Apprentice

Billy Moorefield wants an Eclipse Award so badly, he is riding days at Pimlico Race Course and nights at Penn National.He is tied with Steve Hamilton as the leading apprentice at Pimlico, but said he heads the list at the Pennsylvania track. Through June 21, according to Daily Racing Form statistics, he is tied with J.A. Bracho as the nation's winningest apprentice.But such a hectic schedule almost cost him his life.Returning from Penn National last Saturday night, Moorefield, 23, fell asleep and drove off I-83 near Middletown Road in northern Baltimore County.

While Donald Trump has been called many names, King Arthur is not one of them. But as twisted an Arthur as he might be, that's the mythic role Trump has come to play in NBC's reality series The Apprentice. And tonight, one of the 16 would-be knights of American capitalism who came on bended knee to Camelot (aka Trump Tower) back in January will win a seat at the big rectangular table in Trump's conference room. What do the simple folk do? Twenty million of us will tune in to see one supplicant knighted and another banished from the kingdom as Trump says, "You're fired" and "You're hired."

A dollar doesn't buy much any more, except in Anne Arundel, where a single greenback buys you a parade and $2 can license a tradesman fora year.Thanks to years of oversights by the county Department ofInspections and Permits, Anne Arundel has the lowest trade and amusement licensing fees in the region -- a fact that is costing the county hundreds of thousands of dollars every year, said Robert J. Dvorak,appointed last fall to head the department.Next week, the county begins a major overhaul of its licensing system that includes a plan to raise trade licensing fees substantially.

Donald Trump is the co-owner of the Miss Universe Organization, the company that owns the Miss USA pageant. In advance of the pageant, which will be broadcast from the Hippodrome Theatre on Monday night, The Donald dished on some of his favorite subjects, including show biz and beautiful women. Will you be at the pageant? I will be there. It will be very exciting. You know we had 18 cities who wanted it, and Baltimore got it, and so it's a great tribute to the mayor. Did you watch pageants growing up?

STANTON, Del. -- Rosie Napravnik is not one to gamble. Her money goes into the bank, not the stock market. But when it came time to decide where she wanted to ride this summer, the Maryland apprentice jockey took what could be considered a big risk. In her eyes, though, it looked much more like an investment in her future. Laurel Park meet opener Today, post time 3:30 p.m. (Preview, PG 5E)

The 14th season of Survivor kicks off Thursday - the folks are in Fiji. The twist this time around is that one tribe will live in the lap of luxury, while the other will be on its own in the wild. This would all seem so much more interesting if it weren't the exact same twist as on The Apprentice, whose most recent season started last month. Both shows are produced by Mark Burnett, so there's really no excuse for the overlap, either.

YOKOSUKA, Japan -- Navy prosecutors said today they will seek life imprisonment for Airman Apprentice Terry Helvey after a judge accepted the sailor's guilty plea in the beating death of his homosexual shipmate.Helvey had been charged with premeditated murder in the death of Allen Schindler, 22, of Chicago Heights, Ill. On May 3, seeking to avoid the death penalty, he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of committing murder with intent to inflict great bodily harm.The judge, Navy Cmdr. David Holcombe, accepted Helvey's plea today.

Dickinson quarterback Matt Torchia ran for two touchdowns and the Dickinson defense held host Johns Hopkins to 46 yards rushing as the Blue Jays dropped their Centennial Conference opener, 21-13. The Blue Jays (1-3) drove inside the Dickinson 20-yard line in the final minute, but Michael Murray's fourth-down pass was batted away by Ryan Heinig. Dickinson (3-1) struggled to defend Anthony Triplin (Gilman), who led the Blue Jays with six receptions for 113 yards, including a 63-yard touchdown catch.

* Navy Airman Apprentice Christopher J. Manyette, son of Richard G. and Janet L. Manyette of Mount Airy, recently graduated from the Basic Avionics Technician Course.During the course at the Naval Air Technical Training Center, Naval Air Station Memphis, Millington, Tenn., students receive technical instruction on the fundamentals necessary to perform entry-level aviation electronics maintenance tasks.Students also receive instruction to prepare them for further specialized training on operational aviation electronics equipment found in naval aircraft.

Innocence, ambition and humiliation - constant humiliation. That's the formula for The Assistant, a new reality TV series that MTV is promoting as a parody of the genre itself. As satire, The Assistant, which features 12 twentysomethings competing for a job as personal assistant to comedian Andy Dick, is not very funny. Its story is too obvious, and its targets too easy. The show is nevertheless darkly intriguing, I'm ashamed to admit. It blatantly debases the earnest contestants and the ways in which they allow themselves to be humiliated in hopes of being the lucky winner of a job as an assistant at a Hollywood production company.