August 30, 2005

Region in United States that produces and refines major portion of nation's oil and natural gas is largely shut down by Hurricane Katrina, further tightening strained energy markets and sending prices to new highs; oil companies evacuate offshore operations throughout Gulf of Mexico, reducing oil production in region by 92 percent and gas output by 83 percent; Bush administration says it would release emergency oil stocks from Strategic Petroleum Reserve if needed; storm hits at time when consumers are already paying average of $2.60 a gallon for gas; photos; graphs; chart (M)

When a four-second snippet of video showing a black and white blur in flight was shown to an auditorium full of ornithologists here on Thursday night, it drew a collective Ahhh! -- a murmur of awe seldom heard at scientific meetings. But this wasn't just any blurry video. This ''ornithological Zapruder film,'' as one researcher called it, gives a glimpse of the much mythologized ivory-billed woodpecker, thought extinct, sought after for a half century, and -- just in the past two years -- rediscovered, doubted and accepted again.

RAFAEL NADAL will not be ignored, overlooked or difficult to locate. He was the 6-foot swashbuckler in the white head wrap, the red muscle shirt and the black capri pants yesterday, toweling off his bulging, bronzed biceps between points during a 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 victory over the American wild-card entrant Bobby Reynolds in the first round of the United States Open.

Hurricane Katrina pounds Gulf Coast with devastating force, sparing New Orleans catastrophic hit but killing dozens in neighboring Mississippi; it rips away roofs and leaves coastal roads impassable; emergency workers in Harrison County, Miss, including Gulfport and Biloxi, say they expect to find more dead among people trapped in their homes and in collapsed buildings; downtown Mobile, Ala, is severely flooded; storm packs 145-mile-an-hour winds as it makes landfall, leaving more than million people in three states without power and submerging highways even hundreds of miles from its center; it ranks as one of most punishing hurricanes ever to hit United States; insurance experts say damage could exceed $9 billion; photos; maps (L)

The pointed questions are usually about Fernando Ferrer, a Democratic candidate for mayor, and they go something like this: If you knew that some of Mr. Ferrer's political allies had been investigated for corruption, would that make you more or less likely to vote for him? What if you knew he had been handpicked by a political boss to become Bronx borough president?