April 8, 1996

From former President George Bush on down, the Republican establishment is working desperately to protect a prized convert, Representative Greg Laughlin, from the rudeness of defeat on Tuesday in his first try for a nomination in his new party. When Mr. Bush endorsed him on Wednesday, he made a public choice in a Republican primary for the first time since he ran himself in 1992. His praise of Mr. Laughlin for doing the "honorable thing" in switching last June crowned a Republican campaign of endorsements, campaign cash and rough election tactics.

The local police are working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in New Jersey and Florida to find Frank L. Black, 58, the owner of a bus company, who has been missing for six weeks. Mr. Black left from Newark International Airport Feb. 24 for West Palm Beach, Fla., to conduct what he had told associates was a business deal, said David Szatkiewicz, an Andover patrolman. But his family and colleagues have not heard from him since then. The police said there were no indications that Mr. Black was abducted. Mr. Black is the founder of Frank L. Black Bus Service, which has contracts with several school districts. One of his credit cards was used at a West Palm Beach gas station shortly after he arrived in Florida, but the police said they did not know who used it and had no evidence that he had rented a car. His family is offering a $20,000 reward for information that leads to his return.

With huge mergers changing the face of the health care industry, the Federal Trade Commission plans to make it easier for doctors to band together, coordinate prices and form networks to compete with insurance companies and health maintenance organizations. The new policy comes as many members of Congress are pressing the trade commission and the Justice Department to relax their rules on such joint ventures. The House Judiciary Committee recently approved a bill that would allow doctors to exchange information about their costs, fees and profits for the purpose of establishing a network to sell health care to patients or employers.

John Cardinal O'Connor, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York, interrupted a joyous Easter celebration with a somber jeremiad yesterday, decrying as "unspeakable" a recent Federal appeals court ruling permitting physician-assisted suicide in New York State. This solemn note briefly tempered the jubilation in St. Patrick's Cathedral on the most important of Christian holidays, when the resurrection of Jesus Christ is remembered, just as the sadness over the recent death of Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown mitigated the euphoria inside the Abyssinian Baptist Church several miles away in Harlem.

When Dwight Gooden's once-intimidating and once-magical name was announced, the sparse crowd at the Ballpark in Arlington yawned. Barely a peep was heard. He was treated like just another pitcher trying to prove he belongs. Does he? Almost 22 months after Gooden fired his last fastball for the Mets in the major leagues, the pitcher whose fabled career stagnated because of drug-abuse violations made his American League debut with the Yankees. He realizes it is probably his last chance to salvage a career gone awry.