Anxiety

...ba href=/anxiety/a/b for newspaper employees and readers for some time." Sen.

Patty Murray, D-Wash., said in a statement that she reached out to leaders of both companies in fall 2004, asking them to settle the dispute.

She said she asked former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, a renowned mediator, to help settle the dispute, but that effort failed.

But, Murray said, that process helped lead the two parties "to conclude that protracted litigation was not in the best interest of either resolving their dispute or the public that they serve." While noting that many questions remain around the dispute, Murray said: "Both The Seattle Times and Hearst are to be commended for committing to a process in which these questions can be answered in a thoughtful, rational way.

" At issue is The Times' effort to change or end the joint operating agreement that has bound the two companies since 1983.

Under the JOA, The Times and the P-I maintain separate news and editorial operations, but The Times handles circulation, advertising, production and other business functions for both.

Under current terms, The Times gets 60 percent, Hearst 40 percent of any revenue that remains after accounting for non-news expenses of publishing both papers.

The Times says the arrangement is no longer financially viable, and that it has lost money under a JOA calculation.

The P-I's circulation has declined precipitously, and Times officials say the P-I has become a big expense that threatens both The Times' profita...

...ba href=/anxiety/a/b is not helped by the Police Department's struggle to return to normal.

At about 1,400 officers, the department is not far from its strength of just under 1,600 officers before Hurricane Katrina.

But the department is operating out of trailers, much of its data-gathering capability is impaired because of storm damage, and about 80 percent of its officers lost their homes in the storm.

There is evidence that the non-working poor — the population most implicated in crime, as victims and perpetrators — may be returning in higher percentages, for now, than middle-class residents washed out by the storm.

A population map prepared for the city appears to suggest as much.

"It looks like the worst have come back," said Andrew Jackson, a homeowner on Villere Street in the Eighth Ward.

"That house over there," he said, pointing to an empty-looking dwelling down the block where he said youths congregate.

"You don't see 'em during the day, but you see them at night."There are a few hopeful signs.

Before, this was a city virtually awash in guns, experts say.

The contractor who cleaned up the city's storm drains after Hurricane Katrina said his crews had recovered at least a dozen firearms.

Guns are not as prevalent, the police say.

Another aid, officers and residents say, is a new level of cooperation from citizens who had traditionally mistrusted the New Orleans police.

For years, the police here had complained that witnesses and residents refused to help, fearing retr...

...ba href=/anxiety/a/b can even be seen in the bickering over what to call Hu's Washington visit.

China is calling it a ``state visit.'' The White House is calling it lunch.

State Dinner or Lunch?

Normally, a leader of Hu's caliber would get the full black- tie, celebrity-packed state dinner treatment.

Since he's not, it reflects the White House's expectation that little will be achieved during Hu's stay.

China already has outmaneuvered the U.S.

on its currency.

Last year, it unpegged the yuan and let it rise a token 2.1 percent against the dollar.

Since then, China made it clear further moves will come on its timetable, not Washington's.

A vote on Chinese tariffs could still come at any time.

Still, it's heartening to see U.S.

lawmakers taking a breather on this issue.

It has always been a startling oversimplification to say China is causing imbalances in the U.S.

and vice versa.

There's enough blame to go around the globe for today's vulnerabilities.

And besides, as long as Americans fail to save more, trade deficits will remain.

Lose-Lose Situation ``If the Schumer-Graham bill closes down U.S.

trade with China through the imposition of steep tariffs, a saving-short U.S.

economy will simply have to divert a significant portion of its multilateral trade deficit elsewhere,'' said Stephen Roach, chief global economist at Morgan Stanley, after meeting with the senators in Beijing last week.

The upshot would be hig...