Darrow

BROOKLAWN, N.J. - The First Union Center. Invesco Field at Mile High. The ShopRite of Brooklawn Gymnasium? Rocketing itself into the world of corporate sponsorship, the tiny, blue-collar New Jersey borough of Brooklawn has announced that it will name its new elementary-school gym after the only supermarket in town - in return for a donation of $100,000. "In an era of scarce resources, we have to take a look at nontraditional ways to generate revenues for our school," said John Kellmayer, superintendent of the single-school district.

Peter Wall, a retired Westinghouse logistics engineer who served in the Peace Corps, died Thursday at York Hospital in Pennsylvania of complications from heart surgery. He was 67 and lived in Shrewsbury, Pa. Born and raised in Clinton, Conn., Mr. Wall attended Syracuse University before enlisting in the Army and serving in Germany in the 1950s. He joined the Peace Corps in 1962, and served for two years in Ecuador. He then went to work for Westinghouse Electric Corp. in San Diego and moved to Maryland in 1967.

NEW YORK -- "Swoon," a chilling film portrait of two of the century's most notorious murderers, is a project that, aptly enough, began 22 years ago with a photograph.As a 7-year-old growing up in Chicago, something stopped Tom Kalin as he leafed through an old illustrated history of crime and spied the cool, defiant faces of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb."It was just a cheap little book, but I remember being curious about them even then," recalled the writer-director. "They seemed to be unlike any of the other criminals I read about in the book, so articulate and intelligent."

Baltimore is among the regions hardest-hit by organized retail crime, a growing national problem in which gangs steal and sell goods, a retail trade group reported Tuesday. A survey by the National Retail Federation shows that almost no retailer is immune, whether the outlets are department or big-box stores, discounters, drugstores, supermarkets, restaurants or specialty chains. The crimes have also become more violent, the survey noted. "Criminals have become more desperate and brazen in their efforts, stopping at nothing to get their hands on large quantities of merchandise," Rich Mellor, NRF vice president of loss prevention, said in a statement.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - It's the perfect monopoly, the red properties halfway around the board - Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky avenues. And you own them all. The rents are high enough to bankrupt opponents, the costs for houses and hotels low enough to build. You decide to start small with a little green house on Indiana. Unfortunately someone is already building there. A row of townhouses is under construction. Andy Vera, a mason laying bricks, says it's part of a revitalization effort in this downtrodden neighborhood of Atlantic City.

Before a high-profile federal trial began in Baltimore last month, lawyers for the three black defendants filed a motion claiming that the prosecution deliberately - and illegally - dismissed black jury candidates to pack the panel with whites. "They want a jury that may be sympathetic to the death sentence," defense attorney Archangelo Tuminelli said. But the judge ultimately ruled that the allegation was wrong. And, it turns out, the stereotype might be, too. While many lawyers have long relied on stereotypes to figure out how potential jurors might lean, those characterizations are increasingly turned on their heads, trial consultants said.

Karen Graham believed that her days as the "Estee Lauder girl" were long behind her. After all, she was retired from modeling and had spent most of the past decade at her country home in upstate New York, teaching the sport she loves: fly-fishing. Then, "out of the blue" in the summer of 1998, Lauder senior vice president Robert Luzzi called her up. "Would you be interested in doing another ad campaign for us?" he asked. Graham was surprised, pleased and excited. Then she had "this moment of terror," as she puts it. "Do you know how old I am?"

A Frederick County couple has succeeded in quieting a boisterous high school marching band whose booming bass drum made the trinkets rattle on their bedroom shelves. A settlement finalized yesterday in Frederick County Circuit Court says Urbana High School must "address the problems and issues" arising from the noise complaints of Paul and Brenda Geisbert, who live near a parking lot where the band practices. The consent decree, signed by attorneys from both sides, does not specify how the school is supposed to bring the volume down, but says some remedy must be in place within six months.

WASHINGTON - At a time when America's children need to learn how to compete with India, Ireland and other countries to which we are rapidly losing jobs, some Americans would rather fuss and fret about whether man evolved from the apes. That's what I imagine the master lawyer Clarence Darrow would be saying if he were around to redefend Charles Darwin's theory of evolution against today's new version of creationism. I'm sure Mr. Darrow would be amazed and amused at last week's events in Topeka, Kan. Eighty years after his famous defendant, John Scopes, was arrested for teaching evolution in Tennessee public schools, the Kansas Board of Education opened hearings in Topeka to hear new challenges to the teaching of Darwin.

DAYTON, Tenn. - In the same tense, humid courtroom where Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan battled over the teaching of evolution 79 years ago, eight county commissioners quickly rescinded yesterday an anti-gay motion that had drawn national attention - and ridicule - to Dayton again. The measure, which the commission passed unanimously Tuesday night, would have banned gays and lesbians from living in Rhea County and allowed prosecution of gays and lesbians for "crimes against nature."