Byline: By danny hakim section: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1 Length

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: STARTUPS (91%); ECONOMIC NEWS (90%); VENTURE CAPITAL (90%); HOUSING MARKET (89%); ECONOMIC DECLINE (78%); STOCK INDEXES (78%); BUSINESS CLIMATE & CONDITIONS (78%); EMPLOYMENT GROWTH (77%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (77%); MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS (76%); SOFTWARE MAKERS (73%); BANKING & FINANCE (71%); COMPUTER SOFTWARE (66%)
COMPANY: ACCEL PARTNERS (84%); MICROSOFT CORP (55%); ACCEL MANAGEMENT CO INC (53%)
TICKER: MSFT (NASDAQ) (55%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS511210 SOFTWARE PUBLISHERS (55%); SIC7372 PREPACKAGED SOFTWARE (55%)
PERSON: MICHAEL MCMAHON (50%)
GEOGRAPHIC: SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, CA, USA (91%) CALIFORNIA, USA (91%) UNITED STATES (91%)
LOAD-DATE: April 9, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: DRAWING (pg.C1)

CHART: HARD TIMES FOR TECHNOLOGY STOCKS: After a burst in late 2007, technology stocks have skidded this year, falling 18.1 percent since late December while the S. & P. 500 has declined 8.8 percent. (Source: Bloomberg) (pg.C9)

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The New York Times
April 8, 2008 Tuesday

Late Edition - Final

G.O.P. Struggles to Find Candidates for Congress
BYLINE: By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
SECTION: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 4
LENGTH: 1081 words
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
Republican leaders are struggling to recruit candidates for Congressional races in the New York region, reflecting a problem for the party in other pockets of the country and giving Democrats an opportunity to build on the gains they made in the area in the last election.

Heading into this election cycle, Republican leaders in Washington identified dozens of Congressional seats they believed they could pick up in November's election -- some where Democrats narrowly won a first term in 2006, and others where Democrats represent Republican-leaning districts.

But that strategy appears to have run into complications, both in the New York region and in some other parts of the country, as many potential Republican candidates -- including public officials and wealthy entrepreneurs -- have stayed on the sidelines, despite direct appeals from party leaders.

In some cases, potential candidates see a tough climate for Republicans, largely because of a troubled economy and a protracted war, according to some Republicans.

Some have even started races, only to abandon the effort.

A recent example arose after Representative Thomas M. Reynolds, a five-term Republican, announced on March 20 that he would not run for re-election in New York's 26th Congressional District, a heavily Republican area that stretches from Buffalo to Rochester.

Days after Mr. Reynolds's announcement, the man widely considered to be the most formidable Republican candidate to replace Mr. Reynolds, George D. Maziarz, a popular state senator, declared that he would not run for the seat.

He said that giving up his own seat to run for Congress would be too great a gamble.

''It's very difficult for a Republican in this election cycle,'' Mr. Maziarz said in a recent interview. ''It's clearly a competitive seat. And I think it's more competitive without me.''

Republican leaders play down the difficulty of finding willing candidates. Ken Spain, a spokesman for the House Republicans' campaign committee, acknowledged the challenges in certain districts but said the party had done a good job of recruitment over all.

''We believe we have fielded one of the best Republican recruitment classes in quite some time,'' he said.

But the lack of robust challengers, especially for Democratic freshmen, is clearly a concern. Members of Congress are typically considered most vulnerable after their first term in office. After that, the benefits of incumbency tend to build and protect them from serious challenges.

In central New York, for example, Republicans have been urging Richard Hanna, a wealthy businessman who could bankroll his own race, to run against Representative Michael Arcuri, a member of the Democratic freshman class of 2006. In that year, the party gained 30 seats and took control of the House.

But Mr. Hanna, who formed an exploratory committee last November, has yet to enter the race, puzzling Mr. Arcuri and Democratic leaders in Washington, who had been bracing for a tough election season for freshman lawmakers. As recently as last week, Republican leaders in Washington encouraged Mr. Hanna to run, and they say they believe he still may enter the race.

''I don't know why the situation is what it is,'' Mr. Arcuri said in a recent interview. He suggested that the electoral challenges Republicans are facing, including an increasingly unpopular war, may have led ''people who might otherwise run for Congress to think twice.''

Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who is in charge of the House Democratic campaign effort for 2008, said Democrats had started the election cycle expecting to spend much of their time and resources defending the seats captured by new members.

''It's unexpected,'' he said, referring to the recruitment problems Republican have faced. ''The fact that they have not been able to field candidates in a lot of these districts means we have not had to circle the wagons and play defense.''

The Republican recruitment effort is also facing complications on the Senate side. In New Jersey, John F. Crowley, a biotechnology executive, decided recently not to enter the New Jersey Republican primary, even after being asked to do so by Senator John McCain of Arizona and other prominent Republicans.

Republicans have had difficulty recruiting top-tier candidates in several other states, including Ohio and Indiana. But the problems have been especially pronounced in New York, a heavily Democratic state where Democrats picked up three Republican-held seats in 2006. Republicans are in danger of suffering more losses this year, analysts say.

In the Syracuse area, for example, Republican leaders are scrambling to find a candidate to appear on the ballot in place of Representative James T. Walsh, who recently announced that he would retire at the end of his current term.

Republicans in Washington thought that their strongest possible candidate was William Fitzpatrick, the longtime Onondaga County district attorney, and tried to persuade him to run. But he ultimately declined. Mr. Fitzpatrick did not return a phone call requesting comment. Now, several Republicans are vying for their party's nomination, even as Democrats have coalesced around their candidate, Dan Maffei, a former Congressional aide who narrowly lost to Mr. Walsh in the 2006 election.

Republicans have also suffered a significant setback in their efforts to defeat Representative John Hall, a freshman Democrat who narrowly won his seat in the suburbs north of New York City in 2006.

At one point, Republican Party leaders had managed to recruit a millionaire who was expected to pour his own money into the race, causing alarm among Democrats. But the candidate, Andrew M. Saul, a vice chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, abruptly quit the race, citing personal reasons. Now, Mr. Hall is running virtually unopposed.

The problems are also playing out in neighboring New Jersey, where Representative Jim Saxton, a longtime incumbent, announced that he would not seek re-election this year, leaving Republican leaders in a bind.

In an effort to protect the seat, national Republicans leaders approached State Senator Diane Allen, 59, seeing her as a strong prospective candidate, according to one person close to the situation. But the senator decided not to run because she did not relish a contested primary, the person said, leaving a muddled primary among Republicans fighting for their party's nomination for the seat.
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: POLITICAL CANDIDATES (91%); CAMPAIGNS & ELECTIONS (91%); POLITICAL PARTIES (90%); US FEDERAL ELECTIONS (90%); LEGISLATIVE BODIES (90%); US DEMOCRATIC PARTY (90%); US REPUBLICAN PARTY (90%); LEGISLATORS (89%); POLITICS (79%); ELECTIONS (78%); INTERVIEWS (72%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (69%); WEALTHY PEOPLE (69%); ELECTORAL DISTRICTS (77%)
PERSON: THOMAS M REYNOLDS (69%); MICHAEL A ARCURI (50%); MICHAEL MCMAHON (55%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, USA (94%) UNITED STATES (94%); SPAIN (79%)
LOAD-DATE: April 8, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Representative Thomas M. Reynolds, an upstate Republican, announcing last month that he would not seek a sixth term. (PHOTOGRAPH BY DOUG BENZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

884 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
April 8, 2008 Tuesday

Late Edition - Final

Facebook Reportedly Near Accord Over Origin
BYLINE: By BRAD STONE and MATT RICHTEL
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 3
LENGTH: 553 words
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO
Facebook may soon close an uncomfortable chapter in its brief history: a legal dispute over its origins.

According to a person briefed on the talks, the company is completing a settlement of a suit brought by three former Harvard students who contend that the original idea for the social networking site belonged to them.

The person declined to discuss the proposed terms of the settlement. Facebook officials declined to comment. So did officials from ConnectU, a social networking site started by the brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra.

The ConnectU founders were contemporaries at Harvard with Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder. They asserted that they had hired Mr. Zuckerberg, then a sophomore, to help create a campuswide dating site called Harvard Connection.

They say that he stalled on the project while nurturing his own related idea, which ultimately became a site called Thefacebook.com. They sued Mr. Zuckerberg in Federal District Court in Boston. Facebook countersued in California, accusing ConnectU of unfair business practices.

A federal judge in California ordered the parties into mediation last year. The person briefed on the settlement negotiations, who declined to be identified because the deal was not yet completed, said motions to dismiss the case against Facebook were expected ''within weeks.''

The case has caused public-relations problems for Facebook, one of the most popular social networking sites with 69 million users. It threatened to cause financial problems as well. Outside investments have valued the company at $15 billion, and it is expected to sell shares to the public, perhaps as soon as next year.

''You can't do that sort of thing if you have major liability hanging over your head,'' said Paul Kedrosky, a technology venture capitalist and author of the blog Infectious Greed.

Mr. Kedrosky said that regardless of which side was right in the legal dispute, Facebook needed to get the situation resolved sooner rather than later. In part, he said, that is because Facebook does not want to miss the chance at a lucrative payday in the public markets or through an acquisition.

The social networking audience ''is fragmenting. It's going to a thousand places,'' he said. ''I'm a little worried that Facebook has missed the best window for its offering.''

At the same time, the dispute was personally embarrassing to Mr. Zuckerberg. The discovery efforts associated with the legal disputes resulted in the Internet posting of his Harvard application and entries from his diary.

While the Facebook story has generated a great deal of attention, such disputes are not an uncommon occurrence in Silicon Valley. Technology innovations often have many parents, and conflicts can arise over whether the innovator or entrepreneur who did the most to develop a product is properly getting the credit, and the riches.

In the case of Facebook, there is yet another aggrieved innovator. Aaron J. Greenspan, who was a Harvard student at the same time as Mr. Zuckerberg, asserts that he created an earlier social networking system called houseSYSTEM. Six months before Facebook went online, and eight months before ConnectU opened, Mr. Greenspan sent a note to Harvard students describing a new feature of houseSYSTEM called ''The Face Book.''
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: INTERNET SOCIAL NETWORKING (93%); ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION (90%); SETTLEMENT & COMPROMISE (90%); TALKS & MEETINGS (90%); LITIGATION (90%); BLOGS & MESSAGE BOARDS (77%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (77%); SUITS & CLAIMS (77%); BUSINESS TORTS (73%); LAW COURTS & TRIBUNALS (73%); JUDGES (72%); ONLINE DATING SERVICES (72%); VENTURE CAPITAL (69%); PUBLIC RELATIONS (65%); PRODUCT INNOVATION (62%)
COMPANY: FACEBOOK INC (90%)
GEOGRAPHIC: SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA (79%); BOSTON, MA, USA (79%); SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, CA, USA (75%) CALIFORNIA, USA (91%); MASSACHUSETTS, USA (79%) UNITED STATES (91%)
LOAD-DATE: April 8, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

885 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
April 7, 2008 Monday

Late Edition - Final

Insulated From Recession, But Not From Leaks
BYLINE: By SUSAN DOMINUS.

E-mail: susan.dominus @nytimes.com

SECTION: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; BIG CITY; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 962 words
The lobby of the Jumeirah Essex House on Central Park South doesn't offer a refuge from the hustle of nearby Seventh Avenue, but a continuation of it. The hotel now contains some high-end apartments, but it's still a hotel, and the piped-in jazz burbles just above the clatter of bellmen pushing luggage and the sound of men in suits talking loudly on cellphones. Sit still for more than a few moments, and a waiter is likely to approach to ask if you'd like a drink, testing the fine line between luxury service and a hard sell.

On the 40th floor of the same building, however, all was silence and celestial light Friday afternoon in one of the building's four penthouse condos. Outside the windows, a thick layer of cloud floated about, as if it were an amenity designed to muffle wayward sounds. From the living room, Central Park, perfectly framed but miniaturized by the distance, had the look of a carefully groomed private yard.

A retired publisher, dressed in three contrasting shades of flannel (gray, dark gray and darker gray), was touring the home with a real estate broker, considering a move. He already had a sprawling apartment on the East Side with more square footage on the terrace than most people in Manhattan have for indoor space, but he was interested in room and maid service, luxuries his current building couldn't offer.

Elsewhere in New York, certainly in places like southeast Queens and central Brooklyn, maybe even on those winding Central Park paths that looked like the tracks of a train set, people were probably asking themselves unanswerable questions that cloudy morning: How would they pay their mortgage when their adjustable interest rates ballooned? How far would the subprime market fiasco go, and would it take their jobs with it?

At the Essex House duplex for sale, the questions bandied about floated on a wholly separate plane, one held up by at least a decade of good investments in a roaring market. Could someone install an elevator in those hallway closets on the two floors? Might the building allow an atrium, if not a terrace, to be built just off the bedroom?

As was widely reported last week, there seems to be no crisis of confidence in the high-end housing market of New York. In the first three months of this year, average apartment prices in Manhattan rose by 33.5 percent to $1.7 million -- and much of that increase was carried by the boom in sales of apartments at the high end. In the same period, the number of apartments that closed for more than $10 million, for example, rose by 318 percent, according to calculations based on public records and provided by Brown Harris Stevens, a luxury residential real estate firm.

Not that even those kinds of prices promise perfection. The front door of the Essex House duplex -- 2,800 square feet going for close to $10 million -- opened up on a stairway whose Champagne-colored carpet looked dingy. A telltale towel on a windowsill revealed a leak, and there was an excess of mirrors on part of the first-floor ceiling, with predictable results. Anyone in the market for a $10 million home would inevitably renovate anyway, but it was surprising -- no, it was heartening -- to see that even buyers with that kind of money have to endure a boring bit of patter from the broker about the repointing work being done to the exterior.

''Where are the sellers from?'' asked the prospective buyer, looking skeptically at a tall, husklike sculpture in the bedroom. California, the broker told him. ''That explains it,'' he said.

The availability of new luxury housing like 15 Central Park West and the Plaza accounts for much of the high-end real estate boom -- but how to explain that in those buildings, priced at $5,000 to $6,000 a square foot, bidding wars are still not uncommon, even as the economy wobbles, from many reports, on the edge of a precipice?

''Scarcity,'' said Nancy Candib, the broker showing the duplex.

The subprime mortgage fiasco may be complicated, but the high-end real estate market is not: There are still more people who can afford to have it all than there are apartments that actually have it all -- the views, the space, the prime location and the amenities.

This is what makes New York sometimes feel unlivable: the notion that you can be asked to spend close to $10 million on an apartment with a leaky window, or $6 million on one with low ceilings and no views, and still have to pay $275,000 for storage, as was the case with one apartment viewed last week on the Upper East Side. You could even walk out of 15 Central Park West, as the wife of an electronics magnate did last week, feeling disappointed in the cramped kitchen of an apartment going for $15 million.

But those absurdities are also part of New York's shiny allure. This is a city so well populated by the super wealthy, even they are forced to compromise. New York promises the attainability, in all economies, of untold affluence; it's everywhere, there for the making or taking. It advertises the possibility of wealth, as well as the consoling limitations of what it can buy, all in one real estate market.

The former publisher left the Essex House apartment expressing enthusiasm mostly for the possibility of that elevator. The lack of a terrace, not his stock portfolio, might be what held him back.

As for the wife of the electronics entrepreneur, she wasn't in a hurry to decide.

''I think the prices are going to start coming down in a few months,'' she said, explaining why she'd wait before making an offer. If the high-end market does soften, it probably won't be because of the buyers' financial anxiety.

''I think we're heading for a period of really dark times,'' she said.

From her point of view, the market could only get better.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: REAL ESTATE (89%); RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY (89%); NEW ISSUES (89%); HOUSING MARKET (78%); RESIDENTIAL CO-OWNERSHIP (77%); CONDOMINIUMS (77%); REAL ESTATE AGENTS (71%); RECESSION (64%); ECONOMIC NEWS (64%); SUBPRIME LENDING (63%); INTEREST RATES (63%); PRICE INCREASES (63%)
COMPANY: BROWN HARRIS STEVENS LLC (50%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, NY, USA (90%) NEW YORK, USA (90%) UNITED STATES (90%)
LOAD-DATE: April 7, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Nancy Candib and Christopher Bland, with Brown Harris Stevens, tour a condo with a mirrored ceiling on Central Park South. (PHOTOGRAPH BY GABRIELE STABILE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES) (pg.B6)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

886 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
April 7, 2008 Monday

Late Edition - Final

For Times Scholars, School Was One of Many Hurdles
BYLINE: By ANDY NEWMAN
SECTION: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1191 words
Ten years ago, Denise de las Nueces was a nerdy high school student from a poor Manhattan neighborhood, poring over astronomy books her father had picked out of the trash at the building where he worked as a doorman.

Eight years ago, Letica Fox-Thomas was finishing up a childhood spent partly in the city's homeless shelters while cramming for her Regents exams. Five years ago, Mansour Ourasanah was a new teenage immigrant from Togo, where he had learned firsthand about poverty and physical abuse but not how to speak or read English.

All three won college scholarships from The New York Times and are now well on their way in their chosen professions -- Mr. Ourasanah as an industrial designer, Ms. Fox-Thomas in finance and Ms. de las Nueces, who is about to graduate from Harvard Medical School, as a fledgling internist.

This year, Robert Santos is a wispy-bearded high school senior from the Bronx who has just discovered an almost giddy passion for math. Romaine Hall, of Brooklyn, has his own room for the first time and has turned it into a study-carrel-cum-college-prep office.

What Mr. Santos and Mr. Hall will be doing 5 or 10 years from now is largely up to them and the strength of their dreams. But they and 18 other high school seniors from across the city have learned that they will be getting a big push: They were named the 2008 winners of the New York Times Scholarships.

The Times Scholars program, begun in 1999, has now helped 200 promising students. Through its 10-year history, the program, supported largely by the New York Times Company Foundation and annual donations from readers, has kept its mission constant: to recognize New York City high school seniors who have created opportunities for themselves where few existed, and to reward them with money and other less tangible forms of aid.

This year's scholars, chosen from 1,400 applicants, will receive up to $7,500 a year toward tuition for four years; a laptop computer; summer jobs at The Times; and counseling to help them navigate the often rocky transition from gritty urban high school to college.

Ms. de las Nueces, who will be the first Times Scholar to become a medical doctor, said she hoped they would take as much academic and spiritual nourishment from the program as she had.

''They're at such a wonderful point in their lives, and they should just go for everything they can, because it's possible,'' she said by phone from the Dominican Republic, where she is working in an AIDS clinic for part of the semester. ''I would never have dreamed 10 years ago when I won the scholarship that I'd be where I am today.''

The scholarship program began modestly in 1999, with only six students chosen. But after The Times published an article about the first class, donations poured in, allowing the foundation to offer scholarships to 14 more finalists.

Over the years, the scholars have included immigrants from more than 15 countries and natives of some of the city's roughest neighborhood, star students at small Roman Catholic schools, low-performing and ill-equipped public schools and magnet schools like Stuyvesant. The scholars were raised by single parents, grandparents or no parents at all. Many had siblings and guardians who fell prey to drugs or crime.

From humble beginnings, they have mostly flourished. Members of the inaugural class of 1999, now in their mid- to late 20s, include a Navy scientist, a lawyer who specializes in political asylum cases, bankers and an analyst in the money laundering unit of the Manhattan district attorney's office. Their ranks also include an author: Anahad O'Connor, a Times reporter whose 2007 book, ''Never Shower in a Thunderstorm,'' based on his ''Really?'' column in the newspaper's science section, has sold 35,000 copies.

As the Times Scholars make their way through college, the program continues to work with them, providing academic and emotional support and helping them secure summer jobs that often open the doors to careers.

''What we really do, beyond giving a check, is what makes this program different from any other college scholarship program I know about,'' said Soma Golden Behr, the director of the scholarship program and a former assistant managing editor at The Times.

''The Times, as a kind of a large family, helps us select these kids, and then becomes their bosses in the first summer, their mentors, their advisers,'' she continued. ''We applaud when they succeed, and when they stumble, we try to pick them up.''

Along the way, the program has attracted donors like Ernest Abrahamson, an entrepreneur in Rhode Island who has given more than $1 million and has taken several of the scholars who attended Brown University under his wing. ''It's been joyful for me,'' Mr. Abrahamson said.

Daniel Golab, a 1999 Times Scholar and now an investment banker, has donated $4,000 in recent years. ''I just wanted to give back,'' he said.

This year's scholars, who are from Burma and the Bronx, Mexico and Manhattan, Ethiopia and China and Crown Heights, came to their passion for education through different routes.

Since immigrating from Jamaica at age 2, Romaine Hall has bounced around. He has lived with at least 15 relatives at the same time in a two-bedroom apartment in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. He has lived with his mother, who is a home health care aide, and two siblings in one room. It was not until last summer that Mr. Hall acquired a room of his own, in the basement apartment of an aunt's house in Canarsie.

Mr. Hall, a driven young man, is taking four Advanced Placement courses at Life Sciences Secondary School on the Upper East Side while serving as student government secretary and debate and track team captain. He has covered the walls of his haven with Post-its and filled it with schoolwork folders.

''It looks like a cubicle,'' he said. ''I never had that kind of space where I could optimize it to my fullest potential.''

Mr. Hall has been drawn to medicine. Last year, a brain cancer was diagnosed in a relative. She asked him to accompany her to her chemotherapy treatments. Mr. Hall was apprehensive, but he went along. To his surprise, he said, ''it kind of intensified my passion to become a neurosurgeon.''

Mr. Hall hopes to attend Johns Hopkins University, where the faculty includes Benjamin S. Carson, the neurosurgeon who performed the first successful separation of twins conjoined at the back of the head.

''Getting tutelage from Ben Carson himself would be the experience of a lifetime,'' Mr. Hall said.

Robert Santos was at best a mediocre math student at Herbert H. Lehman High School in the Bronx. One day last year in precalculus class, though, he had something akin to a spiritual conversion.

''I felt something happening to me and my hand went up,'' he said. The answers came to him, one after another. His teacher, Anthony Lifrieri, told him, ''Robert, you're on fire today, kid,'' Mr. Santos said.

Mr. Santos was hooked. Now he routinely stays at school past 8 p.m., tutoring younger students or helping his teacher grade papers. He plans to attend New York University and to teach high school math.