Danger

For now, it appears that left guard Ben Grubbs and cornerback Chris Carr are in danger of missing Sunday's game at the Tennessee Titans. Grubbs, the starting left guard since 2008, was absent for the third consecutive day. He has been dealing with what the team described as a toe injury. If Grubbs cannot play, recently-signed Andre Gurode is listed as his backup. Gurode, a five-time Pro Bowl center, made 38 starts at guard in his first three seasons with the Dallas Cowboys.

SAN DIEGO -- As Californians sift through the cinders of last week's wildfires, there is a growing consensus that the state's war against such disasters - as it is currently being fought - cannot be won. "California has lost 1.5 million acres in the last four years," said Richard A. Minnich, a professor of earth sciences who teaches fire ecology at the University of California, Riverside. "When do we declare the policy a failure?" Fire-management experts such as Minnich, who has compared fire histories in San Diego County and Baja California in Mexico, say the message is clear: Mexico has smaller fires that burn out naturally, regularly clearing out combustible underbrush and causing relatively little destruction because the cycle is still natural.

NEW YORK -- Supporting previous warnings from Western experts about the dangers of Soviet-built nuclear power plants, a federal intelligence report says that 10 reactors in Slovakia, Lithuania, Russia, Bulgaria and Ukraine face an abnormally high risk of failure.The danger is attributed to design flaws, tattered economies, political disorder and weak regulatory oversight. The 10 reactors, at five locations, are the most dangerous among a group that poses "significant safety risks," the report says.

Emerging NASCAR star Carl Edwards risks life and limb every time he gets into his No. 99 Ford. Not to mention every time he gets out of it after a victory. Edwards, 25, who won a Busch Series race March 19 and a Nextel Cup race the next day, celebrates his first-place finishes by doing back flips off his driver's side door - after removing his helmet. At the Busch race, he stuck his landing. "Even the Russian judge would give him a 10 on that one," a radio announcer joked. The next day, he came down with more of a Weebles wobble - enough to remind you that a misstep could break one of Edwards' legs - or his back or his neck or his skull.

TURIN, Italy -- Crash helmets. Safety barriers. Skeleton. These are your Winter Olympics. For every sport with grace and beauty, there are two ready to tear an athlete limb from limb and rattle the brain. And even within the pretty sports, such as figure skating, danger lurks. Just three days into competition, there have been enough mishaps to fill a moderate-size trauma ward. About a dozen athletes have required medical help, with some forced to withdraw from the Games. Athletes say accidents are a part of their sport every year.

WASHINGTON - James W. Ziglar, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, heatedly defended yesterday a new U.S. plan to round up 314,000 foreigners - beginning with nearly 1,000 individuals from the Middle East and Pakistan - who have defied orders to leave the country. In his first public comments on the issue, Ziglar said in an interview: "I have no sympathy for them, and I make no apologies for the way we are going about this. "Some of these people are criminal aliens, and we know how dangerous some of them may be," he said.

SHARK attack is probably the greatest fear for humans swimming and surfing in ocean waters. (Thank Hollywood for that.) But it is not the greatest danger by far, despite the recent public fixation on gruesome injuries and two deaths in Virginia and North Carolina. Drownings, heart attacks and even coral and seashell lacerations produce more deaths and serious injuries than shark bites. The number of reported shark attacks this summer is actually smaller than normal: three worldwide deaths so far in 2001, compared with eight last year.

A legislative leader is calling for Comptroller William Donald Schaefer's resignation after he suggested that AIDS patients are a danger to society and brought the disease on themselves. Del. John Adams Hurson, a Montgomery County Democrat who is chairman of the Health and Government Operations Committee, said yesterday that Schaefer's comments about AIDS were "the last straw." "The comptroller's comments just show that he is really out of touch with where people are who are suffering from this disease," Hurson said.

PHILADELPHIA - For 93 years, the big slab of stone held on, clinging, 10 stories up, to the cornice of the Lafayette Building at Fifth and Chestnut streets. On June 6, about 4:30 in the morning, it let go. Dropping straight, the stone crashed onto the sidewalk on Fifth Street and punched a platter-size dent in the concrete. No one was injured. But had the stone fallen a few hours later, when the street would have been crowded with tourists, office workers and shoppers, the result could have been disastrous.

Along with his four Super Bowl victories, Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana is probably best remembered as an imperturbable, clutch performer with proverbial ice water in his veins. A few years ago, though, the unflappable Montana discovered that what coursed through his veins - blood at a dangerously high pressure - was a greater threat than any NFL defense ever posed. "I was the typical American in that I liked all the things that are bad for you, and not only did I like them but I liked them doubled," Montana said yesterday during a stop in Baltimore to publicize blood pressure awareness and treatment.