May 25, 2005

Motley Crue files suit in federal court in Los Angeles alleging that NBC violated band's free-speech rights and weakened its sales by banning it after lead singer Vince Neil used expletive on air in New Year's Eve appearance on Tonight Show; NBC issues statement saying it has right to decide not to invite back guests who violate Federal Communications Commission standards and calling suit meritless; photo (M)

In the two weeks since the governor appointed him to oversee the development of the former World Trade Center site, John P. Cahill has moved quickly to assert his power, taking a variety of small but significant actions that appear meant to demonstrate that a central authority now leads downtown development. On May 13, the day after he was named to the post, Mr. Cahill canceled the contract with the company in charge of demolishing the Deutsche Bank building, hoping to speed up the construction of a new building on the site. The building was damaged beyond repair in the attacks of 2001, and its demolition has been repeatedly delayed by a series of environmental disputes.

Front-runner in Iranian election is former Pres Ali Akhbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, pillar of Islamic Revolution who now casts himself as free-market reformist who could curb hard-line clerics and improve relations with US; Rafsanjani sounds less conciliatory in interview, saying US must make first concessions and defending Iran's right to develop nuclear technology; photos; he also says Iran, not US, has 'real democracy'; Rafsanjani embodies absurdities of election in country where political and social change is so popular that all candidates adopt reform vocabulary, even though none of eight allowed to run want to alter central fact of power resting in hands of unaccountable religious leader; Rafsanjani is considered compromise figure in lineup (M)

Profile of and interview with French comedian Jamel Debbouze, who comments on why he has taken on role in movie Indigenes (Natives); film, being shot in Beaucaire, France, is about young infantry soldier recruited in Morocco by Free French forces to help drive Nazis out of Italy and France in World War II; Debbouze, in preparing for film, found document about his great-grandfather, Algerian infantry soldier who fought and died for France in World War I; Debbouze says he hopes to educate French about forgotten role played by Arabs and black African colonial soldiers in liberation of France and awaken country's Arab and African populations to their French identity; photos (M)

The weather was so raw that the Yankees rewarded their fans with future free tickets for showing up and staying around in the cold, the wind and the rain. The Yankees' power was so raw and so plentiful that Mike Mussina rode six home runs, including two each by Alex Rodriquez and Jorge Posada, to a 12-3 victory over the Tigers that improved his record to 5-2.