July 1, 2005

Mayor Michael R Bloomberg and prosecutors pledge to seek maximum penalties in beating of black man in Howard Beach, Queens, moving quickly to keep attack from becoming divisive; fatal racial attack in same neighborhood roiled city in 1986; man said to be central figure in latest attack, Nicholas Minucci, is accused of beating Glenn Moore, who is in stable condition with fractured skull; Minucci is arraigned on charges of first-degree assault as a hate crime; Anthony Ench is arrested and charged with assault as hate crime and robbery; Frank Agostini is taken into custody and is likely to be treated as witness; Rev Al Sharpton and Moore's lawyer call attackers 'lynch mob' and object to police claim that Moore and two friends came to predominantly white neighborhood intending to steal car; Sharpton says he plans to conduct protest march through Howard Beach, but he praises mayor's handling of attack; photos (M)

The double-crested cormorants perch like conquerors at the tops of the spindly white pines, their driftwood-gray branches devoid of needles. The trees were killed off, along with much of the other vegetation on the small rocky islands here in Lake Champlain, by the birds' highly acidic droppings. As they have across the United States, double-crested cormorants, large migratory water birds, have proliferated on the lake in recent years: from none before 1980 to 3,800 breeding pairs last year.

John J Mack has triumphant return to Morgan Stanley, investment bank that had unceremoniously dumped him four years ago; Mack is greeted by standing ovation from crowd of 200 employees gathered in conference room at Morgan Stanley's towering Manhattan hdaequarters on Times Square; Mack, for all the cheering, immediately faces task of bandaging wounds that scarred fractured firm under Philip J Purcell; tensions facing Mack are immediately evident in annoucement after market closes that Zoe Cruz and Stephen S Crawford, co-presidents of bank under Purcell, had resigned from board; Mack says he feels as if he is home again and proclaims his belief in 'one-firm firm'; photo (M)

Pres Bush says he will investigate claim that Iranian Pres-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was involved in seizure of American Embassy in Tehran in 1979; claim has been made by several former American hostages, who say they recognize him as one of their captors; photograph of blindfolded American hostage being led by man with some resemblance to a young Ahmadinejad is posted on various Web sites; in Tehran, former student leader involved in seizure denies that Ahmadinejad was involved, and Ahmadinejad's office posts photograph of him in that era seeking to show there is little resemblance; relations between Washington and Tehran remain bitter and brittle 26 years after embassy was seized; hostages were held for 14 months; photos (M)

George Steinbrenner has a voice of his own, a once clangorous one, but when he wants to convey his thoughts to a needy news media these days, it is invariably through the tranquil voice of Howard J. Rubenstein. It is an act of verbal surrogacy that Rubenstein, a public-relations impresario with 450 clients, performs almost daily for Steinbrenner, the principal owner of the Yankees. As he nears his 75th birthday on Monday, Steinbrenner continues to limit contacts with the news media and tries to avoid the posse of reporters who wait for shreds of comment after home games at Yankee Stadium.

FROM the outside, the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater looks more like a meeting place for Cape Cod lobstermen than an institution applauded by theater critics. On summer evenings, sailors dock at the adjacent town pier and line up at Mac's Seafood, which serves fried clams and onion rings so large it's hard to believe they came from an actual vegetable. Inside the tiny theater, which seats fewer than a hundred and smells vaguely like sea air, actors can only enter from stage right because the women's room is so close to stage left that they would essentially have to enter from the bathroom. Yet the theater has gained a reputation for productions far more sophisticated than typical summer stock -- it has offered New England premieres of works by Sam Shepard and Eve Ensler and has won the New England version of a Tony award, an Elliot Norton, for its role in fostering serious theater on the cape. Earlier this year, Wellfleet Harbor presented the debut of a caustic political farce by Robert Reich, the Clinton administration's labor secretary, about an argumentative right-wing television anchor who runs for president against a Hillary Rodham Clinton look-alike who turns out to be a hermaphrodite. In Mr. Reich's world, the hermaphrodite wins by appealing to both male and female voters.

On Wednesday, Steven Spielberg's apocalyptic thriller ''War of the Worlds'' invaded movie theaters worldwide. But the director had already moved on. That night in Malta, Mr. Spielberg quietly began filming the most politically charged project he has yet attempted: the tale of a secret Mossad hit squad ordered to assassinate Palestinian terrorists after the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Mr. Spielberg has taken risks before: he said he feared being seen as trivializing the Holocaust when he directed ''Schindler's List'' in 1993, at a time when he was best known for blockbuster fantasies like ''E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial'' and ''Raiders of the Lost Ark.'' And with ''Saving Private Ryan,'' he gambled successfully on audiences' tolerance for prolonged and bloody combat scenes.

A Brooklyn high school principal covered up a widespread effort to inflate grades on the Regents exams in social studies in 2002 and 2003, education officials said yesterday, and he will face termination. The principal, Lennel George of the Cobble Hill School of American Studies, was removed this week after a 14-month investigation involving state and city officials.

Robert Frost, in one of his poems less quoted, said: Just specimens is all New Hampshire has, One each of everything as in a showcase, Which naturally she doesn't care to sell.

Executives involved in talks reconstruct behind-the-scenes maneuvers that led to sale of MBNA to Bank of America Corp; it follows failed efforts by MBNA to be acquired by Wachovia, and crash of helicopter containing MBNA chief Bruce L Hammonds and others (M)

Floyd Norris column on outlook for financial markets warns that conventional wisdom is not always right; finds that first area of growing consensus is that there is housing bubble in United States, or at least in many areas, and that it is going to burst; says second area of consensus is that China is growth engine that is on its way to dominating world in virtually everything as this becomes Chinese century; observes that China's success these days is intimately tied to American housing boom; says we will have to wait to see how events unfold (M)

James W Lynn, former Wal-Mart executive responsible for inspecting apparel factories in Central America, sues company, accusing it of firing him for being too aggressive about finding workplace violations, like locked exits and mandatory 24-hour shifts; company officials say Lynn was not fired for being forceful monitor but for violating rules against fraternization; Lynn photo (M)