Descent

SAN FRANCISCO - A Chinese-American was named a bishop in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco on Friday, becoming the first bishop of Asian descent in the United States. Monsignor Ignatius Wang, 68, puts a face on the changing demographics of Catholicism in America. His appointment will "lift the hearts," Wang predicted, of San Francisco's approximately 10,000 Chinese-American Catholics, a small but fervent community whose first mission in San Francisco was established in 1903.

Two illegal immigrants detained Tuesday have been released from custody, and the bail hearing for a 42-year-old man arrested with them was postponed for a second time yesterday because he needed an interpreter. The immigrants were released as Baltimore police and federal officials apparently have begun to disagree over the significance of the arrests of six men Tuesday in a Northwest Baltimore apartment. Police Commissioner Edward T. Norris said the men should not have been released because they came from countries associated with terrorism, police found suspicious items in the apartment and detectives continue to explore possible ties to illegal activity.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - After days of nearly round-the-clock discussions, bleary-eyed negotiators at an international summit here reached agreement last night on a broad plan to bring clean water, sanitation and energy to the world's poor without further degrading the planet. The hard-won consensus plan, which has decidedly weaker language than many delegates and environmentalists had hoped on increasing the use of renewable energy sources such as wind or solar power, is expected to be ratified today or tomorrow by more than 100 heads of state or government assembled here at the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

Decades before taking the crown as the unrivaled king of retailing, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. looked to its then-bigger competitor, Kmart Corp., to learn the do's and don'ts of discount selling. Kmart, now cash strapped and No. 3 in discount retailing, filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday, in no small part because of crushing competition from Wal-Mart. Michigan-based Kmart said it plans to close an undetermined number of its 2,100 stores this year. But more than competition is to blame for Kmart's fall.

A Cecil County man who authorities said tried to force several Mexican nationals out of an Elkton neighborhood by plotting to burn their rental home pleaded guilty yesterday to federal civil rights violations. Christopher C. Cimorose, 33, of Elkton acknowledged that he helped two other men plan the arson attempt last summer, supplying the gasoline used to set the fire and warning neighbors beforehand to vacate their homes. At Cimorose's brief court appearance yesterday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan P. Luna said the arson plan was hatched because Cimorose and the other men "did not want individuals of Mexican descent ... to live in the Hollingsworth Manor neighborhood."

Since the terrorist attacks Sept. 11, Mohammed A. Arafa, director of the Islamic Society of Annapolis, has received more than 200 phone calls. Two of them were threatening. But now that U.S. military forces have begun bombing, Anne Arundel County community leaders are bracing for what they fear will be a more violent backlash against Americans of Middle Eastern descent. "I think it's just a matter of time," Michael J. Keller, coordinator of Anne Arundel Peace Action, said at a news conference yesterday at Stanton Community Center in Annapolis.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Mohammed A. Arafa, director of the Islamic Society of Annapolis, has received more than 200 phone calls. Two of them were threatening. But now that U.S. military forces have begun bombing, some Anne Arundel County community leaders are bracing for what they fear will be a more violent backlash against Americans of Middle Eastern descent. "I think it's just a matter of time," Michael J. Keller, coordinator of Anne Arundel Peace Action, said at a news conference yesterday at Stanton Community Center in Annapolis.

OAKLAND - It was three days after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington when the Aisle 13 checkout clerk at the local Wal-Mart got seriously spooked by a group of customers who bought knives and box cutters and seemed, to the store's employees, to be of Middle Eastern descent. Probably, local authorities say, there's no reason for concern. But, these days, even in far Western Maryland - in the 1,900-resident seat of relatively isolated Garrett County - incidents that once wouldn't have provoked a second thought mushroom into full-blown nightmares or become fodder for creative conspiracy theories.

In the shadow of West Baltimore's old Sun & Moon Grocery, dozens of Korean-American children bound off the school bus and dash to the playground where the black kids are, instantly integrating the battered jungle gym, rusty swings and squeaky slide. When Anna Matos, 8, steps off the bus, her appearance brings a smile to the face of 9-year-old Shaleece Williams. Within an hour, the two girls are lacing up their roller skates and gliding around a local rink hand in hand. At the Druid Heights Cultural Exchange Summer Fun Camp, the summer days of Shaleece, a bright and beaming black girl, and Anna, her petite and precocious Korean-American friend, have been filled with moments of ethnic harmony that defy the history of conflict between the groups.