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Numbers
Moviegoers had a short attention span this summer. Box-office grosses fell quickly. The drop-off (in millions):

$11.4 Final Fantasy, Weekend 1
$3.7 Final Fantasy, Weekend 2
$68.5 Planet of the Apes (1)
$27.5 Planet of the Apes (2)
$47.7 Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (1)
$19.8 Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2)

Sources: ACNielsen, EDI and USA Today

Eight Ball Out Of The Back Pocket
Mysterious shipments of billiard balls may have been showing up in Washington lately, say law-enforcement officials, and they are not for the making of The Hustler 3. Instead, anarchist groups may be stockpiling the extra balls and planning to hurl them in protest at the weekend conference of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund that begins Sept. 29. The balls are thought to be the troublemakers' weapon of choice--easy to hide, easy to throw, legal to possess and dense enough to cause damage. Rioters defiantly threw them, along with less refined bricks, rocks and Molotov cocktails, at the Summit of the Americas conference in Quebec City last April. With as many as 100,000 expected to gather for the World Bank-imf meeting, all local and federal law-enforcement agencies are on guard. "We certainly don't want to inhibit those who come to demonstrate peaceably," says Secret Service spokesman Jim Mackin. "But we have to be prepared for those who break the law." Reported by Elaine Shannon

Exit Stage Right
Not since Brooks Brothers introduced its red-and-gold rep tie has a movement so seduced the G.O.P. Conservative stalwarts Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Phil Gramm of Texas have decided to yield their Senate seats after 2002, and strategists fear a wave of retirement notices in the next few months. Possible departures include Senator Pete Domenici, a five-termer from New Mexico, and Kay Bailey Hutchison, the other Texas Senator and a new adoptive mom. Aides to Alaska's Frank Murkowski have let it be known their boss is weighing a run for Governor, meaning he could leave the Senate next year. And Die Hard 2 alumnus Fred Thompson of Tennessee will soon announce his plans; most think he won't return. Many of these Senators are convinced that since Vermont's Jim Jeffords became an independent and gave Democrats a majority, Republicans won't regain control of the Senate anytime soon. The more who retire, the more likely that is to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Hurry, The Boss Is Coming
A little diplomatic face time seems to be one way of getting action in the battle against druglords. Mexican President Vicente Fox, in a speech last week to Congress, firmly underscored his country's cooperation with American efforts in the drug war. That very day his officials were arresting cartel lieutenant Arturo (Chicken) Guzman, one of a brother team of alleged cocaine smugglers, who faces charges in the U.S. And just four days before Secretary of State Colin Powell's scheduled visit to Colombia, that country's cops were ushering Fabio Ochoa onto a plane bound for extradition to Florida, where he is accused of helping to smuggle 30 tons of cocaine a month. Reported by Peter Katel and Elaine Shannon

34 Years Ago In Time
Denise Darvall, 25, had been killed in a car accident. But her heart would get a chance to live on in a history-making procedure. As Dr. CHRISTIAAN BARNARD performed the world's first successful heart transplant on a human, the world palpitated:

In painstaking sequence, Dr. Barnard stitched the donor heart in place. First the left auricle, then the right. He joined the stub of Denise's aorta to Louis Washkansky's, her pulmonary artery to his. Finally, the veins. Assistant surgeons removed the catheters from the implant as Barnard worked. Now, almost four hours after the first incision, history's first transplanted human heart was in place. But it had not been beating since Denise died. Would it work? Barnard stepped back and ordered electrodes placed on each side of the heart and the current (25 watt-seconds) applied. The heart leaped at the shock and began a swift beat. Dr. Barnard's heart leaped too. Through his mask, he exclaimed unprofessionally but pardonably, "Christ, it's going to work!"...The heart gradually slowed its beat to 100 per minute. (Surgeon Barnard's had been a frenetic 140 when he finished the operation.)

--TIME, Dec. 15, 1967

A Car Of Your Own, Sort Of
Car sharing is an energy-saving idea whose time may have come. For a couple of bucks an hour, on top of a monthly or yearly membership fee, you can hop into a clean, gassed-up car and drive it as long as you like--and never pay for insurance or a single oil change. Companies like ZipCar, which is based in Cambridge, Mass., and expanded last week into Washington, maintain fleets of cars parked in convenient locations around town. Customers can pick up a car, drop it off when they're finished, and pay only for the hours they drive. The only downside: no cherry-red Mustang coupes.

SAN FRANCISCO 725 members

Launched in March 2001 with financial support from the Federal Government and pro-environment foundations, City CarShare has 27 VWs--automatic transmission only--rolling over the hills of the Bay Area.

CAMBRIDGE 1,250 members

After a successful start in the Boston area, ZipCar is poised to monopolize the Northeast corridor: it's starting up in D.C. and plans to begin enrolling members even in car-wary New York City by October.

SEATTLE 2,900 members

In 1998 a company called CarSharing Portland first introduced America to the shared-car concept. Last month it was bought by Seattle-based Flexcar, which wants to open in 30 cities over the next five years.

MONTREAL 2,450 members

CommunAuto brought the car-sharing phenomenon from Europe, where there are now 120,000 members, to Quebec City and Montreal in the mid-1990s. Since then, six other Canadian cities have followed suit.

Low-Tech Solutions
RENT-A-GOAT With 3,000 acres in Northern California burning uncontrollably, residents of the West are in need of a new way to mitigate the danger of fire. It could come in the form of a farm animal. Many landowners have resorted to renting power-grazing goats to devour weeds and underbrush, thus improving soil quality and cutting down the risk of devastating brush fires. The nimble animals easily get into rocky, hilly and heavily forested terrain that machines can't navigate. And as a bonus, they'll even leave behind a hearty supply of "fertilizer."

Over & Under
OVERRATED Barbara Walters with Anne Heche. Promoted ad nauseam, Babs' interview with the wayward actress turned out to be an egregious example of the celebrity confessional as career move. At least Condit spared us the psychobabble.

UNDERRATED Kelly Ripa with Regis Philbin. Kathie Lee's successor matches the 800-lb. gorilla of TV hosts perfectly, balancing silly banter with an arsenal of pungent one-liners and poker-faced comebacks. A Condit interview next?

That Means I'm Fired?
The U.S. unemployment rate has jumped to 4.9%. Also on the rise are the euphemisms being used by companies to describe layoffs:

TELEGLOBE "Today announced plans to revector portions of its business."
Translation: 450 jobs lost

CISCO "The reduction in workforce will include...involuntary attrition and the consolidation of some positions."
Translation: 3,000 to 5,000 jobs lost

SCHWAB "Announced today that...it plans to implement further restructuring to reduce operating expenses."
Translation: 2,000 to 2,400 jobs lost

LUCENT "Expects to reduce its net headcount...through a combination of force management actions and attrition."
Translation: 10,000 jobs lost