Great Britain

OOLTEWAH, Tenn. -- Janice Moodie of Scotland won the final hole yesterday to clinch a 9-9 tie with the United States, allowing the Great Britain-Ireland team to retain the Curtis Cup.Moodie defeated Carol Semple Thompson on the 18th green of the final match, 2 up, and earned the visitors the third tie in the history of the event that dates to 1932, and the first since 1958. The U.S. leads the series, 20-5-3.By virtue of the draw, Great Britain-Ireland retains the title it won in 1992 for another two years.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair told a Baltimore audience Tuesday night that the world's challenges have never been greater, nor come with such speed, and he advocated intervention in struggling countries by powers such as Great Britain and the United States. "I don't think there's been a more difficult time to be a political leader than now," Blair, who left office in 2007, told an audience of 2,800 at Loyola University Maryland. He described challenges posed by globalization and ever-evolving technology and said that "often the best short-term politics is in collision with the best long-term policy.

London--In the Victorian conservatory of The Old House at Shepperton Studios, Paul Olliver does a little pirouette and says: "Mr. Stallone? He's wonderful."The cherubic, well-coiffed Mr. Olliver, studio manager at Shepperton, has good reason to dance for joy. Mr. Sylvester Stallone is filming his $60 million seriocomic super-hero epic "Judge Dredd" at Shepperton.About half the budget is being spent in Britain and lots of it is coming to Shepperton Studios. Half a dozen of Shepperton's 17 enormous sound stages and even a parking lot are taken up with sets for "Judge Dredd's" post-post-post-modern Mega-City One opus.

Prepare for the British Invasion. This one, however, will be of the floral, not musical, variety. The nearly 200-year-old Philadelphia Flower Show runs March 2-10 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. This year's theme is "Brilliant!" with exhibits focusing on the landscapes, culture and beauty of Great Britain. The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society , which sponsors the event, has teamed up with Britain's Royal Horticultural Society to bring British designers, experts and presentations to the show, including Mark Lane, the head gardener for Buckingham Palace.

Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, began his speech a few moments before midnight. It was Aug. 14, 1947. India was about to become independent from Great Britain, and Pakistan was about to be born. Lord Mountbatten, the last British viceroy, would formally relinquish his office in the morning."At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom," Nehru told his country by radio. "A moment comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.

"Carousel" - a musical about the circularity of life has come full circle itself.Based on a 1909 European play, "Liliom" by Ferenc Molnar, it was musicalized and thoroughly Americanized in 1945 by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, who transported it from its Hungarian setting to the Maine coast.Now, the Europeans have made it their own again, as proved by the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain's splendid Tony Award-winning production at the Lyric Opera House through Sunday.The visual elements are the core of this beautifully realized revival.

"We are confident that we have stopped an attempt to create mass murder on an unimaginable scale" Paul Stephenson Stephenson, London's deputy metropolitan police commissioner, was commenting on the arrest of 21 alleged terrorists accused of plotting to blow up as many as nine U.S.-flag airliners while flying from Great Britain to the United States.

75 Years Ago* Yesterday, "Great Britain Day" was observed at the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Annapolis with the Rev. H. W. Burgan giving a lecture on "Our Obligation to Great Britain." On Dec. 13, a similar observance will be held in the House of Delegates with Judge Robert Moss presiding. -- The Sun, Dec. 9, 1918.* Postmaster T. J. Linthicum and staff in Annapolis have been swamped with Christmas mail with critical staff out with the flu. Motor Route A has been without mail since Friday.

THURSDAY'S TELEVISION HIGHLIGHTS MLB Mets@Washington (T) MASN9 a.m. Mets@Washington MASN12:30 Orioles@Minnesota MASN21 Orioles@Minnesota (T) MASN7 White Sox@Boston MLB7 Mets@Washington (T) MASN11:30 Basketball United States vs. Great Britain ESPN22 United States vs. Great Britain (T) NBA12:30 a.m. NBA Summer Lg.: Milwaukee vs. Wash. (T) NBANoon Summer Lg.: New York vs. Toronto NBA4 Summer Lg.: Boston vs. Sacra.

On September 14, 2005, DOROTHY I. MYERS, beloved wife of the late Wilson Myers, dear sister-in-law of Pauline Crockett, loving aunt of Patti Davidson and Ross Mise. Great-aunt to Dorline Davidson-Harvey and Robert Davidson and great-great-aunt to Rachel Harvey. Also survived by family in great Britain and friends and caring neighbors. Friends may call at the Bruzdzinski Funeral Home, P.A., 1407 Old Eastern Avenue, Essex at Rt. 702 (beltway exit 36), on Thursday from 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M. A Requiem Mass will be celebrated at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, 1131 Mace Ave. on Friday 11 A.M. Interment Holly Hills Memorial Gardens.

THURSDAY'S TELEVISION HIGHLIGHTS MLB Mets@Washington (T) MASN9 a.m. Mets@Washington MASN12:30 Orioles@Minnesota MASN21 Orioles@Minnesota (T) MASN7 White Sox@Boston MLB7 Mets@Washington (T) MASN11:30 Basketball United States vs. Great Britain ESPN22 United States vs. Great Britain (T) NBA12:30 a.m. NBA Summer Lg.: Milwaukee vs. Wash. (T) NBANoon Summer Lg.: New York vs. Toronto NBA4 Summer Lg.: Boston vs. Sacra.

As nations battle it out for sports supremacy at the Olympics in London this summer, we can all acknowledge that when it comes to fashion, the Brits have us beat. Vivienne Westwood, Victoria Beckham, Burberry, Kate Moss, Kate Middleton, Twiggy, the late Princess Diana and Alexander McQueen ... what is it about the British that allows them to excel at clothing design and setting standards? It starts with their willingness to try new colors and styles, according to Felicia Peele, head of Fashionably Young, a nonprofit fashion image consultant in Baltimore.

In the summer of 1776, more than a year after the start of the Revolutionary War, Maryland was among the last holdouts among the 13 colonies in authorizing a declaration of independence from Great Britain. The colony's major landholders, who dominated political affairs, were reluctant to take that step, but tradespeople, merchants and common citizens became increasingly convinced that reconciliation with England was impossible and agitated for a formal separation. The state's convention finally agreed to support independence on June 28, but communications in those days were slow.

Radcliffe runs down NYC Marathon title No. 3 running Paula Radcliffe defended her title at the New York City Marathon yesterday to become the second woman to win the race three times. Marilson Gomes dos Santos of Brazil won the men's race for the second time in three years, passing Abderrahim Goumri of Morocco with about a mile left. Unlike Radcliffe's tight victories in 2004 and 2007, the world-record holder from Great Britain pulled away from Ludmila Petrova in the 22nd mile to win comfortably in 2 hours, 23 minutes, 56 seconds.

President Bush's vision of a new Middle East was a badly executed push to encourage democracy around the world. It never fully appreciated the need for democracy movements to be home-grown and vastly underestimated the suspicion generated by U.S. interest in promoting such movements. And yet Mr. Bush wasn't wrong about the genuine desire of people to live in a country governed by democratic principles. Democracy has a robust following, especially among non-Western democracies, according to a recent poll of 19 nations by WorldPublicOpinion.

CAMP DAVID -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is regarded as a somber figure in his home country, in contrast to his predecessor, the energetic Tony Blair. But after spending four hours alone with the new British leader during dinner Sunday and a long breakfast yesterday, President Bush declared that conventional wisdom about Brown is distorted, and he said the relationship between the U.S. and Great Britain was as strong as ever, despite a change in leadership. "He's not the dour Scotsman that you describe him, or the awkward Scotsman.

Cmdr. Henry Duff-Still, former captain of a World War II British destroyer who later moved to Baltimore and pursued his love of boats and sailing, died Aug. 13 at Stella Maris Rehabilitation Center while recuperating from a hip fracture. He was 98. Born in England, he graduated from Eastbourne College in Sussex in 1918 and from Wye Agricultural College in Kent in 1921. He could not abide his first name and throughout adulthood was known to friends and family as "Harry." An avid sailboat racer, he volunteered for the Royal Navy in 1939.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair told a Baltimore audience Tuesday night that the world's challenges have never been greater, nor come with such speed, and he advocated intervention in struggling countries by powers such as Great Britain and the United States. "I don't think there's been a more difficult time to be a political leader than now," Blair, who left office in 2007, told an audience of 2,800 at Loyola University Maryland. He described challenges posed by globalization and ever-evolving technology and said that "often the best short-term politics is in collision with the best long-term policy.

Freedom's Power The True Force of Liberalism By Paul Starr Basic Books / 276 pages / $26 By 1988, when George H.W. Bush derided Michael S. Dukakis as a card-carrying member of the ACLU, "the L word" occupied a privileged position in the demonology of the American Right and, to no small extent, in the country at large. Dismissed as weak, feckless, process-oriented relativists, liberals began to call themselves progressives or disavowed any label at all. The Democratic Party lost its way - and its majority in both houses of Congress.

Rupert Murdoch's $5 billion bid yesterday for Dow Jones & Co. typifies the audacity of the often-controversial chairman and chief executive of News Corp. Audacity and fast moves are Murdoch's style. And mostly, he makes a lot of money. His News Corp. kingdom includes the Fox TV and cable network, the New York Post, DirecTV, British Sky Broadcasting, Twentieth Century Fox, Myspace.com, Harper Collins and much more in America, Britain, continental Europe, Australia and elsewhere.