NEW YORK, Dec 28 (Reuters) - The New York Times reported the following stories on its front page on Thursday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

* The body of former President Gerald R. Ford will lie in the Capitol this weekend amid tributes marked by considerably less pageantry than the funeral of former President Ronald Reagan in 2004, congressional officials said Wednesday.

* Most of Ethiopia's malnourished children do not die. Instead, they grow up stunted and sickly, weaklings in a land that runs on manual labor.

* The Islamist forces who have controlled much of Somalia in recent months suddenly vanished from the streets of the capital, Mogadishu, residents said Wednesday night, just as thousands of rival troops massed 15 miles away.

* U.S. forces are struggling with the task of trying to build up Iraqi security forces that are being used as proxies in a spreading sectarian war.

* Tens of thousands of people across the country, their kidneys ruined by Type 2 diabetes, have been forced into the grim routine of dialysis care, and in New York, those patients routinely receive some of the worst treatment, government records show.

* Three brothers have spent 13 years in court fighting over three Norman Rockwell paintings. (New York Newsroom: 646-223-6000)

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