Faces

People faces, animal faces, pretty faces, ugly or bizarre faces -- Rick Opfer doesn't care, as long as it's "folk art" and sits on the end of a walking stick.Best known as a toy and antique auctioneer, Mr. Opfer has also made a name for himself in the arcane world of canes -- particularly hand-carved "face canes" of real and imaginary people or animals.In recent years, he has winnowed his collection from about 1,000 canes to 400 or 500 dating from the late 18th century to the present day. They're now in his Timonium office, piled in corners, on racks and in two large barrels.

- Monday's NCAA tournament final will be an all-Maryland affair. The Maryland men's lacrosse team punched its ticket to the national title game with a 16-10 thumping of No. 3 seed Duke on Saturday evening before an announced 31,774 at Gillette Stadium. The Terps, who advanced to the tournament final as an unseeded team for the second consecutive season, will meet No. 1 seed Loyola at 1 p.m. Monday. The Greyhounds (17-1) outlasted No. 4 seed Notre Dame, 7-5, earlier in the day. Monday's title game will feature two teams from Maryland for the first time since 1979 when Johns Hopkins defeated the Terps, 15-9.

A 33-year-old Carroll County man accused of beating his doctor-wife with a hammer has been extradited from Georgia and now faces first-degree attempted-murder charges, according to state police. Anthony Soligny of New Windsor was arrested last week near Atlanta on Interstate 85 in Franklin County after a deputy spotted his truck, a spokesman for Maryland State Police said. Police had set up a national alert for Soligny's vehicle. Soligny was transported Tuesday night from a Georgia jail to the detention center in Carroll County.

The greatest commencement address ever is now more than three decades old. And it's safe to say it will never be surpassed or even equaled. It belongs to the ages. In 1979, its author summed up the condition of modern man by noting that, quote, more than at any other time in history, humanity is at the crossroads: One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness; the other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. Unquote. Bang. That's all she wrote.

The throw-the-bums out mood of the September primary has left District of Columbia voters facing a confounding mix of new faces vying for seats in local government.The all-important mayoral contest gives voters a chance to effect substantial change in a city plagued by drugs, crime, corruption and a worsening financial quagmire. The candidacy of Democrat nominee Sharon Pratt Dixon, perhaps more than the populist, "get tough on crime" campaign of Republican former police chief Maurice T. Turner Jr., promises such change.

President-elect Clinton faces a world that in 1993 is:Shrinking. By the Concorde, deep-dish television reception, by satellite telephone circuits, fax. No place is remote. The United .. States is in Somalia in part because the images of the starving were in American living rooms every day.Consolidating. Only recently, large blocs of nations were the coming thing. Even the United States seemed not large enough to face a single Europe, now taking effect. Hence the move to turn North America into a trading bloc, wedding Mexican labor to U.S. capital.

Last month, Catholic bishops urged the nation's political leaders to fashion a welfare reform policy that "enhanced the lives and dignity" of poor people while recognizing the "diversity of problems" they face.The bishops -- speaking through the administrative board of the U.S. Catholic Conference in Washington -- warned that rigid, punitive policies based on stereotypical portraits of the poor are more likely to hurt people than help them."As pastors, we seek to share our community's experiences in serving those in need," said the bishops in a prepared statement.

BOSTON - There are moments in Jon Stewart's hilarious send-up of civics textbooks, America (The Book), when the truth pops up like a jack-in-the-box. Consider The Daily Show comic's take on political campaigns: "Although the skills needed to woo voters are at times diametrically opposed to those necessary to govern them, the expensive and arduous process exists for a reason: to ensure that those who wish to govern are, if not the most qualified our country has to offer, the ones who want it the most."

A former Baltimore County teacher sentenced to a year and a half in jail for a sex offense against a 13-year-old student now faces federal child pornography charges, according to U.S. District Court documents. Timothy N. Gounaris, 52, of the first block of Cardor Court in Perry Hall, is scheduled for a detention hearing Monday. Gounaris was arrested Friday after the FBI found evidence that he was sharing image and video files of "minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct" on the Internet, court documents said.

The Baltimore mayoral race in the general election will be a re-run of 1987.Absentee ballots counted Saturday made Samuel Culotta the Republican nominee again.He faces incumbent Democrat Kurt L. Schmoke, who won the general election easily four years ago.The absentee count did not change the results of any other primary race in either party.Culotta, 67, a lawyer, has been the GOP nominee for mayor in every election since 1975.However, in Thursday's primary, he received stiff competition from Bruce Price and Joseph Scalia.

A Baltimore man serving a 60-year murder sentence now faces life without parole in an unrelated homicide in Glen Burnie, after he was convicted Monday of the first-degree murder of Dr. Albert Woonho Ro. Dante Jeter, 25, is scheduled to be sentenced July 24 in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court for his role in the fatal beating, stabbing and robbery on Sept. 26, 2006, of Ro, 51, a dentist well-known in the area's Korean-American community. Prosecutor Anne Colt Leitess said she intends to seek life without parole for the murder, plus another life sentence for Jeter's conviction of conspiring with his cousin, Shontay Joyner Hickman, 37, also of Baltimore, and possibly additional time for a robbery conviction.

NCAA semifinal No. 1 Florida vs. No. 4 Syracuse Friday, 5:30 p.m. At Stony Brook, N.Y. No. 1 Florida advanced to its first NCAA semifinal after topping Penn State, 15-2, at Dizney Stadium on Saturday. "It's a tremendous accomplishment, one I'm incredibly, incredibly proud of," Gators coach Amanda O'Leary said. Top-seeded Florida (19-2) will face No.4 Syracuse in the national semifinal Friday at 5:30p.m. in Stony Brook, N.Y. The Gators are averaging three more draw controls per game this season thanks in part to Shannon Gilroy, a freshman draw-control specialist who scored twice against the Nittany Lions (12-7)

State Sen. Jamie Raskin likens the prospect of being called back to Annapolis for another special session to the plight of a middle school student being told on the last day of classes that he has to attend summer school. But the Montgomery County Democrat, like the 187 other Maryland lawmakers, came out of the special session on budget issues last week knowing there's a strong likelihood they will be summoned back to Annapolis in July to contend with the thorny issue of expanding gambling.

Top-seeded Loyola is the most balanced team, but unseeded Maryland will be the toughest to push out of the Division I men's lacrosse final four. The four remaining teams were determined Sunday after No. 4 Notre Dame beat No 5. Virginia, 12-10, in one quarterfinal, and No. 3 Duke routed unseeded Colgate, 17-6, in the other. Loyola (16-1) will meet Notre Dame (13-2) in one semifinal Saturday in Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., and the Terps (11-5) will play Atlantic Coast Conference-rival Duke (15-4)

A 21-year-old Baltimore man was arrested and charged Thursday with possessing and distributing child pornography, according to Maryland State Police. Jason Barron, of the 300 block of South Baylis Street, now faces 30 years in prison and $55,000 in fines, police said. Barron was identified after a state trooper on the Maryland Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force identified a computer offering pornographic videos of children to others on the Internet, and then linked the computer to him, police said.

Moments after a four-goal, four-assist performance Tuesday helped send his team back to the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference championship, Calvert Hall's All-Metro senior attackman Patrick Kelly wasn't ready to talk about Friday's big game just yet. For Kelly and the Cardinals, it's been first things first this season. "Tomorrow's a practice day, we got to prepare for who we have in the championship and that's all I'm looking at right now - the next day," he said.

A 15-year-old Baltimore youth accused of driving a stolen car through the wall of a Carney bar is facing 17 additional charges, Baltimore County Deputy State's Attorney Howard Merker said yesterday. On Monday, officials charged the teen-ager as a juvenile with grand-theft auto and destruction of property; they also issued seven traffic citations. Police say the youth drove a Subaru Outback through a wall at Firehouse Tavern in the 2800 block of E. Joppa Road on the night of Aug. 14, injuring 16 patrons.

ROME -- Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's billionaire prime minister, made much of his money by offering soap operas and game shows and high-kick dancers on commercial television stations that drew almost half the country's viewers.For a man who won power in part by deploying his vast corporate resources in advertising and television, the unraveling his political fortunes has seemed an extraordinarily unscripted spectacle.Last week the prime minister was summoned before investigating magistrates in Milan to face seven hours of interrogation about suspected corruption at Fininvest, his business empire, an allegation he denies.

When Maryland takes the field at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis for Saturday's NCAA tournament quarterfinal matchup against No. 2 seed Johns Hopkins, Goran Murray will likely move to a spot opposite Zach Palmer and shadow the Blue Jays' junior attackman incessantly. That's been the role that the 6-foot, 175-pound defenseman has played in his freshman campaign. Having tangled with the likes of Virginia senior Steele Stanwick, Colgate junior Peter Baum, and Lehigh senior David DiMaria, being asked to contain an opponent's top attackman has become a matter of routine for Murray.

Don't be fooled. This baby can't be trusted. Quite suddenly, he cannot be relied upon to stay where he is put. Can you believe that? He's been rolling a bit for the past few weeks (so we've obviously been careful about where we lay him down), but now, he's rolling with purpose . Last night, he rolled across most of the living room to get to his big brother. The night before that, he saw me peeking in on him in his room and rolled -- and rotated himself! -- all the way to one end of his crib.