Back To Normal

In today's editions, a Sunday Snapshot article on page 4H of the Today section incorrectly identifies Dr. Franklin Leslie, a physician who took up marathon running after his retirement.The Sun regrets the errors.Franklin Lane, retired and busy as everHaving already given up marathon running six years ago, Franklin Lane was compelled in the fall to suspend his routine of running 25 miles a week because his knees were bothering him. It seems that time, which has had 78 years to catch him, is starting to gain on Dr. Lane.

WASHINGTON - Various public officials, starting with President Bush and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, have been working overtime urging Americans to resume their normal lives as best they can in the wake of the New York and Washington terrorist attacks and the nation's collective feeling of insecurity. Part of this sermon is the assurance of administration officials that America is not going to war in the conventional sense in which an enemy nation is easily identified and obvious military targets are out there to hit. No draft of uniformed manpower is contemplated, and there is no plan to convert the country's industrial might into an arsenal for the weapons of war. Detroit will continue to make cars, not tanks.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Life is slowly creeping back to normal after weeks of violent turmoil in this Caribbean capital. This is normal in the teeming slum of Cite Soleil: heaps of refuse in the street. Open gullies for sewers. Ramshackle homes built from a flimsy patchwork of metal and plywood. This is normal for Maryse Blain Bruno: hawking drinking glasses and teacups on the sidewalk. Fending off loan collectors from the bank. Struggling to feed three children on her own, her husband killed by thugs 2 1/2 years ago. It is a measure of just how bad things have gotten in Haiti, just how abject the misery has become, that "normal" here is a harsh reality of unrelenting poverty and squalor - and that residents long to return to it. A new set of leaders has taken over the government after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced into exile Feb. 29 by an armed revolt.

Maryland dug, scraped, clawed and hauled its way back toward a semblance of normal life - at least on main roads - as a break in the weather gave residents and workers an opportunity to remove snow without more falling on their heads. Many secondary roads and neighborhood streets were still covered in snow - and might still be today and Saturday - after the second of two storms to pummel the state in a week added 20 inches or so in many areas. But interstates in the Baltimore area were fully cleared to the pavement, in some cases for the first time since Maryland's ordeal by flakes began late last Friday.

Amtrak service between Washington and New York and Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pa., was back to normal for the evening rush hour Tuesday after an early-morning service disruption. About 30 Amtrak trains in the Northeast were delayed from 11 minutes to almost two hours Tuesday because of a low-voltage problem. The disruption began shortly before 8 a.m., and power was restored about an hour later. The cause of the outage was under investigation. The outage also disrupted MARC service on the Penn Line, which is operated by Amtrak.

Loretta Spradley feels it's like being in a different world these days when she comes home to her community in the 800 block of E. Baltimore St. For one, the detour signs are gone; more importantly, everything is spanking clean.Credit both to the Metro."Believe it or not, being able to cross President Street is a major deal in my life," said Ms. Spradley, a resident of the Jonestown community, just east of downtown, for 10 years. "Being able to drive across President Street and not step in grime associated with the subway is heaven."

Five days after suffering what his doctor called a mild heart attack Sunday, Salisbury coach Jim Berkman has only the tender area on his leg where a catheter was inserted as physical evidence of that procedure. “I feel all right,” Berkman, 52, said Friday morning from his home. “Actually, I'm a little antsy here. I'm not a guy who can sit around a whole lot. So I'm kind of getting stir-crazy right now.” The NCAA's all-time winningest coach with 395 victories, Berkman has not been allowed to return to the top-ranked Sea Gulls, who have captured nine national championships, including last year's title, under Berkman.

RUDY GAY WANTS to get a learner's permit. He wants to plan for the prom, talk on the cell phone, hang out at the mall and get in more time on the PlayStation. Rudy Gay is about to become a regular 17-year-old high school student at Archbishop Spalding again. It hasn't been that way since last summer when Gay left the prestigious Nike camp in Indianapolis as one of the top-rated high school basketball players in the country. Kentucky coach Tubby Smith has stopped by, and so has Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim.

There is peace on the Duke campus this season, as far as men's lacrosse is concerned. Jesse Jackson hasn't been around, and neither has the NAACP. There are no local or national authorities snooping in dorms, and Fox News and CNN haven't had any correspondents hanging in bars and restaurants trying to find witnesses. There isn't even any talk about the Blue Devils having a major advantage on the playing field. For the first time in four years, Duke is playing unencumbered by controversy or criticism.

Traffic returned to normal yesterday on Interstate 83, as federal and state officials pledged to investigate the cause of a hazardous-waste leak in a truck that closed northbound lanes for 12 hours and disrupted the Thursday evening commute through northern Baltimore County. The truck, owned by Ecoflo Inc. of Greensboro, N.C., was transporting 20 barrels of rocket fuel from a naval facility in Southern Maryland to Pennsylvania. The barrels had been packed with another chemical that was supposed to keep the volatile fuel stable, but one or more containers erupted or leaked inside the truck as it passed the Parkton exit early Thursday afternoon, triggering a shutdown of the highway and a laborious cleanup.