Fate

To borrow a gambling analogy, news this week that voters would finally decide the fate of slots in Maryland felt an awful lot like pulling the arm of a machine and watching a series of cherries pop up. A winner! Jackpot! Payday! But don't let the flashing lights and ringing sirens fool you - there was no payoff pouring out of the machine, not for the horse racing industry anyway. At the track, even when we have a photo finish, it's still simple to sort out the winners and losers. At the State House, it's not so easy.

JERUSALEM -- Israel's attorney general said yesterday that prosecutors have enough evidence to charge President Moshe Katsav with raping or sexually harassing female subordinates while serving in his current post and earlier as tourism minister. But Attorney General Menachem Mazuz said a decision on whether to issue a first-ever criminal indictment against an Israeli president would depend on the outcome of a hearing during which Katsav has the right to rebut the allegations. Mazuz said the hearing would be scheduled in coming days.

What could have been a night for the ages was instead a night for the aging. And young football fans all over Baltimore collectively lost their innocence. Daddy, why is that man in purple crying? Geez, these Ravens sure got old fast, didn't they? One by one, we watched a nucleus of veterans fall apart, drifting from the huddle toward the sideline, each clutching a different body part and grimacing. Ray Lewis strained his triceps and immediately gave a much more dire prognosis than the team doctor, at least in Lewis' unprofessional opinion.

In his current life as an Ellicott City farmer -- dependent upon fate -- former state Senate President James Clark Jr. prays for rain. Not much, just the inch per week the crops on his 548-acre spread demand."

The fate of a planned 300-acre regional park in Columbia might not be decided for at least 11 months under a ruling yesterday by a Howard County judge.Circuit Judge Raymond J. Kane Jr. postponed the trial of a lawsuit that has held up development of the land, which the county and the state bought in August 1998 with the goal of creating athletic fields. Unless Kane throws out the suit, the next trial date will be November 2000 at the earliest.His decision yesterday surprised both sides in the suit, brought by a friend of the late Elizabeth C. "Nancy" Smith, who owned the land straddling Route 175. The friend, Ohio physics teacher Byron C. Hall, brought the suit, seeking to prevent the former farm's sale and preserve the land.

A Howard County Circuit Court jury was deliberating late last night the fate of an 18-year-old Baltimore man accused of attempted murder in one of two Harper's Choice shootings in September.After closing arguments by Assistant State's Attorney Christine B. Gage and defense attorney Richard Bernhardt, the jury retired to the deliberation room about 8: 45 p.m. to weigh the state's case against Robert Joseph Manning.Manning testified Wednesday that another man shot John Gordon Jackson, 38, formerly of Columbia, near the Fall River Terrace apartments Sept.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton left open the possibility that a 6-year-old Cuban boy caught in a fractious, international custody dispute could remain in the United States, though he vowed that "that politics or threats" would not determine the boy's fate.In an hour-long news conference that roved from the future of his marriage to the fate of the Panama Canal, Clinton tried to sum up a tumultuous year that started with his impeachment trial and will end weeks after the collapse of trade talks in Seattle.

Following fate in Portugal; My Favorite PlaceBy Jennifer DeRoseSpecial to the SunPortugal's southern coast is packed with resorts popular with sun-starved German and English tourists, but we flew into Oporto, to the north. Touring around in a rental car, we soon felt more like time travelers than tourists. In the Portuguese countryside, peasant women still wear coarse black dresses and head scarves. In the town of Coimbra, university students proudly sport full-length black cloaks indicating their status as scholars.

EVEN AFTER Tuesday's public auction of $140,000 in assets of the bankrupt Columbus Center, Baltimore and the state stand to lose $6 million in the proposed state takeover. Nevertheless, the deal benefits taxpayers.This way, the Inner Harbor research complex, which opened with high hopes and great fanfare in 1995, at least will retain some of its promise as a showcase for breakthroughs in marine biology. Once the deal clears the legal hurdles, the University System of Maryland, which will control the landmark building, must fulfill two goals:1)

A story line retired a month ago -- Antoine Brockington responsible for his team's fate -- is making a brief comeback.Brockington, whose college career at Coppin State ended with a loss in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference finals, hit two go-ahead free throws with 17 seconds left to give the North team an 87-83 win over the South in the Black College All-Star Classic, yesterday at the Baltimore Arena.Such heroics hardly seemed necessary when the North held a 19-point lead. But the South stormed back to take an 83-80 lead on a three-pointer by Steven Mattair of Miles College with 56 seconds left.

The 70-year-old Senator Theatre, the last holdout from the golden age of Baltimore movie houses, is scheduled to go on the auction block Wednesday. Owner Tom Kiefaber, while insisting he accepts that his days of running the theater are numbered, is determined not to let something as arbitrary as an auction decide the building's fate. Kiefaber, who has been showing classic films and selling memorabilia out of the theater lobby since shortly after showing his last first-run film on March 15, accuses city officials of playing "Russian roulette" with the theater if they allow the auction to go on as planned.

The Senator Theatre stopped selling tickets Sunday night, as owner Tom Kiefaber unexpectedly closed the financially troubled movie house. Kiefaber said a plan to preserve the building's interior, however well-intentioned, contributed to his decision to stop showing first-run films. The proposal, by the city's Commission for Historic and Architectural Preservation, would severely restrict any structural changes that could be made to the Senator's interior. In the long term, Kiefaber said yesterday, that would affect the building's value by limiting a prospective buyer's options.

So what now? With Brian Billick gone, the repercussions throughout the Ravens' locker room probably will be enormous. But of all the players who might be affected, none is as vulnerable as quarterback Kyle Boller. Boller was clearly Billick's guy. The former first-round draft pick fit the profile Billick preferred: big, athletic, strong-armed. But Boller never performed with the consistency that would convince anyone that he was starting timber in the NFL. While it's impossible to tell how a new coach will evaluate the quarterbacks on the roster and those available in free agency or in the draft, the end of Billick's time in Baltimore probably means the same fate awaits Boller.

To borrow a gambling analogy, news this week that voters would finally decide the fate of slots in Maryland felt an awful lot like pulling the arm of a machine and watching a series of cherries pop up. A winner! Jackpot! Payday! But don't let the flashing lights and ringing sirens fool you - there was no payoff pouring out of the machine, not for the horse racing industry anyway. At the track, even when we have a photo finish, it's still simple to sort out the winners and losers. At the State House, it's not so easy.

The ball seemed to hang in the air forever, slowly bouncing around the yellow field-goal posts like a misshapen leather pinball. The game clock already had hit zeros, and, within minutes, players would prematurely fill the locker rooms while fans prematurely filled the parking lots. If football truly were poetry - if Billy Collins or the ghost of Emily Dickinson had seats reserved in the press box and the playbooks were filled with pages of metaphors - that ball would've slowly fallen to the earth with two different fates scripted on either side of the crossbar.

What could have been a night for the ages was instead a night for the aging. And young football fans all over Baltimore collectively lost their innocence. Daddy, why is that man in purple crying? Geez, these Ravens sure got old fast, didn't they? One by one, we watched a nucleus of veterans fall apart, drifting from the huddle toward the sideline, each clutching a different body part and grimacing. Ray Lewis strained his triceps and immediately gave a much more dire prognosis than the team doctor, at least in Lewis' unprofessional opinion.

MOB BOSS SUPREME TONY Soprano (James Gandolfini) these days tells himself that every day is a gift, but after being shot in the abdomen, simply eating sausage threatens to put him back in the emergency room. Rival mafioso Phil Leotardo (Frank Vincent) is back on the streets, but after quintuple bypass surgery and a near-fatal post-op infection, he's just hoping to make it to retirement. PAGE 7E ONLINE DECIDE TONY'S FATE How will it end for Tony Soprano? When the last episode of The Sopranos airs on June 10, will Tony live or die?

COLLEGE PARK-- -- If you haven't seen it, here's what the crossroads looks like: There's wall-to-wall carpeting and a giant school logo covering much of the floor. There's a flat-screen TV hanging on one wall and wooden lockers lining the other three. And there are photos of each member of the Maryland men's basketball team and 24-inch stools in front of each locker. This is where each player sat during halftime last night and considered the only two directions possible. When the pivotal game against Florida State had reached its midpoint, the Terps entered the locker room as one team and a few minutes later exited as a different one. There will be bigger games and maybe the meaning of last night's 73-55 win over the Seminoles will fade with time.

JERUSALEM -- Israel's attorney general said yesterday that prosecutors have enough evidence to charge President Moshe Katsav with raping or sexually harassing female subordinates while serving in his current post and earlier as tourism minister. But Attorney General Menachem Mazuz said a decision on whether to issue a first-ever criminal indictment against an Israeli president would depend on the outcome of a hearing during which Katsav has the right to rebut the allegations. Mazuz said the hearing would be scheduled in coming days.

Skylight Confessions Alice Hoffman Little, Brown & Co. / 262 pages / $24.95 Magic and superstition are mainstays in the lives of most of us, even if we are reluctant to admit it. We believe in fate, in luck, in worlds beyond our own, in the power of love to alter our lives. We absent-mindedly toss the spilled salt over our shoulder, avoid the open ladder, step away from the black cat, take care with the number 13. We have talismans we hope will protect us or bring us good fortune. We wish on stars and pluck the petals of daisies and pray for true love to find us and lead us to happiness.