In Louisville, Ky., and around the country, organized labor may be facing a major setback in the most contentious fight over labor laws since the 1940s.

Bid to Organize Nurses Faces Setback in Congress

Banks are trying to wow their audiences with better-than-expected numbers, but investors aren’t buying it for a second.

Bank Profits Appear Out of Thin Air

Representative Jane Harman was overheard on calls agreeing to seek favorable treatment from the Bush administration for two pro-Israel lobbyists investigated for espionage.

Lawmaker Is Said to Have Agreed to Aid Lobbyists

Critics of the president’s anti-lobbyist policy say it assumes that all lobbying is suspect.

Nonprofit Groups Seeking Exceptions to Lobby Rule

The special inspector general assigned to monitor the bailout program criticized the government’s failure to demand information on what banks are doing with the money.

Bank Aid Programs Are Seen as Open to Fraud

A Somali teenager arrived to face what are believed to be the first piracy charges in the U.S. in decades.

Pirate Suspect Charged as Adult in New York

G.M.’s China division emphasizes fuel-sipping models instead of gas guzzlers, putting it ahead of Ford.

In China, G.M. Remains a Driving Force

Indigenous groups have been displaced by armed men seeking control of regions coveted in the drug trade.

Wider Drug War Threatens Colombian Indians

The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation will provide direct grants to artists and work to increase financial support for indigenous arts and cultures.

New Group Is Formed to Sponsor Native Arts

Mark Schultz aims for his new play to be a dark, comic parable, but his vision is too blurry to make the events of the play believable.

Chaotic Household? Sell the Kids

Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon, a major California vineyard, has sold off some of his moneymaking labels and embraced farming without irrigation, in the Old World style.

His Big Idea Is to Get Small

Alan Ayckbourn, who has written more than 70 plays, is back on Broadway with his “Norman Conquests” trilogy.

Ayckbourn the Juggler, in Triple Time

A wooden crucifix bought at a bargain may come at a price.

Yes, It’s Beautiful, the Italians All Say, but Is It a Michelangelo?

Two auctions, one in Washington and one in Miami, suggest that real estate prices have not bottomed out.

For Housing Crisis, the End Probably Isn’t Near

Paul Liebrandt, the British chef who began an on-and-off relationship with New York’s diners 10 years ago, has now made a commitment to his adopted city.

At Home, at Last

A woman in Northern Ireland has attracted a following on Twitter by sharing recipes, compressing them to fit within a tweet’s 140-character limit.

Take 1 Recipe, Mince, Reduce, Serve

Jennifer Scanlon’s biography of Helen Gurley Brown charts her rise from growing up in poverty to editing Cosmopolitan, and argues that she deserves more credit as a pioneering feminist.

Helen Gurley Brown: The Original Carrie Bradshaw

PepsiCo’s offer of $6 billion to buy back the bottling companies it sold in the late 1990s is a smart move in light of changes in its business.

A PepsiCo Deal Comes Full Circle

Corrections

The Advertising column on Monday, about efforts by marketers to reach older consumers, misspelled the surname of the chief executive of Grandparents.com. He is Jerry Shereshewsky, not Sheveshewsky.

Correction

A report in the “Arts, Briefly” column on Monday about Vladimir Nabokov’s final unfinished manuscript, “The Original of Laura,” which will be published in Britain and the United States on Nov. 3, misidentified the American publisher. It is Alfred A. Knopf  not Penguin Classics, which will issue it in Britain.

A picture caption on Monday with a television review of “Icons Among Us,” a series about jazz on the Documentary Channel, misstated the given name of the pianist shown. He is Robert Glasper, not Ron.

Correction: Another Documentary, Another Riff on the History and Mystery of Jazz

An obituary on Friday about the British politician and broadcasting personality Clement Freud misstated the year his grandfather Sigmund Freud immigrated to Britain. It was 1938  not 1933, when other relatives began leaving Germany for Britain.

Because of an editing error, an obituary on Saturday about the California writer James D. Houston misidentified the site of the Texas town, Quanah, where his parents lived before moving to San Francisco, where Mr. Houston was born. It is near the Texas panhandle, not the Oklahoma panhandle.

The rate of serious complications was found to be lowest when the procedure was performed by an electrophysiologist.

April 21, 2009

Headlines from April 21, 2009

Bid to Organize Nurses Faces Setback in Congress

Bank Profits Appear Out of Thin Air

Lawmaker Is Said to Have Agreed to Aid Lobbyists

Nonprofit Groups Seeking Exceptions to Lobby Rule

Bank Aid Programs Are Seen as Open to Fraud

Billboard 200

Defying Gravity

Lotus Flow3r/MPLSoUND/Elix3r

Quiet Nights

NOW 30

Hannah Montana: The Movie

Historical Context for April 21, 2009