Arctic Circle

MOSCOW -- It was 8 a.m., pitch dark outside and snowing when the polls opened yesterday. At the southern Proletarsky district precinct, one of the first to arrive was an old woman, bundled in wool and tottering on a cane in the bare-bulbed light of the public school stairwell.If Edward Hopper's starkly rendered characters could talk, they might sound like her. "It's hard to say if my vote will make a difference," she said unemotionally. She would say no more, not even her name. All energy was reserved for mounting two flights of stairs to the voting box.It was pensioners like her -- driven by nostalgia for Soviet-era social protections -- who were believed to lead the surge for the Communist Party in parliamentary elections yesterday.

A high-flying, seven-year romance -- one that produced more than two dozen young peregrine falcons on a skyscraper above the Inner Harbor -- has ended.Blythe, a female peregrine that had raised young consistently on a 33rd-floor ledge outside the United States Fidelity and Guaranty building since 1985, hasn't been seen since March 1, said John Barber, a company official who watches over the birds.She may be dead, Mr. Barber and others fear, since desertion of a mate is almost unheard-of among the falcons.

Although Maryland's proposed Canada goose hunting seasons drew the most attention last week, the Department of Natural Resources also released its proposals for its other waterfowl seasons, including snow geese and ducks.According to the Fall Flight Forecast of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which must approve Maryland's proposed season, the overall breeding population of ducks is down 11 percent from last year. But the fall flight to the Atlantic Flyway is expected to be similar to last year's.

Sam Elliott has played his share of hardscrabble characters, plenty of them in the Old West. But the 63-year-old actor, famous for his bushy handlebar mustache and mane of silver hair, says that there is an emotional through line connecting his body of work, uniting the cowboys, military men and rebel bikers who have populated his 40-year career. "There are certainly cowboys out there who would be chagrined to be compared to a guy on a Harley-Davidson with long hair," Elliott says, "but they share a common vein - I think it's very simply the code and a sense of freedom and a sense of responsibility to someone."

SOUTH OZONE PARK, N.Y. -- J Be K was recognized as the fastest horse in the Grade III, $150,000 Bay Shore Stakes yesterday at Aqueduct Racetrack and proved it over the seven-furlong race, leading from start to finish. But while other horses fell further behind the streaking son of Silver Deputy, Gattopardo, the Laurel Park-based 3-year-old kept digging, climbing from fourth to second, five lengths back. "I couldn't sleep last night, I was so excited about this race," said Gattopardo's owner Mike Ueltzen.

A California company called Knowledge Adventure Inc. has done a strange and wonderful thing with the IMAX movie called "The Discoverers," now playing on a five-story-high screen at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.They have reduced the movie from the giant screen at the Omnimax Theater to a 4.5-inch-by-5.5-inch screen on your computer monitor. In the process, they have made the big-screen movie even bigger.Of course, anybody who ever has had the pleasure of watching an IMAX movie (and who hasn't?

VIENNA, Austria - Nearly two decades after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster spread radioactive fallout across much of Europe, a United Nations study has concluded that the health effects have been far less extensive than feared. The researchers confirmed 56 deaths, nine children who died of thyroid cancer and 47 emergency workers who died of acute radiation poisoning or radiation-induced cancer. They projected that 3,940 more people will die of cancer, according to the report released yesterday.

I know how some of you like to whine about the heat and humidity, as if you live in Lake Tahoe or something and this kind of weather comes as a total shock. Stop deluding yourself. This is Baltimore, hon. Hell's Waiting Room in the summertime. You have to suck it up and deal with it. OK, here's what you do to beat the heat: Stay inside, grab the remote and click on Ice Road Truckers, a reality series on The History Channel that follows six lunatics as they drive their big 18-wheelers over "ice roads" carved on frozen lakes, hauling supplies to remote diamond mines near the Arctic Circle in Canada's Northwest Territories.

A high-flying, seven-year romance -- one that produced more than two dozen young peregrine falcons on a skyscraper above the Inner Harbor -- has ended.Blythe, a female peregrine who had raised young consistently on a 33rd-floor ledge outside the United States Fidelity and Guaranty Building since 1985, hasn't been seen since March 1, said John Barber, a company official who watches over the birds.She may be dead, Mr. Barber and others fear, since desertion of a mate is almost unheard of among the falcons.

Yeager has enlistedDustin L. Yeager, son of David and Kay Yeager of Joppa, enlisted in the delayed enlistment program of the U. S. Air Force.Dustin, a 1989 graduate of Fallston High School, is scheduled to begin basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas.According to Sgt. Allen Lipscomb, the Air Force recruiter, Mr. Yeager will earn credits toward an associate degree in applied sciences through the Community College of the Air Force upon completion of basic training and Technical Training School.