Government Offices

Wednesday's storm has spurred these closings and cancellations: Government and schools • Most area schools and government offices, including the state and federal government, will be closed today. Harford County and Carroll County government offices are closed Friday. • Trash and recycling pickup will be suspended. • Post offices are open and mail carriers will resume deliveries Thursday, according to the U.S. Postal Service. But residents must clear away the snow from their mailboxes as well as a path leading to the receptacles, the Postal Service warned.

JERUSALEM -- Claiming that Yasser Arafat's self-rule government is seeking an unacceptable toehold in Jerusalem, Israel yesterday issued orders for three Palestinian offices to close.Israeli officials said the offices in Arab East Jerusalem violate the 1993 peace accord and are an attempt to establish a de facto Palestinian government in the city that Israel maintains is its capital.However, Orient House, a powerful symbol to the Palestinians and a target of hard-line Israeli protesters, was not among the offices ordered shut.

MOSCOW -- Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin imposed his own version of the Hatch Act yesterday, declaring that his republic's government workers had to stop politicking on the job.In the Soviet Union -- in sharp contrast to the United States, where the Hatch Act forbids political activity on government time for legions of federal workers -- Communist Party membership has practically been a prerequisite for a career-minded worker.For decades, ambitious Russian government workers knew if they wanted to get ahead, they had to be practicing Communists, on the job and off. With his decree yesterday, Mr. Yeltsin -- who won office as Russia's first elected president after he himself quit the Communist Party -- was backing up his campaign promises to dismantle the party cells that have been an integral part of government and industry.

The chief executive officer of Harford County is the county executive and heads the executive branch of the county’s government. Elected every four years, the county executive is aided by a cabinet composed of directors from 23 departments and agencies including Public Works, Treasury, Planning and Zoning, Community Services, Economic Development, and Parks and Recreation. The seven-member Harford County Council operates as the legislative branch. Six council members are elected every four years, one from each of the county’s six voting districts.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Suspected Taliban fighters killed at least seven people and wounded two in a bold attack early yesterday on a government district office in the southern Afghan province of Zabul, local security officials said. An American soldier was wounded in a separate attack yesterday when gunmen opened fire on a Special Forces unit training the Afghan National Army on a firing range on the edge of Kabul, the capital. NATO peacekeepers in Kabul captured a man suspected of being one of the three gunmen, said a spokesman for the U.S. military at Bagram Air Base.

BAGHDAD -- Hundreds of U.S. and Iraqi troops raided Baghdad's Sadr City slum yesterday, a day after five British citizens were kidnapped from a nearby government building in an assault that the foreign minister said bore the hallmarks of a militia strike. Two Iraqis working for the U.S. Embassy also were kidnapped yesterday, and at least 48 Iraqis were killed in other violence across Iraq. Among them were two journalists. The U.S. military announced the deaths of two soldiers in a roadside bombing yesterday, and a noncombat death of a soldier the previous day. The joint forces sealed off parts of the vast Shiite slum that is a bastion of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia during the early morning and went into homes to demand information about the missing Britons, residents said.

For his final run, Tom Penkilo will tuck a stack of folders under his arm and head for the marble halls of Baltimore County's government -- as usual, a man on a mission.Whether he's toting memorandums to the Plumbing Board or a document to the county attorney for a signature, the 62-year-old messenger reveals the dependability and flair that have made him an institution among the county's 7,000 employees."Last Halloween, Tom made his deliveries wearing a turban," Dianne Saunders of the county Law Office said of Penkilo, who retires this week after 10 years with the county.

No one makes whiskey any longer on Sollers Point Road in Dundalk, where the old distillery stands empty, the weeds poke through the paving and graffiti marks the brick walls. Joseph E. Seagram & Sons closed its bottling plant there in the late 1980s, and it's been empty for years, considered an eyesore by many neighbors and the scene of several recent fires. The latest owner of these desolate 14.5 acres is planning a redevelopment, and one of his ideas involves moving county-owned offices there, freeing up a nearby property for "big box" stores at one of the biggest crossroads in Dundalk.

County government offices to be closed for King Day Carroll County government offices will be closed tomorrow for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Carroll County public libraries, public schools and senior centers will be closed. Northern Landfill and the Recycling Center will be open.

Howard County government offices, courts and public libraries will be closed tomorrow in observance of Veterans Day.The Alpha Ridge Landfill, curbside recycling and trash collection will continue regular Monday schedules.