Commerce

Harford County sheriff's deputies and Maryland State Police report: Aberdeen Connie J. Bleinberger, 52, of the 2900 block of Shelley Court, was charged Sunday with second-degree assault. Jaclyn Nicole Cook, 27, of the 400 block of South Philadelphia Boulevard, was charged Sunday with second-degree assault. Brian Wayne Cook, 41, of the 400 block of South Philadelphia Boulevard, was charged Sunday with second-degree assault and possession of a drug other than marijuana.

There has been much hue and cry in recent days about the General Assembly approving a "rain tax" this year that is punitive, anti-commerce and unnecessary. What's truly remarkable about these protestations is how none of the underlying claims are true. Rather, this may be a lesson in the perils of approving a policy at the state level but leaving the business of carrying it out to local government. It's far easier for county elected leaders to point a finger at Annapolis than to actually educate themselves on an issue - let alone try to explain why a tax is so clearly in their constituents' self-interest.

HOLLYWOOD Tears will flow, hearts will rend and noses will sniffle all over America tonight as CBS airs the made-for-TV movie "Triumph of the Heart: The Ricky Bell Story."The title notwithstanding, it will only be a small, somewhat fictive slice of the real Ricky Bell story. (It will be on Channel 11-WBAL at 9 p.m.)"We weren't doing the complete Ricky Bell story," said screenwriter Jeff Andrus, who spent a month last year researching the former USC football hero's life and tragic early death.

Columbia-based U.S. Foodservice said yesterday that it will purchase PYA/Monarch, the leading food-service distributor in the Southeast, for $1.57 billion in cash. The acquisition will reunite two companies that were divided in 1989 after a leveraged buyout of a Sara Lee Corp. subsidiary, creating U.S. Foodservice. In April, U.S. Foodservice was bought by Dutch supermarket giant Royal Ahold NV for $3.6 billion. Analysts said the deal will strengthen U.S. Foodservice's standing as the second-largest food distributor in the nation and boost food service sales for Royal Ahold, which are expected to exceed $12 billion next year.

H&S Properties Development Corp. plans to push its Harbor East development east across Central Avenue with an expanded Whole Foods Market, a possible department store and apartments on two sites, baker-turned-developer John Paterakis Sr. said Friday. The developer will convert the one-story, brown-painted H&S Bakery distribution center into one or two floors of retail space, with apartments above, Paterakis said. H&S Bakery revealed intentions last month to move the center to an East Baltimore office park, freeing up the real estate by the end of 2014, he said.

Big Lots Stores Inc. has agreed to purchase inventory from the financially ailing Commerce Corp. for an amount expected to top $6 million, according to recent bankruptcy court documents. The entire proceeds are slated to go to M&T Bank, which was owed $17.9 million by Commerce in principal alone as of late February, court documents said. Creditors of Commerce filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition last month against the Curtis Bay-based distributor of lawn and garden supplies.

Dear Joyce: I am interested in a job in Eastern Europe, especially in Romania, since I have friends and family there and a great personal interest in the country. I have worked with heavy equipment for the past 10 years. Are U.S. government jobs available? -- S. M.Dear S. M.: More than 150,000 Americans work in civilian jobs overseas as employees of the U.S. government, the largest source of foreign employment.In career fields ranging from accounting to writing, chances are someone with your skills is plying them in the global workplace for Uncle Sam. But don't expect flash success in joining these ranks.

BETHLEHEM, Occupied West Bank -- Gnarled and cracked, an old olive branch enters Jiries Giacaman's shop and sits in a dark corner for three years. One day, Mr. Giacaman will pick it up. He will turn it around in his hands and his mind, and then begin cutting.From the twisted wood will emerge a sleek and polished figure of the Virgin Mary. Or Jesus. Or a camel, or a cradle, or a wise man.Mr. Giacaman makes manger scenes and other carvings from olive wood, a specialty of this town where Scripture says Jesus was born.

For Omero C. Catan, of Teaneck, N.J., a mustachioed, cigar-smoking, catering-service worker who was known as "Mr. First," the opening of the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel on Nov. 30, 1957, was just another "first" in a lifetime of collecting firsts.However, for motorists, the 1.7-mile twin-lane tunnel connecting Fairfield with Canton, one of Maryland's greatest engineering achievements, meant the end to the most notorious traffic bottleneck in the Middle Atlantic -- one that had given Baltimore the reputation as a place to be avoided when traveling north and south.

Nicholas C. Lykos, a druggist who served generations of customers at his independent Lykos Pharmacy in Timonium, died Wednesday of a heart attack at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center. He was 70. Mr. Lykos was a member of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation in Baltimore, where he received the highest layman's honor -- Archon to the Patriarch. Born in Allenport, Pa., he was a graduate of the Polytechnic Institute. In 1952, he graduated with honors from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and later served as an Army sergeant in Germany.