URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT

1036 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
February 28, 2008 Thursday

Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; TODAY IN BUSINESS; Pg. 2
LENGTH: 482 words
HINTING AT A RATE CUT In an appearance before Congress, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, said the Fed's top priority was fighting a recession.

EASING REQUIREMENTS A federal regulator said it would remove portfolio growth caps for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two mortgage giants, a move that could make it easier for many to obtain home loans. [C1.]

LAWSUIT OVER SICK COWS The Humane Society of the United States sued the Agriculture Department for creating a provision that it said allowed unhealthy cows to be sent to slaughter. [C1.]

LOAN PROGRAM SUSPENDED Affected by a tight credit market, a Pennsylvania lender that makes and guarantees student loans said it would curtail making federally guaranteed loans. [C1.]

MAKING ITS MARK The world's largest sovereign wealth fund, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, is buying big stakes in Western companies. [C1.]

UBS WINS SUPPORT FOR PLAN Shareholders at UBS backed a bid by management to accept cash from Singapore's sovereign wealth fund and an anonymous investor in the Middle East. [C2.]

BAILOUT SCRUTINIZED The European Commission said it would investigate the rescue of two German banks. [C2.]

MICROSOFT HIT WITH PENALTY European regulators levied a record $1.35 billion fine against Microsoft for its failure to comply with an antitrust decision. [C3.]

CONGRESSIONAL INQUIRY A Senator questioned the Food and Drug Administration and the maker of an artificial spinal disk about potential financial conflicts of interest. [C3.]

SEEKING TO CHANGE FRAUD LAW A Senate panel wants to work with the Justice Department to strengthen a federal law for whistle-blowers. [C3.]

NORTEL POSTS A LOSS Nortel Networks announced a large accounting charge, a loss of $957 million for 2007 and plans to cut 2,100 jobs. But Mike S. Zafirovski, left, the company's chief executive, said other financial results were a sign that a turnaround plan was working. [C4.]

OLYMPIC SPIN General Electric is planning to make the biggest splash it can at the Beijing Olympics. Advertising. [C4.]

ROOM TO GROW A shared-office venture in Manhattan offers clients a productive work space, networking and advice for female entrepreneurs. [C5.]

LAYOFFS AT BMWCiting a strong euro, BMW, the German automaker, said it planned to eliminate 8,100 jobs. [C5.]

A CHANGE OF MIND FOR AETNAAetna said that it had backed off a plan to stop paying for the use of a powerful anesthetic used in colonoscopies. [C5.]

THE HIGH-TECH NURSERY Babytronics are meant to help parents with keeping infants happy and healthy, if not dry. Basics. [C6.]

HOUSING SLUMP CONTINUES Sales of new homes slowed last month to the lowest rate in almost 13 years, the third consecutive monthly decline. [C8.]

Toll Brothers, the home builder, posted a loss in the first quarter as write-downs more than doubled on properties it could no longer sell at a profit. [C8.]

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: US FEDERAL GOVERNMENT (92%); CONFLICTS OF INTEREST (90%); MORTGAGE BANKING & FINANCE (90%); BANKING & FINANCE (90%); REAL ESTATE (89%); RECESSION (89%); ECONOMIC NEWS (89%); LEGISLATIVE BODIES (89%); COMPANY LOSSES (88%); NEW HOME SALES (78%); ANTITRUST & TRADE LAW (77%); AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENTS (77%); ACCOUNTING (77%); BAILOUTS (77%); AUTOMAKERS (77%); FINES & PENALTIES (77%); RESIDENTIAL CONSTRUCTION (76%); AUTOMOBILE MFG (74%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (73%); LAW ENFORCEMENT (71%); STUDENT LOANS (71%); WOMEN (69%); AUTOMOTIVE MFG (69%); FINANCIAL RESULTS (68%); JUSTICE DEPARTMENTS (66%); LAYOFFS (53%); SUMMER OLYMPICS (61%)
COMPANY: FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION (FANNIE MAE) (72%); FEDERAL HOME LOAN MORTGAGE CORP (FREDDIE MAC) (84%); MICROSOFT CORP (55%); GENERAL ELECTRIC CO (53%); ABU DHABI INVESTMENT CO (56%)
ORGANIZATION: HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES (57%); HUMANE SOCIETY (57%); EUROPEAN COMMISSION (55%); FOOD & DRUG ADMINISTRATION (54%)
TICKER: FNM (NYSE) (72%); FRE (NYSE) (84%); MSFT (NASDAQ) (55%); GNEA (AMS) (53%); GNE (PAR) (53%); GEC (LSE) (53%); GEB (BRU) (53%); GE (NYSE) (53%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS522292 REAL ESTATE CREDIT (84%); SIC6162 MORTGAGE BANKERS & LOAN CORRESPONDENTS (84%); SIC6111 FEDERAL & FEDERALLY-SPONSORED CREDIT AGENCIES (84%); NAICS511210 SOFTWARE PUBLISHERS (55%); SIC7372 PREPACKAGED SOFTWARE (55%); NAICS336412 AIRCRAFT ENGINE & ENGINE PARTS MANUFACTURING (53%); NAICS335222 HOUSEHOLD REFRIGERATOR & HOME FREEZER MANUFACTURING (53%); NAICS335211 ELECTRIC HOUSEWARES & HOUSEHOLD FAN MANUFACTURING (53%); SIC3724 AIRCRAFT ENGINES & ENGINE PARTS (53%); SIC3634 ELECTRIC HOUSEWARES & FANS (53%)
PERSON: BEN BERNANKE (91%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, NY, USA (79%); BEIJING, CHINA (67%) NEW YORK, USA (79%); NORTH CENTRAL CHINA (74%) UNITED STATES (92%); GERMANY (90%); SINGAPORE (79%); UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (79%); CHINA (74%); MIDDLE EAST (72%); EUROPE (72%)
LOAD-DATE: February 28, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO
DOCUMENT-TYPE: Summary
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

1037 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
February 28, 2008 Thursday

Late Edition - Final

Juilliard And Met Meld Opera Training
BYLINE: By ALLAN KOZINN
SECTION: Section E; Column 0; The Arts/Cultural Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 778 words
The Metropolitan Opera and the Juilliard School have agreed to pool their resources in a program for young opera singers, as well as pianists who hope to work as vocal accompanists or opera conductors, the two institutions announced Wednesday.

The program is to begin in the 2010-11 season and will be called the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program in Partnership with the Juilliard School. James Levine, the music director at the Met, will be its artistic director and will conduct the participants and the Juilliard Orchestra in an annual opera performance -- either a fully staged or concert version -- at the school's 900-seat Peter Jay Sharp Theater. Brian Zeger, a prominent accompanist and the artistic director of the Juilliard School's vocal arts department, will be the executive director of the new program.

Peter Gelb, the Met's general manager, said: ''One of my jobs at the Met is to integrate all the different aspects of the company, and our young artist program has been less fully integrated than I'd like it to be. We have global talent scouts looking for artists who should be on our stage, and I think they should be looking for young singers who should be in this program as well. We want to attract talents from around the world.''

The idea of joining forces was first raised toward the end of last year, when Mr. Gelb met with Joseph W. Polisi, president of the Juilliard School, and Ara Guzelimian, the school's recently installed dean, to discuss potential collaborations. Mr. Levine and Mr. Zeger later took part in the discussions, and, as Mr. Gelb put it, ''They spent a lot of time together discussing philosophy, and they were on the same page.''

The program is essentially an expansion of the Met's young artist program, which Mr. Levine founded in 1980. It was renamed the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program in 1998, when George Lindemann, a telecommunications entrepreneur, and his wife, Frayda, made a $10 million gift to the Met's endowment campaign, earmarked for the training program. The Lindemann program -- for 13 singers and 3 pianists -- provides a stipend (currently $30,000 to $40,000 annually), as well as coaching from the Met's artistic staff and performance opportunities, usually in smaller stage roles but also in recitals. Singers who have participated include Stephanie Blythe, Dawn Upshaw, Anthony Dean Griffey, Paul Groves, Nathan Gunn, Aprile Millo and Heidi Grant Murphy.

The new Met-Juilliard program will continue to provide the stipend and coaching. The term of the program also remains three years. The Juilliard School is contributing vocal master classes, as well as acting and movement and access to academic courses in, for example, music theory. Though the program's participants will not be enrolled in a Juilliard degree program (they will be considered fellows or young artists rather than students), they will be able to use the school's library and practice rooms. But the main draw is expected to be the annual production and the opportunity it affords singers to perform at Lincoln Center, if not at the Met itself.

''One of the shortcomings of our young artist program in the past has been that when our young singers do get onstage, it's typically in a smaller role,'' Mr. Gelb said. ''Getting a major role is rare. This will help give them that experience.''

The partnership will also mean a reconfiguration of Juilliard's vocal program. Currently about 70 students are working toward undergraduate or graduate degrees at the school. Under the new arrangement, the number of artist diploma candidates, who participate in the school's most advanced program, the Juilliard Opera Center, will be reduced to 8 from 14. The Juilliard Opera Center will be folded into the Juilliard Opera, a more general program open to all of the school's singers. The Juilliard Opera will present two productions a year.

''There will no longer be a wall between one degree program and another,'' Mr. Polisi said, ''so that all our students have an opportunity be cast in our own two productions and possibly have secondary roles in the Met-Juilliard productions.''

He added that the partnership presented an opportunity for the school and the Met to get to know each other better. ''And it's a chance to carefully educate and train the next generation of opera singers and respond to their needs in everything from ear training and score reading to repertory choices,'' he said. ''We're also hoping that as time goes on, our graduate students and undergrads will have greater access to the Met's resources -- rehearsals for example -- that they don't have now.''

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: OPERA (91%); CLASSICAL MUSIC (90%); KEYBOARD INSTRUMENTS (90%); ARTISTS & PERFORMERS (90%); MUSIC (89%); TALKS & MEETINGS (76%); THEATER (76%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (72%); INTERNATIONAL ASSISTANCE (71%); ENDOWMENTS (60%); SINGERS & MUSICIANS (92%)
PERSON: CHRISTIE HEFNER (51%); GEORGE L LINDEMAN (52%)
LOAD-DATE: February 28, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

1038 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
February 28, 2008 Thursday

Late Edition - Final

Shared-Office Venture Lets Clients Be Tenants
BYLINE: By MARCI ALBOHER
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; SHIFTING CAREERS; Pg. 5
LENGTH: 1245 words
WITHIN a few months of starting In Good Company Consulting, a business to advise female entrepreneurs, Amy Abrams and Adelaide Fives discovered that they shared something with many of their clients. They, too, needed office space that was well located and professional with a place for private meetings. And they wanted to be near like-minded entrepreneurs.

They tried subletting space from another firm. They rented space at the corporate office suites HQ (now the Regus Group) and BevMax Office Centers and visited virtually every flexible and temporary office space in Manhattan. But they were disappointed with what they regarded as the often cold and impersonal qualities of those places, not to mention the shared restrooms that never seemed to be clean enough. ''And nothing had the energy and buzz we were looking for,'' Ms. Fives said.

So they designed it. And last September, In Good Company Workplaces opened in the Flatiron district of Manhattan with its first 39 members. Their company Web site speaks of ''the three essential elements every successful business needs: productive workspace, powerful connections and effective ideas.'' By many accounts it is an unusual hybrid: equal parts business incubator, co-working and learning space and members-only networking group.

''They are onto something here,'' said Nell Merlino, founder of Count Me In, a nonprofit group that makes small loans to female entrepreneurs. Ms. Merlino, who had never heard of In Good Company, said that the idea made sense in light of the research she had conducted. ''Seventy-three percent of women business owners work by themselves, so community is very important.''

Still, Ms. Merlino cautioned women who are considering this kind of move. ''An awful lot of women worry about being defined by not having a nice space,'' she said. ''The focus has got to be about growth, not just 'I want to go and hang out with other people' or 'I need to get out of the house so the kids are not climbing all over the place.' ''

The company's menu of offerings reads like a gym membership, with an annual fee and various options based on how many hours of desk and meeting room time the entrepreneur wants to rent each month. All memberships include free Wi-Fi, printing and faxing, a monthly 30-minute consultation with Ms. Abrams or Ms. Fives, free admission to events and seminars and a listing in the member directory. Members can change their plans from month to month. At the moment, the company has 110 members, with 60 percent on a basic plan that costs $300 a year and allows them to rent meeting and desk space a la carte.

The space, which Ms. Adelaide and Ms. Abrams designed, has a loftlike feel and a sleek, minimalist style with white desks, exposed brick walls and a rotating art exhibit featuring women artists with a connection to In Good Company. The common area has a collection of desks that members choose based on what is available on the days they work. Members say that voices are fairly hushed during phone calls, which are generally on cellphones unless someone chooses to use the landline next to the sofa in the back of the room. For more privacy on calls, members can briefly step into an empty meeting room if one is available.

E. B. Moss, the founder of Moss Appeal, a marketing and promotion services company, uses a toll-free number that automatically forwards to her cellphone when she is at In Good Company. Initially, she was concerned that when clients came for meetings, they would have to look for In Good Company rather than her company's name on the directory. But she has grown comfortable with that. ''Transparency is what it's all about,'' she said. ''When I first started out, I was protective about letting people know there were no bricks and mortar to me. It fits in with the green division of my company. I like to keep my footprint small.''

Members, who find their way to In Good Company through word of mouth and the women's groups where the founders have relationships are exuberant in their praise for the arrangement.

''The space is just a dream come true, with beautiful space options, which I utilize happily,'' said Emily Wolper, a college and graduate school admissions consultant, who lives in New Jersey where she has a home office. Ms. Wolper books meeting room space for client sessions and uses one of the desks in the open workspace area when she has time in the city between meetings. She also uses Ms. Fives as a business consultant. ''As a solo practitioner, I don't have a staff or a boss to talk about issues that come up, so I have found Adelaide to be an amazing resource.'' she said.

Galia Gichon, the founder of Down-to-Earth Finance, a financial advisory company, gravitated to In Good Company when Two Rooms, a workspace on the Upper West Side catering to working mothers, closed. Ms. Gichon was so impressed with the way Ms. Fives and Ms. Abrams operated that she agreed to be on their advisory board. ''I was part of two focus groups they did, and they were as professionally done as what Colgate-Palmolive does. As soon as they opened their doors, I said, 'Sign me up.' '' Even as a board member, she pays full rates.

Many of the women say that the environment is a tonic against the loneliness that can plague a solo or start-up business. ''There is just nothing like it in the city,'' said Marissa Lippert, who runs Nourish, a company that offers nutrition and lifestyle counseling. ''It's the best of both worlds -- you run your own schedule and company, but you have the benefits of a corporate culture.''

The company gets high marks for its flexibility. Ms. Moss currently uses the highest level of membership, which gives her about 20 hours a week of desk space and 2 hours of meeting room space. But she says she may downgrade to a lower plan when business is slow. Ms. Wolper, whose business fluctuates with the school admissions calendar, also appreciates the ability to change plans during the year.

Though many of the members say they were not specifically searching for an all-female office, some businesses are particularly well suited to it. Krisztina Jenei, a custom dressmaker and seamstress, drapes a curtain over the glass partition and uses the meeting rooms to do fittings with her clients. ''It's just not professional fitting clients in office bathrooms,'' she said.

Though men cannot be members, they are welcome in the space as clients or at events. And though initially the partners were courting female backers, the company's first round of investors were men. In fact, six of the company's seven individual investors are couples in which the husbands signed on after being introduced to the company by their wives.

The partners say they have found a way to take their business model further than they would have had they retained a pure consulting practice. ''Consulting is only as big as the people you have. You scale by hiring more people,'' Ms. Abrams said. ''We wanted to focus on how to touch more business owners. Also, a lot of women come because there is a problem. Once you've solved the problem, you don't see them again. We wanted to develop something to help in a more ongoing way.''

They said they also wanted to build something that would offer a model of a certain type of entrepreneurial behavior to their target market. ''Our plan,'' Ms. Abrams said, ''is to be much bigger than one space, and to build a bigger business for many years to come.''
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: ENTREPRENEURSHIP (91%); OFFICE PROPERTY (90%); WOMEN (90%); WOMAN OWNED BUSINESSES (89%); TALKS & MEETINGS (77%); RENTAL PROPERTY (76%); NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS (65%)
COMPANY: IN GOOD CO AB (90%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, NY, USA (92%) NEW YORK, USA (92%) UNITED STATES (92%)
LOAD-DATE: February 28, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Adelaide Fives, left, and Amy Abrams, far right, designed the space at In Good Company in the Flatiron district of Manhattan. (MARILYNN K. YEE/THE NEW YORK TIMES)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

1039 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
February 27, 2008 Wednesday

Late Edition - Final

Two Siblings Stuck in a Junkyard World, Struggling to Survive and Dream
BYLINE: By A. O. SCOTT
SECTION: Section E; Column 0; The Arts/Cultural Desk; MOVIE REVIEW 'CHOP SHOP'; Pg. 5
LENGTH: 776 words
Because the last shot of Ramin Bahrani's ''Chop Shop'' is as quiet and matter-of-fact as most of the rest of the film, it takes a moment to register as a metaphor. For nearly an hour and a half we have been immersed in the rhythms of daily life in the battered Willets Point section of Queens, and Mr. Bahrani's hand-held camera has remained studiously fixed at street level. Now, all of a sudden, it pitches upward to follow a flock of pigeons breaking toward the sky, a shift in perspective that also changes, subtly but unmistakably, our understanding of the movie.

Like its prosaic title, or like those homely birds, ''Chop Shop,'' written by Mr. Bahrani and Bahareh Azimi, dwells mainly in the realm of the literal. Filmed inside shady auto-repair businesses, on bleak overpasses and in vacant lots in the shadow of Shea Stadium, this film, like Mr. Bahrani's 2006 feature, ''Man Push Cart,'' is concerned principally with the kind of hard, marginal labor that more comfortable city dwellers rarely notice. But there is nonetheless a lyricism at its heart, an unsentimental, soulful appreciation of the grace that resides in even the meanest struggle for survival.

When you stop to think about it, the life of Alejandro (Alejandro Polanco) -- known as Ale -- should be cause for despair. A skinny, fast-moving boy a year or so from puberty, he sleeps in a makeshift room above the shop where he works. His main concern, aside from the daily scramble for cash, is his older sister, Isamar (Isamar Gonzales), who seems more passive than her brother and more detached, perhaps self-protectively, from her emotions. Their parents are never seen or mentioned, and school is more an abstract notion than a real possibility.

Ale's plan, equally a childish fantasy and a hard-headed entrepreneurial scheme, is to save enough money to buy a broken-down vending truck and fix it up so he and Isamar can sell hot meals to chop shop workers and customers. Isamar works in a similar business and also sells sex after-hours to drivers who park at the edge of the neighborhood. Ale's desire, all the more acute for remaining unstated, is to rescue her from this fate and also, more generally, to formulate the plausible idea of a secure adult future for the two of them.

Mr. Bahrani does not treat his characters with pity, and they feel very little for themselves. Perhaps this is because they are too young, and too focused on the present-tense demands of getting by, to dwell on what they don't have. But the film's emotional restraint, while impressive, also feels limiting. Mr. Polanco and Ms. Gonzales have the wary inscrutability that often characterizes nonprofessional actors, and though Mr. Polanco is a lively and likable presence, there are times when his performance is tentative and stiff.

Mr. Bahrani was born in the United States and lived for a while in Iran, his parents' native country (and Ms. Azimi's), and the influence of recent Iranian cinema on ''Chop Shop'' is unmistakable. The oblique, naturalistic storytelling, the interest in children and the mingling of documentary and fictional techniques -- these have been hallmarks of the work of Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi, but they are rarely deployed with such confidence or effectiveness by American filmmakers. ''Chop Shop'' suggests the potential of such an approach, which has roots in postwar Italian Neo-realism, to compel an encounter with local reality that is both poetic and clearsighted.

Whether the situation in ''Chop Shop'' is entirely realistic is another question. I found myself wondering not only about what had happened to Ale and Isamar's parents, but also about the total absence of any adult or institutional concern with these children's lives. The shop owners pay Ale his wages and teach him new skills, but there is a hardness in their dealings with him that struck me as implausible. That may be wishful thinking on my part. Or it may be that I was taken in by the rough surface of this film, seduced into mistaking a subtle, artful fable for the cold, hard facts of life.

CHOP SHOP

Opens on Wednesday in Manhattan.

Directed and edited by Ramin Bahrani; written by Bahareh Azimi and Mr. Bahrani; director of photography, Michael Simmonds; production designer, Richard Wright; produced by Lisa Muskat, Marc Turtletaub and Jeb Brody; released by Koch Lorber Films. At Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, west of Avenue of the Americas, South Village. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. This film is not rated.

WITH: Alejandro Polanco (Alejandro), Isamar Gonzales (Isamar), Carlos Zapata (Carlos), Ahmad Razvi (Ahmad) and Rob Sowulski (Rob).

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