Brazil

Unlike the 1991 U.S. team that won the first women's world soccer championship, arrived at New York's Kennedy airport in anonymity and disbanded for nearly a year, this year's World Cup champions will go neither unsung nor unemployed for long.Many, if not all, will regroup later this year to begin training for the September 2000 Olympics in Australia -- which, incidentally, could be the last international hurrah for as many as seven or eight American stars now in their late 20s and early 30s.Also, no schedule has been announced, but the U.S. team assuredly will put on another buildup tour, a la this year's, before flying off to Sydney in quest of another gold medal.

The explosive U.S. women's soccer team will have the nation's attention, of course, as it plays hush-hush North Korea at Foxboro (Mass.) Stadium tonight, ending group play, the first phase of competition in the Women's World Cup.While the Americans try to finish 3-0-0 in Group A -- and a North Korean win or even tie would rank among the decade's biggest sports shocks -- two other games with ramifications for advancing into knockout play for all four teams...

The U.S. economy weathered the "Asian contagion." Then it sidestepped the Russian-ruble meltdown. Even a deep and prolonged recession in Japan -- the world's second-largest economy -- hasn't dented the U.S. economic armor. Now it must deal with the Brazil brownout.In an era when most experts say the marketplace has become inextricably global, the U.S. economy has so far proved remarkably impervious."There is no sign at all of a recession," said Richard Marston, professor of finance at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.

Kyriacos Demetriou, 80, a haircutter whose old-fashioned barbershop was re-created in the Museum of the City of New York when he retired three years ago, died Friday. Known by customers as Mr. Kay, he took over the Broadway Barbershop in the 1950s. The shop, with its old, shiny appliances and a radio tuned to a classical music station, was founded in 1904 and was the oldest in the city.Alfredo de Freitas Dias Gomes, 77, a soap opera writer who used his position in television to fight Brazil's dictators, died early yesterday in a traffic accident in Sao Paulo, authorities said.

THE ASIAN disease did not hit the healthy United States when it reached Brazil, which devalued its currency Wednesday. But spread of the ailment to the world's eighth-largest economy means the sickness has infected the Western Hemisphere.U.S. trade with Brazil is small but growing, while U.S. private investment in Brazil is huge. So the threat of inflation and devaluation in Brazil is more to U.S. portfolios than to U.S. exporters.The $41.5 billion credit pledged to Brazil by the International Monetary Fund and Group of Seven nations in November, in return for deficit reduction, was in the U.S. national interest.

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- The first congratulatory hugs weren't for Michelle Akers, whose second-half goal gave the U.S. team a little breathing room in yesterday's Women's World Cup semifinal.Nor were those embraces aimed at women's soccer spokesperson Mia Hamm, who engineered that pull- away goal against the underdog Brazilians.The first ones went to U.S. goalkeeper Briana Scurry, whose Independence Day stand helped drag her sometimes tired-looking team into Saturday's tournament final in Pasadena, Calif.

Good SportsGary PaytonGary Payton of the Seattle SuperSonics has a gift he likes to give kids every year: a special day.Last March, Gary flew three seriously ill kids from Seattle to his hometown of Oakland, Calif. The kids attended a Sonics' game.``They felt like regular kids, instead of always thinking about being sick,'' says Gary. ``It was a good day.''Sports Around the WorldBrazilBrazil is the largest country in South America. Soccer is the national sport of Brazil. Other popular sports are beach volleyball, tennis, basketball and auto racing.

The world's financial markets were sent into a tailspin yesterday when Brazil's top financial official resigned unexpectedly and his successor devalued the country's currency by 7.6 percent.Economists feared that the latest troubles of Latin America's largest economy could spread to other countries in the region -- and to the United States, which has substantial export and financial interests in Brazil.The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 260 points in the first half-hour of trading after the announcement that Brazilian Central Bank chief Gustavo Franco had stepped down, and his replacement, Francisco Lopes, would allow the Brazilian currency, the real, to trade in a wider band against the dollar.

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- It did not discourage Sisleide Lima do Amor when the boys in the streets of Salvador, Brazil, did not want her to play in their pickup games. Inevitably, she got her way. "I owned the ball," she said.She had learned to play soccer using rolled-up socks, oranges, bottle caps, even the heads of dolls that her parents had bought for her. Buy her a ball, her father told her mother. Maybe then she will leave the dolls alone.Now, at 32, she is the leading scorer in the Women's World Cup, a player of liquid grace and stirring precision on free kicks who has put Brazil into the semifinals today against the United States at Stanford Stadium.

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- His CD is at the top of the charts with 3.2 million copies sold, the kind of showing normally reserved for samba greats.He is the hottest thing on television, drawing sky-high ratings that have executives begging him to sign a contract for his own show. His boyish face outsells Leonardo DiCaprio and Brazil's scantily clad dancing girls at the magazine stands, and his songs are de rigueur at the top nightclubs.Last month at Carnival, his dancing atop a huge sound truck drew 100,000 adoring fans, including hordes of women swooning from more than just the heat.

When Jonathan Pryce's Sam Lowry, the bureaucrat at the center of Terry Gilliam's mad chef d'oeuvre, Brazil (1985), goes to work in the Department of Information Retrieval, his office resembles a badly multiplexed movie theater. Saturday at 10:15 a.m., in the Wheeler Auditorium of the Enoch Pratt Free Library downtown, the Pratt's Film Talk series will present Brazil - and with the fate of the Senator uncertain (anyone who hasn't seen the new print of Akira Kuroswa's Rashomon should rush there now)

Thomas B. Hammond, formerly of Towson, MD and Nara Shoji of Moji da Cruzes, Sao Paulo, Brazil were married April 4, 2009 in Washington, D.C. The ceremony took place at the World War I Memorial. Thomas is a graduate of Loyola High School in Towson. He attended the University of Vermont and graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park, with a Bachelor's Degree in Natural Resource Science. Mrs. Hammond is a graduate of Paraiba Valley University, Sao Paulo, Brazil, with a Masters Degree in Bio Medical Engineering.

If you're a traveler looking for a budget-friendly destination, Brazil should be on your 2009 list. According to CheapTickets.com, Brazil offers savings of 58 percent in April, a time when the southern hemisphere's summer crowds have moved on, yet the warm weather still lingers. Most people think of Rio de Janeiro when they think of Brazil, but thanks to the arrival of low-cost air carriers, getting around Brazil is easier and more affordable than ever. Here are five things to do in Brazil: 1 Check out Carnival : This lively spectacle takes place in cities throughout Brazil, beginning in late February.

3. Thai premier declares state of emergency BANGKOK, Thailand: Thailand's prime minister declared a state of emergency in the capital today after street fighting overnight between supporters and opponents of the government left one man dead and dozens injured. The developments followed a threat by state workers to cut off water, electricity and phone service at government offices and disrupt flights of the national airline in support of protesters trying to bring down Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej.

BEIJING - A storied era in U.S. women's soccer ended when Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy and other pioneers retired as Olympic champions after the Athens Games, but another promising era might have dawned yesterday on a soggy field at Workers' Stadium. The U.S. women won their third gold medal awarded for women's soccer in four Olympic tournaments by edging Brazil, 1-0, on midfielder Carli Lloyd's extra-time goal. The U.S. team had defeated Brazil in Athens, also in overtime, but this team has a different roster and is less famous than its predecessor.

The Second World Empires and Influence in the New Global Order By Parag Khanna Random House / 496 pages / $28.95 In the 21st century, according to Parag Khanna, three empires strut their stuff on the world stage. The United States, the European Union and China are "frenemies." Globalization fosters interdependence. But fear and greed continue to drive geopolitical competition. "Arrayed along and sandwiched between" the superpowers, Khanna points out, are Second World countries. Encompassing the world's emerging markets, they are divided between haves and have-nots and may or may not be moving toward democracy.

Soccer -- Brazil midfielder Kaka completed a virtual sweep of annual awards yesterday by winning FIFA's World Player of the Year. The Milan playmaker received 1,047 points, ahead of Lionel Messi (504) and Cristiano Ronaldo (426), in a vote by national team captains and managers. Kaka also won European soccer's Golden Ball and World Soccer magazine's Player of the Year award. On the women's side, Marta of Brazil captured the award with 988 points, ahead of Birgit Prinz of Germany (507) and Cristiane of Brazil (150)

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- Recovery workers pulled bodies from mounds of blackened rubble yesterday as this metropolis poured out its grief and anger over a Tuesday night plane crash that many Brazilians saw as both predictable and avoidable. Caustic smoke billowed all day from the remains of this nation's worst airline disaster, which occurred when a TAM Airlines Airbus 320 carrying 186 passengers and crew slid off a rain-slick runway at Congonhas Airport, went over a major thoroughfare, crashed into a gas station and a cargo terminal, and exploded in a deadly fireball.

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- It was the president's brother on the line, asking for cash. "Hey, get me two grand," Genival Inacio da Silva demanded of an alleged gambling kingpin, according to transcripts of wiretaps published here this month. The telephone intercepts were part of a federal police operation known as Checkmate, which has led to the arrest of dozens of people in a slot-machine distribution scheme. Checkmate is just the latest in a chain of theatrically named scandals that have come to dominate Brazilian headlines and tarnish President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, sometimes called the Teflon president because of his aptitude in shaking off scandal.

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- Pope Benedict XVI gave this enormous Roman Catholic country its first native-born saint yesterday, canonizing an 18th-century Franciscan monk credited with providing thousands of miracle cures. The pope also used the occasion to remind followers to live like saints: "The world needs transparent lives, clear souls, pure minds that refuse to be perceived as mere objects of pleasure." Thousands attended the ceremony to elevate Friar Antonio de Sant'Anna Galvao to sainthood.