Omitted

It's a spat between true believers, a feud over index funds. You wouldn't think kindred spirits would have such a beef with each other. But to a group of financial planners known as the Zero Alpha Group, mutual fund researcher Morningstar Inc. simply isn't committed quite enough to their index fund cause. It doesn't matter that Morningstar has long acknowledged that plain old index funds, over time, tend to wallop most funds that strut their stuff and employ high-priced stock-pickers to attract investors.

JERUSALEM -- Hamas announced yesterday that it had formed a Palestinian government but acknowledged that it had been unable to attract coalition partners whose presence might have made dealings with the Islamist group more palatable to the outside world. The group refrained from formally announcing its Cabinet lineup, pending its presentation to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who was expected to travel to the Gaza Strip today for meetings with the Hamas leadership. Hamas officials speaking on condition of anonymity said that key positions would go to Hamas loyalists, such as firebrand Mahmoud Zahar, who has been designated foreign minister.

With less than two weeks before death row inmate Wesley Eugene Baker could be executed, his lawyers filed court papers yesterday saying that the convicted killer's death sentence should be overturned because his attorneys at sentencing did not offer evidence of a troubled and abusive childhood that led Baker to drink vodka and use marijuana by age 10 and shoot heroin by 14. Baker's lawyers argue that a sentencing judge might have spared the man's life...

Denver -- Lawyers for Qwest shareholders are now gunning for former CEO Joe Nacchio and former CFO Robert Woodruff. Nacchio, who led Qwest Communications International Inc. from 1997 to 2002, and Woodruff were not included in a $400 million settlement yesterday of a class action lawsuit against Qwest and former executives and board members. The suit claimed accounting fraud under Nacchio's watch that resulted in the company's restating $2.5 billion in revenue and the same amount in earnings.

Ohio Gov. Bob Taft was charged yesterday with four criminal misdemeanor counts for not reporting golf outings and other favors that were paid for by lobbyists, friends and businessmen. Taft, a great-grandson of President William Howard Taft, faces the possibility of a $1,000 fine and six months in jail on each count if convicted, but jail time is considered unlikely. A Taft spokesman said the 63-year-old governor, a Republican, will not resign from office. Taft will publicly address the charges against him, filed in Franklin County Municipal Court, today, when he is expected to appear in court, the spokesman said.

The Ehrlich administration will move forward in October with Baltimore-area bus route changes affecting about 105,000 riders a day, but it has dropped many of the most controversial service cuts in its original restructuring plan, Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan said last night. Flanagan said he will announce this morning the new version of the route changes the Maryland Transit Administration will launch, after its original plan ran into heavy opposition during public hearings last month.

WASHINGTON - To show that President Bush can fulfill his campaign promise to cut the deficit in half by 2009, White House officials are preparing a budget that will assume a significant jump in revenues and omit the cost of major initiatives like overhauling Social Security. To make Bush's goal easier to reach, administration officials have decided to measure their progress against a $521 billion deficit they predicted in February rather than last year's actual shortfall of $413 billion.

A History Channel documentary that premiered in Baltimore last week said the turning point in the War of 1812 took place at the Battle of North Point, when "an anonymous sniper" killed the commander of British land forces. "The sniper's name has faded into history," the narrator of First Invasion says. The name might be lost to the History Channel, but not to Baltimoreans, who credit two city teenagers with the deed. Daniel Wells and Henry McComas are mentioned in history books, have streets named after them and are honored with an obelisk on Monument Street, where Mayor Martin O'Malley laid a wreath for Defenders' Day. With two local heroes seemingly snubbed, Baltimore is, once again, up in arms.

Crime-fighting efforts of the Maryland State Police might have been hampered by the department's failure to collect DNA samples from thousands of felons, adequately monitor firearms dealers or properly keep track of drugs and cash collected as evidence, according to a new legislative audit. The report, which was made public this week, details widespread problems with state police financial management and indicates that auditors also have requested that the state attorney general's office look into $65,000 in construction contracts handed out by the department.

The deadline for filing your personal income tax return is less than three months away. For the weeks leading up to April 15, Your Money will provide tax tips designed to help you file your 2003 return. Here is the first.Sometimes the simplest things can trip up your tax return, and none is as common as a muddled or missing Social Security number. It's one of several common clerical errors, including bad math and unsigned returns, that can delay your refund if you're owed one. Incorrect or missing Social Security numbers accounted for the most frequent math or data entry errors on 2002 returns.