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The 14 charter buses started arriving at the Federal Building at 4:30 and continued throughout Thursday morning. They were filled with men and women who had taken the day off from work. Teenagers in brightly colored headscarves marched off the buses chanting ''Allahu akbar'' -- God is great -- and linked hands in a human chain that lined the block. Three Orthodox rabbis had driven from Rockland County in New York, and all day long, men in dashikis strolled over from local mosques. All had come to show their support for Mohammad Qatanani, 44, the popular spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Passaic County in Paterson. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

William A. Ackman, the manager of a multibillion-dollar Manhattan hedge fund, has no personal ties to Newark and has visited the city only a few times. But next week Mr. Ackman, 41, plans to write checks from his foundation that total around half a million dollars to buy equipment for the Police Department and to pay for job fairs, block parties, concerts and outdoor movies and other recreational activities during the city's violence-prone summer months. He is considering spending the rest of the $1 million that the foundation, Pershing Square, pledged last year to Newark to renovate dilapidated city parks. (In August, after the schoolyard shootings of four young people, three of whom died, Mr. Ackman donated $100,000 to cover funeral costs and otherwise assist the victims' families.) [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]