August 18, 1992

IN a culture obsessed with every ache and flutter of the human body, plant pathologists have long been consigned to the boondocks of biology, their work viewed as being of interest largely to farmers and forest rangers. Now, however, that narrow view is changing, and researchers who study plant diseases and plants' astonishing defenses against attack are unexpectedly finding themselves in the scientific spotlight. No longer is theirs a sedate profession and an oasis from the tumult of human biomedicine; instead, plant pathology has become one of the most kinetic specialties, the pace of discovery so swift that even mammalian geneticists are being forced to take note.

NEW YORK CITY AGREEING TO PROCEED ON INCINERATOR The Dinkins administration and the leadership of the City Council have agreed to go ahead with construction of a $550 million incinerator at the Brooklyn Navy Yard while at the same time increasing New York City's troubled recycling program. Those are the central elements of a compromise plan to deal with the city's growing problem of garbage disposal -- a subject that has caused a long and bitter debate. A1. A NEW PLACE TO HOLD COURT Faced with a shortage of court space in Brooklyn so severe that one magistrate holds hearings in a press room, the Federal Government is planning to move the courthouse to the two landmark post office buildings in downtown Brooklyn and build a 415-foot tower there. B3. 30 FEET OF STEAM AND TROUBLE A 30-foot-high plume of contaminated steam billowing from an underground pipe in Manhattan exposed 12 people on East 33d Street to asbestos, dumped asbestos on the fronts of several buildings and forced the closing of Fifth Avenue near the Empire State Building for much of the day. B3. AN ARREST AND AN INQUIRY A top police official directed the department's Internal Affairs Division to investigate the circumstances surrounding the arrest last week of a Brooklyn van driver who suffered an injury while in police custody. B3. REGION FIGHTING BIAS IN BUSINESS Armed with a new study that shows minority-owned businesses still get a relatively small share of state contracts, New York State is returning to a system of requiring contractors to reserve a certain proportion of state work for companies headed by women and minorities, state officials said. In effect, the state is returning to a program it suspended in 1989 after the Supreme Court ruled that a similar program in Virginia violated the constitutional rights of white contractors to equal protection under the law. A1. CRACKDOWN ON WASTE INDUSTRY Charging that a reputed Mafia leader has dominated the private garbage-collection industry on Long Island for many years, Federal prosecutors are trying to bar him from the industry. The prosecutors, who described Salvatore Avellino Jr. as a leader of the Lucchese crime family, are asking the court to block him from participating in any activities "connected with the collection, transportation or disposal of solid waste." B5. A MAN OF (HIDDEN) INFLUENCE Mort Pye has arguably wielded more sustained influence in New Jersey affairs over the last quarter-century than any other person, public or private. But his name would not be recognized by the average reader of the newspaper he has edited since 1957, The Star-Ledger. But as a tub-thumper for New Jersey and -- not incidentally -- The Star- Ledger, he has had few peers. B5. Report on nursing home deaths. B4. Dispute over a prison guard's cross. B4. Our Towns by Diana Jean Schemo B5 Chronicle B4

ALTHOUGH Laura Massaro has not spoken to her brother for long stretches of her adult life, she cannot seem to escape his influence. Their longstanding feud, she said, stems from the fact that he still wants to guide and protect her, as big brothers are wont to do. But she is now 30 -- he's 31 -- and his well-meaning attempts to direct her life now feel like interference rather than a helping hand.

Acting at the last minute, United Nations inspectors in Baghdad canceled a visit today to a military ministry considered off-limits by Iraq, apparently abandoning for now a United States plan to demand access to sensitive sites. American officials had said over the weekend that Washington and its allies might renew bombing raids on Baghdad if inspections were blocked.

While other large multiline insurance companies continue to stagger from real estate losses and weak markets, M. R. Greenberg's tightly run international empire, American International Group, last month reported results so characteristically positive that Wall Street once again greeted them with a yawn. Many analysts take for granted that A.I.G., under Mr. Greenberg, its chairman and chief executive, is the smartest and most successful large insurance company in America. But on Wall Street, Mr. Greenberg is also something of a terror.