Baton Rouge

BATON ROUGE, La. -- It looked as though it might be the most favorable territory yet for the national anti-abortion group Operation Rescue. But a 6-foot-high chain-link fence, brutal Louisiana summer heat and a heavy police presence took the edge off the protests that ended yesterday at the Delta Women's Clinic here.Operation Rescue chose Louisiana for its effort in part because of the state's strong anti-abortion reputation.But despite some angry pre-dawn confrontations and jeering demonstrators massed at the fence's gates, the doctor at the clinic said he was able to perform abortions throughout last week's protests.

A continuing perplexity in the music business is why some careers enjoy unexplained success as others go relatively unnoticed. Why, for example, does one conductor with glaring technical deficiencies end up in Chicago; why does another who has yet to learn much of the standard repertory end up in Los Angeles; why has James Paul spent the last 12 seasons in Baton Rouge, La.?Last night in Meyerhoff Haul, Paul -- the music director of the Baton Rouge Symphony -- gave a distinguished concert with the Baltimore Symphony.

BOWIE -- It was the second anniversary of the first game at Prince George's Stadium, and the Bowie Baysox celebrated yesterday in the same fashion they had when they opened the facility.They routed the Binghamton Mets.A five-run eighth inning broke open a close game and the Baysox prevailed in their Double-A Eastern League meeting, 10-4, before a Father's Day crowd of 6,386.At the same time, Bowie unveiled a new hero, center fielder David Dellucci, who arrived from the Frederick Keys to deliver four hits, including a franchise-record-tying three doubles.

John Allen Muhammad's conviction in Montgomery County clears the way for murder trials in other jurisdictions where bullets from the sniper's gun allegedly claimed victims - including Louisiana, Alabama and the District of Columbia. But officials in Virginia, where Muhammad is expected to return soon to await execution for killing a man in Prince William County, said they see little point in further trials. It would require the agreement of Virginia's governor to release Muhammad to the custody of another state to stand trial.

Services for Lloyd H. Weidemeyer, a retired real estate developer in Florida who once owned car dealerships in western Baltimore County, will be held at 11 a.m. today at the Moss-Feaster Funeral Home in Clearwater, Fla.Mr. Weidemeyer, who was 81 and moved to Clearwater in 1954, died Monday of heart and respiratory failure at a hospital there.He retired about 15 years ago after developing properties in the Clearwater area and on the west coast of Florida.Before moving to Florida, he owned DeSoto-Plymouth dealerships in Hebbville and Woodlawn and used-car businesses elsewhere in western Baltimore County.

Renato Simtaio, a 31-year-old Brazilian who is the second-leading scorer in the Eastern Indoor Soccer League, has been signed by the Spirit to a one-year contract.Playing for the Huntsville (Ala.) Fire, Simtaio led the first-year EISL in three-point goals with 15 in 21 games. He was second in scoring with 96 points.The Spirit also signed Mike Harper and Carlton Williams, both 23 and also of the EISL, to one-year contracts.Harper, of the Baton Rouge (La.) Bombers, had 21 goals in 24 games and Williams, a Huntsville defender, had 38 blocks.

BATON ROUGE, La. - Every five minutes the scene repeated: An ambulance or bus pulled up to the arena at Louisiana State University and a crowd of men and women in green scrubs and rubber gloves closed around it. Then another nursing home resident snatched from the dark, or another dehydrated child or another potential heart attack victim disappeared into a makeshift emergency room, which reached its theoretical capacity of 200 the instant it opened Sunday....

With the exception of war and its deadly unpredictability, hurricanes probably pose more danger to the journalists covering them than any other kind of story. As the behemoth Katrina headed toward the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama yesterday, reporters and their editors were confronted again with a fundamental problem: how to cover a lethal storm without getting killed. "The first thing we tell them is `Don't be a hero,'" said Nancy Lane, CNN's news director, as she concluded her fifth conference call of the day yesterday in preparation for the storm.

There are places like it all over the country, where college football is more religion than mere sport, where a small city or a college town swells in population and revels in celebration six or seven weekends every fall. In that way, the city of Baton Rouge, La., and the LSU Tigers are no different than Ann Arbor is to the Michigan Wolverines. It has been that way for generations. That has now changed, as the state of Louisiana has forever been altered with the destruction and devastation caused by the most catastrophic hurricane in U.S. history.

BATON ROUGE, LA. -- It was a last-minute decision that Laila Brown now regrets. The 34-year-old woman had planned to take her youngest daughter, Dion Rochelle Ridley, with her to the New Orleans Convention Center to ride out Hurricane Katrina. But when she called the girl's nanny the night of Aug. 28, Dion, 6, was already tucked in bed asleep. Believing that the approaching storm was not really a big threat, Brown agreed to let her daughter stay one more night. "If I would have known it would have been this bad, I wouldn't have ever left my baby," Brown said.