Funeral

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that a fundamentalist Kansas church's protest outside the funeral of a Westminster Marine killed in Iraq is protected speech and did not violate the privacy of the service member's family, reversing a lower court's $5 million award. The ruling from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., held that the signs and writings of the Westboro Baptist Church, which included anti-gay and anti-military messages, are protected by the First Amendment.

Saying it seemed "like a reasonable use of the money," Baltimore Police Commissioner Edward T. Norris yesterday defended using a little-known departmental fund to finance a trip to attend a funeral in Manhattan and a job interview in Long Island. Norris said he interviewed for the top police post in Nassau County in December because Mayor Martin O'Malley was considering a run for governor. O'Malley later decided not to run. "I was just keeping my options open," Norris said. Norris' trip to New York for the funeral and interview was financed by a loosely monitored account that he used to pay more than $178,000 in expenses during the past two years.

There were no angry diatribes, no hateful words, in the Community Church of Christ yesterday. There was only the love of family and friends, who clapped hands and sang for the spirit of Nicole "Nikki" Edmonds. They leaned on one another. They shouted "praise Jesus" and "hallelujah!" as they wept at her funeral in East Baltimore. And, led by her older brother Quentin and his stirring eulogy, more than 250 people mourned her loss and prayed for her attackers. Edmonds, 17, was stabbed after midnight Tuesday, while walking away from the light rail stop on West North Avenue with her younger brother Marcus.

NEW YORK -- The two worlds of Jonathan Levin came together yesterday as teen-agers from the South Bronx and titans of industry gathered for the funeral of the slain schoolteacher and son of Time Warner's chief executive.Grief proved a powerful uniting force as students and moguls alike expressed similar sentiments: admiration for the way Levin lived his life teaching poor youngsters at a public high school and disbelief at the grisly way he died. He was found shot to death -- his feet bound and chest stabbed -- in his Upper West Side apartment Monday night.

At times, it was difficult to hear the soloists over the wails. And some relatives of Ciara Jobes were so overcome with emotion yesterday that they had to be escorted from the chapel. For more than two hours, about 250 mourners prayed for, grieved for and shouted about the death a girl many barely knew. The emaciated body of the 15-year-old was found in an apartment on Gregor Way last week. She weighed 73 pounds, and her body was covered with cuts and bruises. Her legal guardian, Satrina Roberts, 31, has been charged with first-degree murder.

TEMPE, Ariz. - The first potential distraction to this season's national championship game occurred yesterday when Ohio State's star tailback, Maurice Clarett, revealed that he would rather be home attending the funeral of a lifelong friend than preparing for Friday's Fiesta Bowl against top-ranked Miami. "I guess football's more important than a person's life to them," Clarett said of school officials at yesterday's news conference. "That's why I'm ready to get this game over with and go back home.

Edgar Allan Poe is finally getting the send-off he always deserved - from a city that has spent decades claiming him as one of its own. True, he's spent more than a century and a half buried in the hallowed grounds surrounding Baltimore's Westminster Hall. It's also true that Baltimore isn't the only city celebrating Poe, in this bicentennial of his birth on Jan. 19, 1809. At least four other East Coast cities - Richmond, Va., Philadelphia, New York and Boston - have legitimate claims to Poe's legacy.

People planning to drive into or around Baltimore tomorrow should prepare for delays as police close roads and highways for the funeral of Officer Harold J. Carey, who was killed in a collision of police vehicles Friday.The funeral is scheduled to begin at 11: 30 a.m. at Central Church of Christ at 4301 Woodridge Road, just off U.S. 40 in West Baltimore. Police are expected to begin gathering at Edmondson Village Shopping Center at 9 a.m.Police said several lanes of Edmondson Avenue -- U.S. 40, a major route into the city -- will be closed throughout the morning starting about 9 a.m. as thousands of officers gather.

Jonathan Ogden made his first appearance at Ravens training camp at McDaniel College yesterday. Naturally, football was not the first thing on the offensive tackle's mind. Ogden's father, Shirrel, died last Wednesday, and his funeral is set for Friday. The team has canceled Friday's afternoon practice sessions to allow players to attend the funeral. (The "young players" - as noted in the team's news release - will participate in a one-hour walkthrough that afternoon.) Jonathan Ogden, a nine-time Pro Bowl player, has been excused from the first four days of training camp to help make arrangements for the funeral.

In the packed Greater Bethlehem Temple church in Baltimore County, some sang. Some praised the Lord. And some wept.Facing the crowd were five caskets -- three of them tiny, white and adorned with small teddy bears.But ministers remembering the two women and three children killed in a Northwest Baltimore house fire Jan. 14 -- a blaze that police are investigating as a possible arson -- told mourners it was not God who caused their deaths."Let us not indict God for anything like this," said Elder George Hylton, an associate minister at the church.