Checkers

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- A computer took home the title as the world's best checkers player yesterday, but it left artificial intelligence researchers without the decisive victory they had hoped would demonstrate the advances of their field.The machine, called Chinook, fended off a challenge by playing the No. 2-ranked human player to tie yesterday.Chinook, a program running on a computer made by Silicon Graphics Inc., and Don Lafferty each won one game during the tournament and they tied 18 times.

She survived drugs, booze, parental issues, complex relationships and a metal bikini, not to mention the electroconvulsive shock therapy that helps her cope with bipolar disorder. And Carrie Fisher has a lot to say about all of it. In 2006, the actress and writer who gained global fame as Princess Leia in the "Star Wars" saga poured her eventful life into an autobiographical show, "Wishful Drinking," which went on to play Broadway and was aired on HBO. On Tuesday, Fisher opens a two-week run of "Wishful Drinking" at the Hippodrome . "I've changed it a little bit," she said.

La-Van Hawkins has always been in a hurry to make his fortune.At age 7, he sold candy and sodas from his mother's apartment in a Chicago public housing project. By 13, he was so eager to make money that he dropped out of the Catholic high school he was attending on scholarship.Now a multimillionaire at 34, Mr. Hawkins is ready to embark on a new venture to set up 25 Checkers drive-through restaurants in Baltimore in the next two years. The restaurants, all in the city, will cost between $13 million and $15 million and generate at least 1,500 jobs.

Regarding the editorial on turmoil in the Middle East ("Muddled Middle East," April 22), The Sun neglected a few things. For instance, it is the Palestinian Authority's Mahmoud Abbas who is "digging in his heels" against talks. The Palestinians are the ones "muddled" with a divided government and a virtual civil war between Fatah and Hamas, as well as a leader serving the 7th year of his 4-year term. Further, you failed to mention that since the "broad outlines" in place since 1979 have not been accepted by any of the parties, they might not be workable; and that Anwar Sadat, not Yasser Arafat was at Camp David in 1978.

Old Kriss Kringle and his merry helpers made the rounds of Checkers drive-ins in Baltimore yesterday -- not to buy burgers and fries, but to hand out bags of toys to needy children.A volunteer crew of city officials and Checkers employees visited the fast-food chain's four franchises, where they were greeted by hundreds of children and their parents, who were drawn by radio announcements.The toy giveaway was Checkers' owner La-Van Hawkins' way of giving back to the communities that support his businesses throughout the year.

The ex-manager of a '50s-style drive-in diner dropped charges of racial discrimination yesterday against the Glen Burnie restaurant as the two sides settled their dispute."

Checkers Drive-In Restaurants Inc. said La-Van Hawkins has quit the board of the Florida fast-food chain and may sell his interest in 43 Checkers' stores.Mr. Hawkins, the owner of the chain's Baltimore outlets, is negotiating to form a new company.Mr. Hawkins, 36, said he is not prepared yet to announce details of the new venture, other than to say he will have major corporate partners, that the venture will be in the fast-food business, and that it could have sales of $1 billion and employ 15,000 to 20,000 African-Americans by the time it reaches its peak.

The parent company of the Checkers restaurant chain said yesterday it has retained an investment bank to help it pull out of a sustained dive into red ink sparked by industry price wars.The "value meal" deals that major chains such as McDonald's, Wendy's and Taco Bell have used to lure customers have wrought havoc upon Checkers Drive-In Restaurants Inc. of Clearwater, Fla., which is too small and financially weak to stay profitable with the lower prices, said analyst David L. Gardner of Legg Mason Inc. in Baltimore.

You wouldn't think checkers could get so complicated. After working for six years with a network of up to 200 computers, Jonathan Schaeffer says he has developed a program that can never lose at checkers. At best, a human (or computer) opponent can achieve a draw. The program was designed with help from some of the world's top checkers players, but the computers did what no player could ever do: analyze 64 million positions on the board each second. "We've taken things to beyond what humans can do," said Schaeffer, chairman of the computer science department at the University of Alberta in Canada.

If you enjoy a good old-fashioned game of checkers now and then, theCarroll County Farm Museum is looking for you.The Youth Checker Tournament, sponsored by the Farm Museum, will take place at 11:30 a.m. next Wednesday, Aug. 7, offering people ages 12 through 18 the opportunity to play one of America's oldest and most-loved board games.The tournament, whose format will rely on the number of participants, is the second such event scheduled this summer."This is one of the planned activity days that has been added to the Farm Museum'scalendar this year," said Dottie Freeman, a museum administrative assistant.

W hen Andy MacPhail acquired 10 players for a scandal-scarred Miguel Tejada and an injury-prone Erik Bedard, there was national sentiment that he had all but fleeced the Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners. So what are people going to say if he ends up getting both Tejada and Bedard back this winter at bargain prices? Don't laugh. MacPhail is halfway there. Tejada has agreed to terms on a one-year deal - pending a physical - and will move from shortstop to third base to complete the position portion of MacPhail's winter renovation project.

What exactly are we envisioning for the big IndyCar race proposed for Baltimore in 2011? Speeding cars skidding around street corners? The smell of burning rubber and fuel filling the air? Wild-eyed crowds packing the sidewalks? Don't we already have that around here? It's called: Saturday night in Fells Point when the bars close. (BA-DA-BOOM!) On the other hand, I'm all for anything that brings people downtown in sufficient numbers that it deters the degenerates who have been roughing up tourists and natives alike lately.

Brian D. Morris' resignation Saturday as deputy CEO of the Baltimore schools saves the city of the risk of having someone whose own finances are in shambles overseeing the management of a $1.1 billion system. Once The Sun's Robert Little, Melissa Harris and Liz Bowie reported Friday about the 15-year string of legal judgments against him, his bad debts and garnisheed wages, Mr. Morris faced mounting pressure from educational and civic leaders to step down before he even began the job. It only took him a day to bow to the obvious - his employment in the system, in any capacity, was untenable.

Martin O'Malley just sent supporters a six-page fundraising letter full of typos, something I feel compelled to note since I've taken Bob Ehrlich to task for chronic apostrophe goofs. Along with picayune stuff like misplaced commas and dropped words, O'Malley's missive contains a doozy of a misspelling. See if you can spot it in the sentence below: "Yet, I am optimistic about the future because of the great impact I think the election of President Barak Obama will have on our state ..."

WASHINGTON - The CIA's secret prisons are being closed. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being just a naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba. But even while dismantling these discredited programs, President Barack Obama left an equally controversial counterterrorism tool intact. Under executive orders issued by Obama on Jan. 22, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as "renditions," or the secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.

The sparkly mirror ball trophy signifying the newest winner of ABC's Dancing with the Stars went to race car driver Helio Castroneves and partner Julianne Hough on last night's finale. "I want to thank my team for letting me do this, second my family, the fans, and this special person here," Castroneves said, referring to Hough. Castroneves, Spice Girl Melanie "Mel B" Brown and entertainer Marie Osmond performed two dances Monday night for judges' scores and viewers' votes. Early in last night's episode, Osmond was named the third-place finisher, leaving her fellow finalists to reprise their favorite dance of the season for one last score from the judges.

Some joke. Richard M. Nixon's "Checkers Speech" became a satirical cornucopia, considering its Horatio Alger schmaltz, Pat Nixon's "respectable Republican cloth coat," the cocker spaniel for which it was named. Fifty years later, though, this landmark in Jurassic television emerges in a different light. Amazing what can happen after a few decades of TV's way with the world in general, presidential politics in particular. When young U.S. Senator from California and Republican vice presidential candidate Nixon faced the cameras in that 30-minute national broadcast on Sept.

They're the conscience of Vanity Fair; at Forbes they take apart a writer's copy line by line; and at Smithsonian they'll spend two weeks sifting through a writer's file until they're sure everything checks out.They are fact-checkers, the truth squad of the magazine world."