June 4, 2005

For weeks, sightings of Taliban fighters were being reported all over the rugged mountains here. But when Staff Sgt. Patrick Brannan and his team of scouts drove into a nearby village to investigate a complaint of a beating, they had no idea that they were stumbling into the biggest battle of their lives. On May 3, joined by 10 local policemen and an interpreter, the scouts turned up at a kind of Taliban convention -- of some 60 to 80 fighters -- and were greeted by rockets and gunfire. The sergeant called for reinforcements and was told to keep the Taliban engaged until they arrived. ''I've only got six men,'' he remembers saying.

Job creation slowed to a crawl in May, the Labor Department estimated on Friday, but the unemployment rate edged down to its lowest point since September 2001. The nation added 78,000 jobs in May, about half the pace of the previous three months and the smallest monthly increase in nearly two years.

Shrugging off White House criticism, an Amnesty International official said the word gulag was deliberately chosen to describe the Guantánamo Bay prison camp. Page A5.

Job Creation Slows, but Unemployment Rate Falls Job creation slowed in May, with 78,000 jobs added, but the unemployment rate edged down to 5.1 percent, its lowest point since September 2001, the Labor Department said. The job creation report, which was weaker than expected, rekindled talk of an economic slowdown, although analysts cautioned that monthly numbers can be volatile. BUSINESS DAY, PAGE C1 Accusation on Israeli Killings An Israeli newspaper reported that Israeli soldiers said they carried out ''eye for an eye'' attacks on Palestinian police officers in 2002 in revenge for the killing of six Israeli soldiers in the West Bank. The Israeli Army said that the events were part of a series of operations directed against terrorism and that they were in line with army orders. PAGE A3 Diplomats Leave Uzbekistan Signs of instability grew in Uzbekistan, as most Israeli diplomats left amid fresh warnings of terrorist attacks, and the American Embassy authorized most of its employees and their families to leave. PAGE A8 Red Tide in New England New England waters are being plagued by what may be the worst outbreak of red tide in the region, a Massachusetts official said. The toxic algae bloom has led officials to close shellfish beds between Maine and Cape Cod. PAGE A10 Kentucky Diocese Settlement The Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington, Ky., has agreed to set up a $120million fund to compensate victims of child-molesting priests and other employees. The sum is the biggest settlement in the scandal that has staggered the Catholic Church. The settlement would bring to a close a class-action suit filed on behalf of more than 100 victims. PAGE A12 For Teenage Tennis Star, the Future Has Arrived Rafael Nadal celebrated his 19th birthday and a victory over the top-seeded Roger Federer in the French Open semifinals in Paris. Nadal will play the unseeded Mariano Puerta in the final tomorrow. SPORTSSATURDAY, PAGE D1

All About Money From hedge funds to billion-dollar mergers, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley (again), money is moving all over the place. But where exactly is it going? And who's taking it there? A special issue. MAGAZINE Summer Reading A special issue, with surveys of travel, cooking and gardening and a literary map of Manhattan, showing where fictional New Yorkers lived and played. BOOK REVIEW With Parents in Tow Parents have plenty of family vacation choices this summer: visiting a medieval salt mine near Krakow, Poland, hiking on an active volcano in Nicaragua and taking part in a dig in the Montana badlands. TRAVEL The Case Against Coldplay The band led by Chris Martin is certainly beloved, but where fans hear a singer full of aching sincerity, the critic Jon Pareles hears a passive-aggressive blowhard. The band's new album is faultless to a fault, he writes. ARTS & LEISURE Rekindling Women's Desire Prescriptions for testosterone are soaring among women seeking to rekindle flagging sexual appetites, and many products are in the pipeline. But not all experts think the quest for a quick medical fix is the best approach. WOMEN'S HEALTH, SECTION 15

Dressed in a navy suit and red tie, his hair parted neatly on the side, Special Agent Charles E. Frahm sat with practiced calm as Muslims rose, one after another, to hurl raw complaints at him. Mr. Frahm, who heads the counterterrorism division of the F.B.I. in New York, was at a banquet hall in the Midwood section of Brooklyn on Thursday night to listen, he had told the hundreds of residents gathered there. And they responded. They were tired of being held for hours at airports when their names resembled those of suspected terrorists, they said. They were tired of seeing Muslims arrested on immigration charges. They were tired of having their mosques watched, their businesses scrutinized.

IT'S the ultimate political football. After nearly 15 months of verbal and legal scrimmages, the battle over the proposed Jets stadium on the Far West Side of Manhattan has evolved into a matchup of two-man teams: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Gov. George E. Pataki on offense, and Sheldon Silver, the state Assembly speaker, and Joseph L. Bruno, the State Senate majority leader, on defense. If either Silver or Bruno stands firm in voting ''no'' when the state's Public Authorities Control Board finally does meet, possibly Monday, the stadium won't happen.

Rasheed Wallace was laughing and hitting trick 3-pointers on Friday, seemingly carefree for a player who was fined $20,000 by the N.B.A. for suggesting a referees' conspiracy after the Pistons lost on Thursday night to the Heat in Miami. In a profane outburst, Wallace said the referees would call Game 6 in the Pistons' favor just to extend the Eastern Conference finals to seven games. Ka-ching went the N.B.A.'s cash register.

The last Roman Catholic hospital in Brooklyn, St. Mary's, announced yesterday that it planned to close after years of heavy financial losses, the latest casualty in New York State's shrinking hospital industry. St. Mary's, which serves many poor and uninsured patients in Bedford-Stuyvesant, is the third hospital controlled by the St. Vincent's Catholic Medical Centers to close in a little over a year. Its future had long been in doubt. Over the past three years, St. Vincent's gave St. Mary's $62 million just to cover operating costs, and in the first four months of this year, the hospital had an estimated $3.6 million operating loss, St. Vincent's officials said.

Rafael Nadal turned 19 on Friday, the day he beat the world's No. 1 player in four sets in the semifinals of the French Open. But his stirring 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory was only in part a gift from top-seeded Roger Federer, who started and finished unconvincingly in this match, which did not quite live up to expectations. Federer missed his forehand, his best shot, in bunches. He lost his serve nine times, a record for him. He howled with frustration and even banged the side of his head with his racket strings at one point.

For Mike Mussina, there was no need to turn around. The only sound louder at the Metrodome than the crack of the ball off Lew Ford's bat Friday night was the joyous shriek of the crowd of 41,588 at the sight of a three-run homer in flight. Only as the ball descended into the left-field seats did Mussina sneak a quick, and deflating, look. With Kevin Brown and Carl Pavano ineffective and Randy Johnson yet to be dominant, the Yankees have come to rely on Mussina as their pitching leader and stopper. But Friday night, with George Steinbrenner restless in Tampa, Fla., and the Yankees badly needing a victory to placate him, Mussina fumbled the job, blowing a three-run lead to a team he usually handles as the Yankees lost their sixth straight, 6-3, to the undermanned Minnesota Twins.

Surging oil prices and growing concerns about meeting targets to cut greenhouse gases produced by burning fossil fuels have revived efforts around the world to improve energy efficiency. But perhaps nowhere is the interest greater than here in Japan. Even though Japan is already among the most frugal countries in the world, the government recently introduced a national campaign, urging the Japanese to replace their older appliances and buy hybrid vehicles, all part of a patriotic effort to save energy and fight global warming. And big companies are jumping on the bandwagon, counting on the moves to increase sales of their latest models.