March 17, 2000

Clyde Haberman NYC column holds that if nothing else, police undercover team that shot and killed unarmed black man Patrick M Dorismond in midtown Manhattan would seem to be guilty of monumentally bad timing; maintains that scarred city has yet to heal from Amadou Diallo killing year ago, and controversial verdict in Albany that acquitted four police officers who shot him (M)

LOOKING for a low-mileage Trans Am driven only to church on Sundays (by a little old lady, naturally)? Or do you have your own cream puff to sell, like that '72 Gremlin up on blocks in the backyard? You can find such unlikely machines on the Internet, of course, but increasingly you'll also find hundreds of thousands of more promising vehicles. And if you shop on the World Wide Web, you can kick the tires while kicking back in your pajamas -- and without a cigar-chomping salesman barking, ''So, how much can you afford to pay?''

Robot gasoline pump developed by Shell and H R Textron is being tested at service stations in Indiana; photo (S)

Kentucky beats St Bonaventure, 85-80, in double overtime in first round of Midwest Regional NCAA basketball tournament; Syracuse beats Samford, 79-65, Michigan State beats Valparaiso, 65-38, and Utah beats Saint Louis, 48-45; photo (M)

Article on New York City Comptroller Alan G Hevesi notes that he is Democratic candidate for mayor and that he has criticized Mayor Rudolph W Giuliani for awarding nearly $500,000 in welfare-to-work contracts; Hevesi says contracts, to companies that are to find jobs for 80,000 former welfare recipients, raise appearance of 'corruption, favoritism and cronyism'; photos (M)

Special report, Redesigning Nature, focuses on genetically modified seeds; says despite debate overseas and some protests in US over safety of gene-altered foods, many American farmers expect to plant the crops again this year because they are easier and cheaper to grow, and because there is still a big market for them in US; says nation's largest agricultural companies have formed line of defense against opposition by promising farmers that they will buy their gene-altered grains; holds Cargill Inc and Archer-Daniels-Midland--two of largest grain-handling companies--say they welcome crops at most of their grain elevators; says major seed companies--Monsanto, DuPont's Pioneer Hi-Bred International unit and Novartis--have held forums around country in bid to assure farmers that big grain companies will buy what they grow; graph; photos (M)

Vermont House of Representatives gives final approval to bill to create 'civil unions' giving gay and lesbian couples virtually all the benefits of marriage, setting stage for state to adopt most sweeping set of rights for same-sex couples in country; bill, which gives same-sex couples spousal rights and privileges, is expected to pass more easily in Senate next month, and Gov Howard Dean has said he will sign it despite deep schism issue has created among Vermonters; bill stops short of calling same-sex unions marriage, and in fact specifies that that marriage could only be between man and a woman; bill's provisions reviewed; photo (M)

St John's beats Northern Arizona, 61-56, in first round of West Regional NCAA basketball tournament; Gonzaga beats Louisville, 77-66, Oklahoma beats Winthrop, 74-50, and Purdue beats Dayton, 62-61; photo (M)

Investors buy stocks furiously, sending Dow Jones industrial average up nearly 500 points in its biggest one-day point gain ever; broader indexes also rise as as investors--at least for the day--put aside fears that Federal Reserve would aggressively raise interest rates and slow economy to a crawl; Dow Jones industrials rise 499.19 points, or nearly 5 percent, to 10,630.60; investors set record for trading on New York State Exchange, with 1.48 billion shares changing hands; photos (L)

Bruce Schaller, private transportation consultant, says analysis of decade of taxi meter and odometer readings shows that availability of taxicabs over last seven years has fallen 13 percent; analysis confirms what anyone who relies on cabs almost anywhere in Manhattan already knows: city's surging economy is increasing demand for taxi supply that has not increased in several years; graph; photos (M)

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey exec dir Robert E Boyle vows to remain in his job, and Gov George E Pataki says he is welcome to stay, despite accusations by state Atty Gen Eliot L Spitzer that Boyle defrauded Hudson Valley Hospital Center when he was its chairman in early 1990's (M)

Variety of Internet sites offer used-car information, prices and auctions; National Automobile Dealers Assn and other sites described (M)