July 25, 2005

On the eve of the launch of his new cable channel, Current, Al Gore says that he intends to reinvent himself as a media entrepreneur.

It was the menace in the middle of the Yankees' schedule, a three-city tour of the best lineups in the American League, in three time zones with no days off. It could have punctured their pennant hopes, but in the end it made them stronger. Eight outs from being swept by the Los Angeles Angels in a four-game series, the Yankees rallied for a 4-1 victory at Angel Stadium on Sunday. A frustrating weekend ended with the satisfaction of knowing they had won more than they lost on the trip, and gained a game in the American League East.

Congress Closes In On an Energy Bill With strong encouragement from the White House, top House and Senate negotiators said they were nearing final agreement on a broad energy bill that would drop a plan to protect producers of the gasoline additive MTBE from lawsuits over water pollution. But lawmakers must still agree on oil and gas drilling provisions, the amount of emphasis on renewable fuels, and the size of tax incentives. PAGE A15 Disco-Era Shuttle The space shuttle Discovery has 2.5 million parts, most of them designed in the 1970's. As it prepares to lift off tomorrow morning on the first shuttle mission since the loss of Columbia two and a half years ago, it is clearly feeling its age. PAGE A17 Power Portholes Optional Owners of 59 Amphicars gathered over the weekend in Celina, Ohio. Capable of 70 miles an hour on roads and 7 m.p.h. on water, the cars were manufactured in Germany in the early 1960's. PAGE A14

A man who falsely claimed to have a bomb in his bag prompted the authorities to evacuate Pennsylvania Station for more than an hour yesterday, causing delays for travelers across the Northeast and punctuating a tiresome week of increased security in New York City's subway stations. During a dispute with an Amtrak ticket agent, the man, whom the police identified as Raul Claudio, 43, of the Bronx, placed a bag on a ticket counter and said a bomb was inside, the police said. The threat was unsubstantiated, but caused personnel including National Guardsmen in military fatigues to clear the station just after noon.

Leaders of four of country's largest labor unions say they will boycott AFL-CIO convention, and officials from two, Service Employees International Union and Teamsters, say they plan to fully withdraw from federation; they and United Food and Commercial Workers Union and Unite Here claim federation under leadership of John J Sweeney has been ineffective in halting decades-long slide of organized labor; schism, biggest rift in labor since 1930's, comes at 50th anniversary of union merger that created current federation; rift could hurt labor movement badly by redirecting its focus and energies to internal battles instead of bedrock issues like fighting for wage increases and extending health care to more workers; it could also make labor less potent political force for Democrats, labor's traditional allies; four boycotting unions represent one-third of AFL-CIO's 13 million members; photo (M)