over Gas

The Fed May Stand Back and Watch the Numbers for a While

Billboard 200

Me And My Gang

White Trash With Money

NOW 21

High School Musical

King

Notable Deaths

Historical Context for April 28, 2006