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.