Besieged

When Bernardo Bertolucci made "Stealing Beauty" in 1995, many filmgoers were surprised that the master of such visually opulent movies as "The Conformist," "The Last Emperor" and "The Sheltering Sky" would end a 15-year hiatus with such a relatively small film. With "Besieged," Bertolucci has gone even smaller.A love story set on the fault lines of a contracting global culture, "Besieged" is virtually a one-set piece, focusing on the curious romance between two rootless people. What's more, Bertolucci has virtually done away with dialogue itself, instead evoking the mystery of attraction through a hyper-vigilant camera and kinetic editing.

The brown marmorated stink bug — a dime-sized Asian invader that has been besieging Maryland homes in recent years — has now become a serious farm pest. Agricultural scientists say the insect's populations have "exploded" this year, and they've demonstrated an unexpected ability to feed during all their developmental stages on a wide variety of crops. Maryland farmers — especially fruit and vegetable growers in Western and Central Maryland — are seeing a sharp increase in costly damage from the insects.

Stranded in a moonscape of rotting rowhouses, surrounded by East Baltimore's worst heroin market, a schoolhouse besieged by troubles in a neighborhood known as "Zombieland" took solace yesterday in an outpouring of goodwill and concern.City officials came and went at Dr. Rayner Browne Elementary School in the 2300 block of E. Chase St. this week, vowing support for its 350 kindergarten-through-fifth-grade students and promising to clean up the decay and crime in the surrounding neighborhood.

T he Baltimore City Council is again considering action to curb the mountain of plastic and paper bag waste accumulating on city streets. Most of this garbage ends up tangled in trees or clogging drainage grates, from whence it flows through the sewer system to pollute local rivers and streams. It's an eyesore and an environmental hazard the city just doesn't need. But it's a mystery why the council, which has been grappling with this issue since 2007, hasn't simply followed the lead of the successful effort to reduce plastic bag use in Washington.

"Besieged," a contemporary romantic drama that opens at the Charles today, is full of such forward-thinking flourishes as a peripatetic, hand-held camera, lots of quick, back-and-forth edits and a setting that captures Rome somewhere between its romantic history and its multi-cultural future. But for director Bernardo Bertolucci, his new film was a return of sorts. "It was like shooting a movie at the beginning, at the origin of cinema," Bertolucci said in a telephone conversation from his home in Rome last week.

In FRANKFURT, Germany, the United Nations and the U.S. military said that Western air forces had suspended humanitarian airdrops to besieged Muslim-held enclaves in Bosnia after land routes for aid were reopened.Muslim and Croat leaders met in SARAJEVO to begin building a federation viewed as a key step toward ending Bosnia's 2-year-old war. Both sides appeared confident a joint assembly would approve a draft constitution and agree on an interim government to rule until elections within six months.

At a time when the season could be slipping away from the Ravens, there are no more excuses for their offense and besieged quarterback Steve McNair. The Ravens' offense expects to field its original starting lineup for the first time since the season opener. Across the line of scrimmage are the Cincinnati Bengals, who have the NFL's 31st-ranked defense, which is tied with the winless Miami Dolphins for most points allowed. Bengals@Ravens Today, 4:05 p.m., chs. 13, 9, 1090 AM, 97.9 FM Line: Ravens by 3 1/2

B rooklyn residents are doing laudable service recording the license-plate numbers of motorists prowling their neighborhood in search of prostitutes. As The Sun's Peter Hermann reported recently, residents are alerting the cops, who check the plates against vehicle descriptions, then send the registered owners a "Dear John" letter warning the car has been spotted in suspicious circumstances. While the letters, written on official police stationary, don't actually charge the owners with committing a crime - there's no law against driving slowly on a public thoroughfare - most recipients get the message.

At a time when the season could be slipping away from the Ravens, there are no more excuses for their offense and besieged quarterback Steve McNair. The Ravens' offense expects to field its original starting lineup for the first time since the season opener. Across the line of scrimmage are the Cincinnati Bengals, who have the NFL's 31st-ranked defense, which is tied with the winless Miami Dolphins for most points allowed. Bengals@Ravens Today, 4:05 p.m., chs. 13, 9, 1090 AM, 97.9 FM Line: Ravens by 3 1/2

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- After months of whipping his followers into a frenzy of anti-government sentiment, the head cleric at a radical mosque was caught yesterday trying to slip out of his besieged compound clad in a head-to-toe veil known as a burqa, police said. The arrest of Maulana Abdul Aziz came as police and paramilitary troops backed by armored vehicles and helicopters surrounded the mosque, which was the scene Tuesday of a shootout that left as many as 16 people dead. More than 1,100 of Aziz's followers surrendered to authorities yesterday.

If your mortgage payments are overwhelming you, there's still hope - if you act quickly. Housing advocates recommend calling the lender to ask for a "workout plan" that spreads your past-due balance over multiple payments, lowers your monthly bill for a set period or otherwise changes your terms to help you get past a bad patch. Lenders and mortgage servicers have more incentive than usual to work with borrowers, housing officials say, because they're dealing with rising defaults at a time when new homeowners don't have much equity.

JERICHO, West Bank -- Israeli forces using tanks, bulldozers and helicopters besieged a Palestinian jail for nearly 10 hours yesterday and seized inmates involved in the assassination of an Israeli Cabinet minister in 2001, unleashing a wave of retaliatory attacks by Palestinians. Outraged by the raid, which left three Palestinians dead at the jail, Palestinian gunmen kidnapped 10 foreigners in the West Bank and Gaza, including an American University professor, a Red Cross worker, two South Korean journalists and two Australian teachers at an American school.

Critics of the Iraq war often lament that the Bush White House has never been called to account for exaggerating - at best - evidence that Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons in order to justify a pre-emptive attack against him. Yet thanks to a kind of cosmic justice, a severe penalty for that offense is now being exacted upon President Bush and his team. The indictment Friday of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide, stemmed from charges that he lied to a federal grand jury about conversations with reporters concerning the identity of a covert CIA operative.