Contact

TEHRAN, Iran -- Life in the Islamic Republic poses one great dilemma for the young: how to achieve a happy marriage.In Islamic Iran, social contact between men and women is forbidden. Men and women no longer shake hands when meeting in public. The komitehs -- revolutionary committees that patrol for signs of un-Islamic behavior -- are the enforcers of such standards. A visitor from abroad who unconsciously slips her hand through an uncle's arm while walking on a Tehran street is quickly warned: "Careful.

When Jose E. "Pepe" Herrera left Cuba in 1955, he thought he might never have a reason to go back.Last week, he found one: a chess tournament.As part of Baltimore's contact with residents of the island, the Ellicott City resident and five top-ranked area chess players traveled to Havana for four days to compete with Cuban players.A mostly teen-age crew of Cubans soundly defeated the Americans. But, for both sides, the visit was an exhilarating reminder that, despite still-strained official relations between their countries, Cubans and Americans have much in common.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The Iraqi government has had contact through intermediaries with several rebel groups since its announcement of a plan to offer amnesty to insurgents in return for their disarming and submitting to Iraqi law, the prime minister said yesterday. "Many people contacted me on the day I announced the reconciliation plan, and there is a lot of support even from militias and ... [insurgent] groups," said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. "We welcome their assistance, but we are still waiting until we can meet directly with these groups and talk to them in a civilized way in order to bring them into the political process.

A rabid fox bit two people in Westminster on Wednesday night, and Carroll County health officials are asking anyone who came into contact with the animal to come forward. The fox tested positive for rabies yesterday. A 44-year-old woman and a 6-year-old boy who live in the 200 block of Montpelier Court were bitten by the gray fox, which had been hiding in the bushes, according to Matt W. Helwig, a sanitarian with the Carroll County Health Department. The victims, whose names were not released and who are not related, called Maryland State Police, who captured the fox and destroyed it. The victims are now receiving rabies treatment -- a series of five shots, Helwig said.

Britain's Beagle 2 Mars lander remained silent for a third day yesterday, and scientists now think that their best hope for receiving a signal is the spacecraft's mother ship. Mars Express, Beagle 2's mother ship produced by the European Space Agency, entered orbit around the Red Planet on Christmas Eve, about the same time that Beagle was scheduled to land on the surface. Controllers must make a complicated series of maneuvers before it will be in the correct orbit to contact the lander.

Former Carroll County schools Superintendent William H. Hyde was ordered yesterday to have no contact with the extended family of the young girl he is accused of sexually abusing. Carroll District Judge Marc G. Rasinsky signed the no-contact order after family members of the elementary school-aged girl complained that Hyde has tried to reach them since he left the state after his arrest Aug. 8, authorities said. The new decision broadened a protective order the judge signed Friday prohibiting Hyde from contacting the young girl, her parents or her younger brother and ordering Hyde to stay away from the home of the girl's parents, her school, her day care provider's home and her parents' places of work.

The Ravens have granted three teams permission to speak with defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis about head-coaching positions after Super Bowl XXXV Jan. 28 in Tampa, the Akron Beacon Journal reported yesterday. Those three teams are the Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions. NFL rules preclude any contact with a coach whose season is still going on. Lewis' agent, Ray Anderson, last night confirmed the three teams had received permission. "Just by the process, they would have made those requests last week before the AFC championship game in the event that Baltimore would have lost," Anderson said.

Defensive end Terrell Suggs and safety Ed Reed were fined $15,000 each by the NFL for making "impermissible contact" with game officials in Sunday's 35-17 loss to the Detroit Lions, the league announced yesterday. Suggs apologized to his teammates for his actions, but Reed expressed no remorse. But the Ravens' Pro Bowl defenders agreed their anger was triggered by the officiating. "It was like, `When is it enough?' " Suggs said. "We can't let them just keep nut and bolting us. We were straight up getting screwed."

"Contact," based on the late Carl Sagan's novel about what happens when a dish antenna in New Mexico picks up signals from outer space, is an expanding-universe movie. Jodie Foster, who more than anyone has enlarged Hollywood's view of what women can be, is an expanding-universe artist.Foster stars as Ellie Arroway, an astronomer passionately lobbying Congress to be allowed to blast off to the distant galaxy that responded to her radio probes."It would be crazy not to believe in the possibility of there being life out there," Foster says.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. said yesterday that he and Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele had been contacted by "the powers that be" in Washington about the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Paul S. Sarbanes, and that the two had planned a discussion about the race. Speaking on WBAL radio, the Republican governor said running for Senate was "not under consideration," but he did not rule out the prospect. "We were called by the powers that be yesterday [Friday] in Washington, and I have yet to talk to them.