Billington

BaseballCardinals: Placed IF David Howard (sprained left shoulder) on 15-day DL. Recalled IF Placido Polanco from Triple-A Memphis.Diamondbacks: Optioned P Jeff Suppan to Triple-A Tucson.Dodgers: Optioned OF Paul LoDuca to Triple-A Albuquerque. Activated 3B Bobby Bonilla from 15-day DL.Marlins: Received P Geoff Goetz from Mets as player to be named in Mike Piazza trade and assigned him to Single-A Kane County.Phillies: Signed OF Eric Valent, supplemental draft pick.Rockies: Activated OF Larry Walker from 15-day DL. Purchased contract of P David Wainhouse from Triple-A Colorado Springs.

WASHINGTON -- Suddenly, the Supreme Court finds itself shorn of its inner secrets -- and powerless to do much about it.The justices, embarrassed over the decision of the Library of Congress to make public the late Justice Thurgood Marshall's files on cases as recent as 1991, threatened yesterday to deposit their papers somewhere else when they retire or die."I speak for a majority of the active justices of the court when I say that we are both surprised and disappointed by the library's decision to give unrestricted public access to Justice Thurgood Marshall's papers," Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote to Librarian of Congress James H. Billington after the justices met in an extraordinary closed-door session.

When I went to work for the Library of Congress in 1977, the stacks were completely open. Members of the staff and the public roamed at will. Thousands of books and other items were lost. I remember being told that when someone on the staff went to look for a copy of Audubon's Birds of America, he discovered that most of the plates were missing. They had been cut out and, presumably, sold separately. In 1987 James H. Billington was sworn in as the 13th Librarian of Congress. He closed the stacks to the public and to most of the staff.

Washington. -- In London's Putney Vale Cemetery, eight mile south of Marx's grave in Highgate Cemetery, rest the remains of Alexander Kerensky, who might have spared Russia a 70-year secession from civilization. Boris Yelstin seems to understand the moral of Kerensky's failure.In July 1917, at a moment of extreme fluidity in the dissolution of the old regime, Kerensky became Russia's premier. Perhaps he would have been brushed aside anyway, but his cautious centrism, his insufficient radicalism, doomed him.He would not remove Russia from the war or boldly multiply property owners by redistributing land.

THE WOODLANDS, Texas -- In the 123 years since Georges Bizet's masterpiece had its premiere at the Opera-Comique in Paris, "Carmen" was never like this.The Houston Grand Opera is putting on a $1.3 million one-time-only outdoor production that employs techniques straight from the world of rock, including huge video backdrops that will show live close-ups of the action on stage as well as slidelike still projections."This is MTV opera," said David Gottlieb, president and chairman of the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, the suburban theater where the performance is set for tonight.

Before she could even read, she remembers, her mother, Jenna Welch of Midland, Texas, lulled her to sleep many a night by reading aloud from Little Women. This summer, she made her way through three biographies, an epic on life in the Ukraine, and Marilynne Robinson's newest novel, Gilead, in which a 77-year-old preacher recounts his life and times for his 7-year-old son. For Laura Bush, reading has always offered links to the past, a passage to worlds unknown, and a way of coming home again - a ticket to a richer life.

The Easter season means business for one local candy company.Log Cabin Candies in Fallston will do more than 50 percent of its business this year during the Easter season, said owner Richard Rudell.He said business has been growing about 10 percent a year for the past decade. Much of the growth has come in wholesale, which accounts for 80 percent of the company's business.Log Cabin sells through groups such as churches and other civic organizations, which keep a share of the proceeds.Mr. Rudell's father, Bernard, dipped 18-inch chocolate bunny molds in the early 1920s and sold them to friends and neighbors.

WASHINGTON -- Where the clunky card catalog once stood, computer-ready mahogany reading desks now gleam. Where a maze of slapdash office cubicles were once erected like a shantytown of particle board, grand, vaulted halls now soar. Where a dull grime once coated every inch of interior space, Italian marble and Renaissance-inspired murals dazzle with their original, brilliant hues.The edifice once called "the most beautiful public building in America" finally deserves the superlative again after a 12-year renovation.

WASHINGTON - The Washington Capitals have gone beyond feeling as if they're walking a tightrope on ice skates. Last night, they played with the sense of urgency necessary to climb from three games below .500 and into the playoffs. But the Caps got precious little for it, as Washington lost to the Florida Panthers, 2-1. The Capitals made two - just two - costly mistakes, and that was the difference. And even those two blown coverages by the team's top line of Adam Oates, Jaromir Jagr, Dmitri Khristich, Joe Reekie and Sergei Gonchar that allowed goals by Ivan Novoseltsev and Pavel Bure might have been overcome if not for a stone-wall like performance by Florida goalie Roberto Luongo.

The decision by the Library of Congress to make Justic Thurgood Marshall's papers available to the public now was unfortunate. We say that as a newspaper that has often urged the Supreme Court and justices to make the public more aware '' of what the court does and how it does it, to dispel secrecy as much as possible.Certainly the Marshall papers pull aside the veil of secrecy. There are preliminary drafts of opinions showing how changes were made to attract votes by other justices, memos describing the inner conflicts of and accommodations by the justices and other such closely guarded mediums of communication among secretive justices.