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Siobhan Gorman, who covers the intelligence community for The Sun, was honored yesterday with a Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting last year about the National Security Agency. Gorman's award marks the third major prize in recent weeks for Sun journalists. Robert Little received a George Polk Award for "Dangerous Remedy," his series about the Army's use of an experimental blood coagulant, and the series "On Shaky Ground," by June Arney and Fred Schulte, won an honor from Investigative Reporters and Editors.

It's easy to forget with so many of you sharing in our national fantasy football obsession, but the NBA season starts next week. And that means fantasy basketball. I know those words induce a huge yawn from many fantasy enthusiasts. Aside from the Kobe Bryant saga in Los Angeles, pro basketball can't complete for headlines with the NFL and the World Series. And many general sports fans seem to view the NBA's regular season as a real slog. But I love fantasy basketball. With more games and statistical categories, it's a more intricate game than fantasy football.

What's the point? -- When looking for a good laugh, visit jokepier.com. Jokepier.com has an extensive list in categories including bar jokes, jokes about men and women, office jokes and animal jokes. You can even submit your own jokes for consideration to be posted on the site. What to look for --Check out the joke of the day link for a new joke daily. Also see the random joke link to be taken to a joke chosen at random from the different categories.

THERE were more top-performing funds last quarter than usual. It's not that performance necessarily was better, it's that one of the major ways for tracking performance has changed.Lipper Inc. has changed the way it categorizes funds, a move designed to provide investors with more accurate data on what a fund really does and how it stacks up against competitors. Better and improved data is terrific, but it won't come without some short-term confusion, particularly when it comes to what investors see in the paper and in ads touting performance.

FIFTY years ago, they were thriving; today, Baltimore and five rural counties lead the state in all the wrong categories -- highest unemployment, lowest family income, fewest new jobs, most children in poverty, highest percentage of Medicaid and Medicare recipients, lowest percentage of high school graduates, lowest home values.By almost every measurement, Baltimore City and Allegany, Garrett, Somerset, Worcester (excluding Ocean City) and Dorchester counties are faltering. They are the have-nots of Maryland, caught in a downward spiral without the resources to pull themselves out of their chronic local depressions.

If you think beauty contests can't get any more ridiculous, not to mention exploitative and sexist, you haven't seen the most ridiculous of them all.The musical "Pageant" is currently strutting its high-heeled, swimsuited stuff at the Spotlighters, with "Something Extra," as one song title puts it.The show originated during a national tour of "42nd Street," when a group of chorus guys decided to stage a post-show production, a send-up of a beauty pageant....

NEW YORK -- On the charts, 1997 was mostly kid stuff, all fluff, silliness and sentimentality.But at the Grammys, 1997 turns out to have been a very grown-up year, indeed. When nominations for the 40th Annual Grammy Awards were announced in New York yesterday, the major categories -- Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist -- were dominated by adult pop acts, including Paula Cole, R. Kelly, Shawn Colvin, Bob Dylan and Babyface.Cole, in fact, was named in all four categories.

Sure it's a jungle out there in investmentland, but you can easily find your way with a good travel guide.I'm talking, of course, about the immense and ever-expanding world of mutual funds. To use the oft-quoted statistic, there are more funds than there are stocks on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq combined -- more than 11,000 funds vs. about 9,400 stocks. However, a good fund guidebook will help you pare the list to a usable size. Many guides issue new editions in the spring, based on the previous year's data.

For passenger convenience, Baltimore-Washington International Airport is among the top 10 airports in the country, according to a private survey of 90,000 airport travelers.In a survey commissioned by the nation's largest airports, Detroit Metropolitan Airport emerged as the dog, ranking last out of 36 airports in four of eight categories rated by Los Angeles-based Plog Research Inc.Tampa International Airport was the best, followed by Pittsburgh and Charlotte, N.C., both US Airways hubs through which many BWI passengers must travel in order to connect to other cities served by US Airways.

There is no such thing, of course, as a completely comprehensive library. Actually, the United States Library of Congress, official repository of all U.S.-copyrighted books, comes close to doing the job, at least with American publications. Yet even in English it has inevitable gaps.So what's a lone citizen with aspirations of bookish thoroughness to do?There are lots of specialized reference volumes, and increasing electronic sources, academic and otherwise - listings by subjects, by any number of other criteria and vantage points, quirky, technical, professional.

One of Baltimore's best beards appears in Anchorage today, seeking hirsute glory in the World Beard and Mustache Championships. Mickey Fried, 39, owns the beard as well as Belle Hardware in Bolton Hill. He is the only Marylander who dared go whisker-to-whisker with fuzzy faces from around the world, or at least the only one willing to shell out for travel to Alaska. The prize that lured Fried all that way? "I think you get a piece of paper with your name on it saying you were there," he said.

ATLANTA -As Maryland men's basketball strives to recapture some of the magic that once made every March day feel like a holiday, it's almost as if we're watching a scene from Back to the Future. There are the Terps in the NCAA tournament photograph, their hopes of an invitation fading, fading, fading. And then suddenly color. The Terps back in the picture. With last night's 74-69 win over North Carolina State, Maryland advances to the quarterfinals of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament, which means it has a date tonight with Wake Forest - less than two weeks after the Demon Deacons eked out a victory in College Park.

Pouring rain and cool temperatures didn't dampen the spirits of about 75 county high school students who were dressed in makeshift rain gear created from garbage bags or in ponchos. The teenagers sloshed through mud and water to complete a series of activities at the Harford County 4-H Camp in Street. They were there to identify water bugs and wildlife, to test the texture of soil, and determine the height of trees. "This is the only program that I know of offered to high school students in the county that takes kids out of the classroom and gets them into the dirt and the streams to learn," said Gary Davis, district manager of the Harford Soil Conservation District, which sponsors the program.

Creig Northrop and the Northrop Team were ranked second place in home sales volume by a team in the National Association of Realtors Annual Top 200 Conference and Expo Nov. 13-16 in Las Vegas. The team, based in Clarksville, sold 738 homes in 2006, creating $401,263,264 in sales volume. The event, sponsored by The Wall Street Journal, lore magazine and REAL Trends, was attended by real estate agents and teams from across the nation. The top 50 agents nationwide in four categories were recognized.

It's easy to forget with so many of you sharing in our national fantasy football obsession, but the NBA season starts next week. And that means fantasy basketball. I know those words induce a huge yawn from many fantasy enthusiasts. Aside from the Kobe Bryant saga in Los Angeles, pro basketball can't complete for headlines with the NFL and the World Series. And many general sports fans seem to view the NBA's regular season as a real slog. But I love fantasy basketball. With more games and statistical categories, it's a more intricate game than fantasy football.

What's the point? -- When looking for a good laugh, visit jokepier.com. Jokepier.com has an extensive list in categories including bar jokes, jokes about men and women, office jokes and animal jokes. You can even submit your own jokes for consideration to be posted on the site. What to look for --Check out the joke of the day link for a new joke daily. Also see the random joke link to be taken to a joke chosen at random from the different categories.

Baltimoreans overwhelmingly believe that crime is the most important challenge facing the city and that crime is damaging the city's economy, according to a new poll conducted for The Sun. The poll by the independent firm OpinionWorks of Annapolis suggests that fear of crime has pervaded the entire city. More than one in four residents say they've considered moving out because of crime, and almost half say crime has prompted them to change something in their daily lives. "We do not go out after sunset because of all the shootings in our area," said Gary G. Steffe, a 60-year-old Brooklyn resident.

Until now Rachel Rohrs hasn't had to worry too much about money. A member of the Adelphi University class of 2007, Rohrs lived at home with her parents in South Hempstead, N.Y., while in college. Her tuition costs were covered by a scholarship and contributions from her parents. She paid her credit-card bills with earnings from a part-time job. Soon, though, Rohrs will start a crash course in managing money. She is moving to Baltimore in August, after she marries Kyle Petrowski, a graduate student at the Johns Hopkins University.

Siobhan Gorman, who covers the intelligence community for The Sun, was honored yesterday with a Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting last year about the National Security Agency. Gorman's award marks the third major prize in recent weeks for Sun journalists. Robert Little received a George Polk Award for "Dangerous Remedy," his series about the Army's use of an experimental blood coagulant, and the series "On Shaky Ground," by June Arney and Fred Schulte, won an honor from Investigative Reporters and Editors.

The Sun is compiling statistics for baseball, softball and boys and girls lacrosse to be published in the Sports section, starting on Wednesday. Call 410-332-6786 or 1-800-829-8000, ext.6786, anytime Friday through 11 p.m. Saturdays, or send an e-mail to patomalleysports@aol.com. Start each call by saying the sport, then say school name, your name and phone number for verification or questions. Spell the first and last names of team leaders only. If repeating a name in a separate category, there is no need to spell again.