December 5, 2006

Disparities have widened in how New York City taxes real property, with many homeowners in affluent areas disproportionately benefiting from tax breaks, an analysis has found.

Investors send shares of Pfizer down almost 11 percent in response to company's decision to end development of heart medication Torcetrapib; analysts say company needs to accelerate efforts to cut costs and develop new profit-making drugs; current position in industry is strong but important patents will soon run out causing billions of dollars in losses; Pfizer is likely to use acquisitions and licensing deals to ensure its future; photo; graph (M)

Traditionally confined to works of nonfiction, the bibliography has lately been creeping into novels.

Jeff Maier, who at age 12 deflected a fly ball by Derek Jeter into the stands for a home run in the 1996 A.L.C.S., is now seeking a job in the front office of a professional baseball team.

New York City prosecutors conduct bedside hospital interviews with Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, both wounded in hail of 50 police bullets that killed Sean Bell outside Queens nightclub on Nov 25; men say that, contrary to accounts from some police officers involved in shooting, they were only ones in or near car in which Bell was killed and that there was no fourth man, armed or otherwise (M);