Gavel

If Devil His Due wins his second straight Pimlico Specialtoday, he moves into an elite group of thoroughbreds.The $360,000 winner's share will increase the horse's lifetime earnings to $3,182,485 and rank him 20th on the list of all-time leading money earners.Only 22 horses in the history of the sport have earned $3 million or more. The leader is Alysheba, who retired in 1988 with winnings of $6,679,242.Devil His Due currently has $2,822,485 in winnings, making him the third-leading money earner in training.

The international art world will cast a glance at Baltimore County next week as the remaining fine and decorative-art antiques from the vast Cloisters Collection go on the auction block at the State Fairgrounds in Timonium.The March 25 sale of items from the eclectic collection of the late Sumner A. and G. Dudrea Parker will be the fourth held locally this year.The couple amassed the Continental and American antiques, which date from the 17th to the 19th centuries, during their annual European trips.

The second annual Maryland Kids Convention will be held today and tomorrow at Towson State University. Sponsored by the Governor's Office for Children, Youth and Families and the Maryland State Department of Education, the Kids Convention will feature live entertainment, art activities, storytelling, a hands-on science arcade and many other activities.The event will be held in the Towson Center from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days. Admission is $2.50 per person. Family tickets are available for $7. Children younger than 3 are admitted free.

Move over Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw. Make way for Megadeth's Dave Mustaine, Dr. Ruth Westheimer and "Saturday Night Live's" Al Franken.The traditional networks -- CBS, NBC and ABC -- are planning cut-to-the-bone coverage of this week's Democratic National Convention. But that doesn't mean there will be less TV coverage for Bill Clinton & Co. in New York starting today.In fact, there will be more overall convention coverage than ever before. Much of it will be different from what anyone is familiar with.

Hand it to veteran lobbyist James J. Doyle Jr., perhaps the only paid persuader in town who can use Maryland's budget problems as a reason to kill a bill that would raise more money for the state.The bill would create a $1 million investment adviser guaranty fund to help pay victims of securities fraud. It would do so by imposing an annual $50 assessment on every registered investment adviser; the assessment could rise if the payout from the fund increases.Here was one of the arguments that Mr. Doyle, who represents IDS Financial Services, used against the bill before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee last week:"In a year like this, when the legislature doesn't know how to handle, or what to do with the taxes it does have, or how to raise new ones, this is the worst time to be considering an experiment like this."

The House of Delegates can be an unruly bunch.It's not uncommon for many of the 141 delegates to be talking privately to one another while a colleague has the floor.Speaker R. Clayton Mitchell Jr. often has to whack his gavel hard to quiet the group down. So hard, in fact, that he has been known to break a gavel or two.Last week the clerks who sit in front of him decided to take precautions against gavel shrapnel. Three donned neon-colored headgear -- possibly inspired by the week's hottest item, a mandatory helmet law for motorcyclists?

The Thomas hearings will be televised in their entirety starting at 10 a.m. today on CNN and C-SPAN II. The Public Broadcasting System, including Channels 22 and 67 here, will also air gavel-to-gavel coverage.ABC, CBS and NBC will likewise provide coverage beginning at 10 a.m., and all three local affiliates -- WMAR (Channel 2), WBAL (Channel 11) and WJZ (Channel 13) -- said yesterday that they plan to carry the hearings at least through this morning. All left open the possibility, however, of switching to regular programming throughout the day. Coverage during the weekend has not yet been determined.

National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System are joining forces to provide gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Senate confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas that begin this week, but Maryland listeners and viewers won't be able to take full advantage of their efforts.Baltimore NPR affiliate WJHU-FM (88.1) isn't planning to air live coverage of the hearings, while Maryland Public Television will broadcast the afternoon sessions.The opening of the Thomas hearings Tuesday will also be carried live on cable TV's C-SPAN.

In the office of the administrative judge of Baltimore's District Court, two desks and two credenzas have been pushed together to form a large rectangle of dark wood on which sit stacks of legal journals, court papers and law books.Colleagues of Judge Joseph A. Ciotola say it's easy to understand why the stacks are so tall and the space to hold them so large: Judge Ciotola, who arrives for work at 5:30 a.m. and leaves well after the last case is heard, oversees Maryland's busiest and largest lower court system.

The Assembly's antics: mallet as gavel, 'bald caucus'Amid all the serious stuff, the General Assembly has its moments of merriment.At one point last week, while House Speaker R. Clayton Mitchell Jr., D-Eastern Shore, was trying to gavel the delegates to order with a croquet mallet -- his regular gavel was cracked -- Del. Timothy F. Maloney, D-Prince George's, walked across the chamber floor, his hand in his coat pocket squeezing one of those electronic "executive...