The September 4, 2000 was a Monday under the star sign of ♍. It was the 247 day of the year. President of the United States was William J. (Bill) Clinton.
If you were born on this day, you are 25 years old. Your last birthday was on the Thursday, September 4, 2025, 287 days ago. Your next birthday is on Friday, September 4, 2026, in 77 days. You have lived for 9,418 days, or about 226,033 hours, or about 13,561,980 minutes, or about 813,718,800 seconds.
Date: 04 September 2000
By Alex Berenson
Alex Berenson
Bloomberg News service, with 950 reportes and 79 bureaus, competes to break news with Dow Jones, Reuters and Bridge News along with newspaper Web sites, dozens of small Internet sites and gossipy chart rooms; photos (M)
Date: 05 September 2000
By Patrick E. Tyler
Patrick Tyler
Russian media mogul Boris Berezovsky says senior Kremlin official ordered him to transfer his holdings in Russia's primary state-owned television channel to state or face prospect of going to jail; makes assertion in letter to Pres Vladimir Putin, who was reportedly incensed over coverage of sinking of nuclear submarine Kursk by television station owned by Berezovsky; Putin's unrelenting campaign to take large holdings away from oligarchs who took them over under preferential conditions during past decade noted (M)
Date: 05 September 2000
Editorial decries 'epidemic' of government attempts worldwide to silence independent journalists, less through murders than through legal harassment and physical threats; says new repression, paradoxically, is in some ways sign of progress since most nations that now attack journalists have become quasi-democracies that must tolerate some form of independent media (S)
Date: 05 September 2000
By Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News
Go Sport, French distributor of sporting goods, agrees to merge with sports shoe retailer Courir to become Europe's second-largest publicly traded sporting goods retailer (S)
Date: 05 September 2000
By Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News
South Africa's gold and foreign exchange reserves were little changed in Aug as its trade surplus narrowed and the reserve bank did not increase foreign borrowings to bolster gross reserves; reserves rose to 52.1 billion rand ($7.5 billion) at end of Aug from 52 billion rand in July (S)
Date: 05 September 2000
By Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News
T-Online International, Europe's largest online service, agrees to pay 550 million euros ($494 million) in cash and stock for Jazztel's Web access service to gain customers in Spain and Portugal; T-Online, Deutsche Telekom's Internet unit, will pay 15.25 million euros in cash for Ya.com Internet Factory, number 2 Spanish Web access provider (S)
Date: 04 September 2000
By Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News
Scour, Web site that allows users to exchange films and music online, lays off 52 employees, about 80 percent of its staff, after company is unable to raise additional financing (S)
Date: 05 September 2000
By Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News
European stocks rise, pushing indexes, including French benchmark CAC 40 and the Dutch AEX, to records; American markets are closed for Labor Day holiday (S)
Date: 05 September 2000
By Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News
WorldCom Inc acquires Intermedia Communications Inc for about $3 billion in cash and stock to gain its controlling stake in World Wide Web-hosting company Digex Inc (M)
Date: 05 September 2000
INTERNATIONAL A3-12 Clinton New York Trip To Seek Diplomatic Gains President Clinton's foreign policy aides said he planned a diplomatic whirlwind in New York, including what one senior official called ''the last real chance'' to jump-start the failed talks between Israel and the Palestinians and what might prove to be a tense session with China's president over Beijing's continued missile exports to Pakistan. A1 Siren Call of the New Economy Policy experts say the State Department is losing talented diplomats who are leaving for careers that they believe have more power and prestige in the new global economy. The State Department is losing recruits to investment banks, dot-com companies and the Treasury and Commerce Departments. A1 Debate on China Trade Deal The United States Senate, after months of delay, opens debate this week on President Clinton's trade pact with China, setting the stage for a final showdown between free-trade supporters and their foes. Each side expressed optimism that it would prevail. (Reuters) Concorde Crash Inquiry A metal fragment that was lying on the runway and that figures in the crash of the Air France Concorde in July apparently came from a Continental Airlines DC-10 that had taken off from the same runway minutes earlier, French investigators said. A6 Russian Mogul Cites Threat Boris Berezovsky said a senior Kremlin official had ordered him to transfer his holdings in Russia's primary state-owned television channel to the state or face the prospect of going to jail. Mr. Berezovsky made the assertion in a letter to President Vladimir V. Putin. A10 Court Weighs Fate of Twins England's Court of Appeal was asked to decide whether doctors could proceed with an operation that would separate conjoined twins but would sacrifice the life of one to save the other. The infants' parents object to the plan, although doctors say both children will probably die without the surgery. A5 Seeking a Peacemaking Role President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria said in an interview in New York that he was ready to step into a larger role in mediating an end to his continent's debilitating wars, beginning with Congo. He said he recently volunteered to go to Congo to talk with President Laurent Kabila, who has blocked efforts to end the war. A12 Violence in Sri Lanka Fighting gripped Sri Lanka for a second day, leaving at least 344 people dead as the military mounted a major offensive ahead of crucial parliamentary polls, officials said. The separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam launched two attacks against military positions in the northern peninsula of Jaffna but were repulsed, the officials said. (AFP) World Briefing A8 NATIONAL A16-25 Spurned Networks Express No Interest in Rival Debates The ABC and CBS television networks, which were left out of Gov. George W. Bush's presidential debates proposal, said they had no intention of carrying debates sponsored by rival networks like NBC and CNN. The Bush proposal, announced on Sunday after negotiations with officials of six cable and broadcast networks, has thrown into turmoil the work of the Commission on Presidential Debates, the panel created in 1987 by Democrats and Republicans to avoid squabbling over debates. Since the creation of the panel, no candidate has gone so far to circumvent its work. The panel's executive director said she still hoped to negotiate an agreement under which Mr. Bush would consent to the commission's schedule. A1 Mr. Bush derided Vice President Al Gore for rejecting his debate proposal during a Labor Day campaign swing through two hotly contested states, Illinois and Michigan. A22 Mr. Gore, accompanied part of the way by Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, concluded a 28-hour campaign swing that included stops in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida and Kentucky. A22 The Friends of the Earth, an environmental group that endorsed Bill Bradley in the Democratic primaries and considered supporting Ralph Nader in the general election, has decided to endorse Mr. Gore, officials of the group said. A23 Congressional Priorities Members of Congress return from recess this week for a final session compressed by the election campaigns and dominated by tax cuts, education, health care and government spending. The Republican majority's first step will be to try to override President Clinton's vetoes of the repeal of the marriage tax and the estate tax, but they are not expected to be successful. A1 Judge's Doubts in Spy Case The federal judge who tried to release the fired nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee from jail on $1 million bail said in a written opinion that he was no longer convinced that Dr. Lee had downloaded some of the country's most sensitive nuclear secrets. The judge had ordered Dr. Lee freed on bail on Friday, but an appeals court halted the release while it considered a government appeal. A18 Inmates Fighting Wildfires One in six of the crew members fighting Western wildfires fires by hand is a convict, drawn from state prisons in an enterprise that most everyone involved seems to see as benefiting all concerned. A1 SPORTS D1-10 Sampras and Williams Win Pete Sampras weathered a rain delay and an early challenge from Hyung-Taik Lee to advance to the United States Open quarterfinals with a 7-6 (4), 6-2, 6-4 victory. D1 Serena Williams, the defending Open champion, survived a first-set tie breaker to defeat Jelena Dokic, 7-6 (7), 6-0, to move into the quarterfinals. D4 NEW YORK/REGION B1-8 In Holiday Campaigning, One Walks and One Talks Hillary Rodham Clinton and Representative Rick A. Lazio were miles apart, in geography and approach, for the traditional start of the general election campaign. Mrs. Clinton marched in the West Indian American Carnival Day Parade in Brooklyn but gave no speeches or news conferences. Mr. Lazio marched upstate, attended a fair and held two news conferences in which he contrasted himself with his Senate opponent on issues and qualifications. B1 Parade Thrives Despite Ban The city's ban on alcohol sales at the West Indian parade did not seem to dampen the spirits of participants or the thousands who came to watch. B5 Bronx Evangelical Rally Several thousand Latino evangelicals endured rain and delays to hear the Rev. Yiye Avila, a 74-year-old Puerto Rican who is a force in the conversion of hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholic Latinos to evangelical Protestant denominations. B1 EDUCATION Teacher Shortage Persists New York City's 1.1 million public school children return to class on Thursday to face a worsening shortage of qualified teachers, even as tougher standards make the path to graduation more arduous. Most of the 150 or so certified-teacher vacancies in failing elementary schools have been filled, but by Friday officials were still well short of filling 250 such openings at the lowest-performing middle and high schools, as required by a court order. A1 Strike Looms in Philadelphia The union representing 21,000 city teachers said it would ask members to authorize a strike in a vote today, citing a lack of progress in negotiations on several issues. The 200,000 children in the system are to return to class on Thursday. A18 SCIENCE TIMES F1-12 Debate on Cholesterol Drugs New research indicates that even more people should be on cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, like young men with high cholesterol levels. But some experts caution that the drugs are too new and too expensive and their side effects still too uncertain to prescribe them widely. F1 Secrets of the Albatross A French researcher says the wandering albatross does not wander aimlessly in the years it does not breed, but rather flies to its own part of the ocean, often far from its nesting ground, and stays there until it is time to breed again. F4 Health & Fitness F7 OBITUARIES C13 Penelope Russianoff A psychotherapist, writer and lecturer who advised women on how to assert themselves, she was 82. C13 BUSINESS DAY C1-12 Tire Maker and Union Settle Negotiators for Bridgestone/Firestone and the union representing 8,000 of its workers reached a tentative settlement, averting a threatened strike that could have deepened the tire maker's troubles. C1 Bridgestone/Firestone agreed to recall 62,000 tires that the Venezuelan government says have defects that appear to have played a role in the deaths of A Strain Between Automakers DaimlerChrysler, which has based its hopes for Asian expansion on a partnership with Mitsubishi Motors, is demanding more control in the wake of a scandal over defective cars that has engulfed Mitsubishi. A DaimlerChrysler spokeswoman said ''we are in talks about the future of the alliance'' in the context of ''challenges facing Mitsubishi.'' C1 Utility Merger Is Expected National Grid Group, a British energy company, is expected to announce today that it has agreed to acquire Niagara Mohawk Holdings, an upstate New York power concern, for about $3 billion in cash and stock. C1 A Business-to-Business Plan I.B.M., Microsoft and Ariba plan to announce tomorrow that they are creating a huge set of online registries intended to help find products and services and automate business transactions, to be called the Universal Description, Discovery and Integration project. C4 Business Digest C1 ARTS E1-8 FASHION B9 EDITORIAL A26-27 Editorials: The scourge of guns; journalists under siege; technology's gender gap. Columns: Thomas L. Friedman, Gail Collins. Crossword E8 TV Listings E7 Public Lives B2 Weather D9