March 23, 2000

New York City Comptroller Alan G Hevesi rejects largest of contracts awarded to 16 companies by Giuliani administration to manage its new welfare-to-work program, accusing Mayor Rudolph W Giuliani of dishonesty in procurement process; says he will turn over city documents on $104 million contracts to Maximus Inc to Manhattan district attorney's office and Federal prosecutors; photo (M)

S.& P. 500 Tops 1,500 On Appetite for Technology Optimism about high technology lifted the Nasdaq composite index 153.07 points, or 3.25 percent, to 4,864.75, its biggest gain in almost three weeks, and the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index rose above the 1,500 mark for the first time, closing at 1,500.64, up 6.77 points. But investors resumed their general disregard for blue-chip stocks, and the Dow Jones industrial average, down as much as 118 points at one point during the session, closed with a 40.64-point loss, to 10,866.70. [Page C12.]

Task force of state and federal agents makes first arrests in crackdown on moonshiners in Appalachia; government claims illicit whiskey of Rocky Mount, Va, and surrounding area is work of new generation of moonshiners who have transformed legendary woodsmen's stills into efficient distilleries, some capable of producing thousands of gallons of liquor a week; moonshine whiskey, mass-produced at as much as 150 proof with little attention to health or safety, is growing as product of interstate commerce; government investigators say hundreds of thousands of gallons of moonshine a year flow over highways from Virginia and North Carolina, free of all state and federal taxes or regulatory scrutiny; say there are ready markets among pockets of poverty that still exist in nation; photos (M)

New York State Health Commissioner Antonia Novello announces that state investigators have found 29 health violations at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, resulting from case in which urologist Dr Peter Muncan removed left kidney of man who had cancerous mass in his right kidney; man later died; hospital is also fined $58,000 (M)

Joyce Purnick Metro Matters column contends that while DNA testing has gotten so sophisticated that its use in crime investigations, particularly rape, is almost standard, government has become entangled in maze; New York City is behind in processing DNA evidence, causing concern that five year statute of limitations on charging suspects could lapse before government acts (M)