Family Leave

ACCOKEEK - A conservative Episcopal priest who has been serving as rector of a Prince George's County parish in defiance of a bishop's attempts to oust him said yesterday that he will obey a federal court order barring him from the church while he seeks to have the ruling overturned on appeal. The Rev. Samuel L. Edwards, 47, speaking in front of the white-clapboard rectory because he is barred from the grounds of the adjacent Christ Church in Accokeek, said that he defied the acting bishop of Washington, but will not defy civil authority.

He's arranged seating for confirmations and weddings because warring parents couldn't agree on who would sit where. He's thrilled and disappointed thousands of adults in decisions on child custody and support. In nearly two decades on the bench, Judge James C. Cawood Jr. has presided over the dissolution of countless failed relationships, and he's patiently dealt with the couples who return to his courtroom year after year. "When a case comes in, everybody loves you. When they keep coming back, at least one of them doesn't love you," Cawood said with characteristically dry wit. At 65, Cawood, considered the grandfather of family law matters in the county and an expert in the field throughout the state, is leaving the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court bench.

IT IS BASKETBALL season and it is wrestling season, and I have a basketball player and a wrestler under my roof. For the next three months, it will be necessary for me to be at two different gyms at once after traveling all over the county in opposite directions. Meals will amount to one long hum from a microwave, except for the wrestler, who doesn't eat, and the basketball player, who will be starving all the time but eating out of a paper bag on a bus. I don't know whether to shop and cook or leave breadcrumbs up the driveway to my front door.

HAVANA - With tears and jubilation, Cubans welcomed Elian Gonzalez back to his homeland last night, his seven-month American odyssey ended exactly the way many who fought to keep in him the United States feared - with the boy engulfed in a controlled, flag-waving show of national victory. The 6-year-old Elian, accompanied by his father, family and friends, landed at Jose Marti Airport here about 7:45 p.m., touching off cheers from the hundreds of schoolchildren organized as a welcoming party on the tarmac and quiet joy among Cubans watching live coverage of the return of a prodigal son. "Tears come to my eyes because I am a mother and I have been wishing a long time for him to come back," said Eloina Matos, 36, a waitress at an outdoor cafM-i in Havana where a small group of employees and customers were glued to the TV and its wall-to-wall coverage.

THE UNITED STATES does not have a proud history with respect to family leave policy. On the eve of World War II, it was one of only three industrialized countries that had not adopted any policy to address the needs of working families. It took four decades before the first family leave bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by Colorado Democrat Patricia Schroeder and another eight years before it passed and was signed into law by President Clinton in 1993. Between 1985 and 1993, about 27 states had adopted some version of a leave policy.

WASHINGTON -- As potential Senate candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton narrows her house-hunting search to the tony New York City suburbs of Westchester County, the question of exactly which multimillion-dollar estate she will choose is upstaging another, equally crucial detail: How on earth will she pay for it?The Clintons, the presidential couple with the highest legal debts in history, initially took an interest in properties approaching $4 million, with horse pastures and winding private driveways that keep the riffraff away.

At exactly noon yesterday, Lester Jenkins turned his rented U-Haul away from the blue-painted rowhouse where he had lived the past 14 years and left Leo Street behind, without a tear or a glance back. "Goodbye to the past," he said, passing three oil tank farms and a herbicide factory.Four minutes later, the 45-year-old plumber parked in front of his new home and said hello to his future: a well-maintained, two-bedroom rowhouse in Brooklyn, less than two miles west."This new world is beautiful, ain't it?"

BRAZDA, Macedonia -- At a makeshift school in a refugee camp, it was 5-year-old Jeton Hasani's turn to tell his story of what happened in Kosovo.With the teacher at his side, Jeton started to talk in a matter-of-fact tone."

THE BALTIMORE federal court verdict affirming a state trooper's right to take family leave sends a strong message to employers.Despite a 1993 federal law requiring employers to give men and women up to 12 weeks unpaid leave for the birth of a child or for family medical reasons, the Maryland State Police insisted on their own 10-day parental leave policy for Tfc. Howard Kevin Knussman. The officer, who was denied extended leave in 1994, was awarded $375,000 damages by a jury last week.Men have struggled against workplace bias that discourages their use of parental leave.

A tightly divided Annapolis City Council rejected last night an ordinance that would have set standards for the benefits of municipal employees whose departments or jobs are turned over to the private sector.The measure -- defeated on a 5-4 vote -- would have protected employee benefits in cases where the council disbands a city service unit and hires a private provider for the services."I don't believe this is a bill for the employee," said Republican Alderman Wayne C. Turner, who voted against it. "It's a bill against good government."