Independent

Super Pride Markets, one of Baltimore's largest independent supermarket chains, has closed two of its eight stores and will soon close a third. Supermarkets on East Chase Street and Liberty Heights Avenue have closed, a company source said yesterday. Employees at the East Northern Parkway location said that store is preparing to close. Two years ago, the 30-year-old chain had remodeled a store in Cherry Hill and hoped to expand into underserved, urban areas outside Baltimore, the chain's president, Oscar Smith Jr., had said.

WASHINGTON -- Four of the nation's largest broadcast radio companies have agreed to pay a combined $12.5 million to settle a federal investigation into "pay-for-play" practices. The stations also agreed to provide thousands of hours of free airtime to local musicians and independent record labels, sources familiar with the agreement said yesterday. Under terms of the agreement, Clear Channel Communications Inc., the nation's largest radio station owner; CBS Radio Inc., Entercom Communications Corp.

A Westminster coffee shop is planning the city's first "Pride Awareness Day," an event designed to bring together heterosexuals and homosexuals for a costume party, music and AIDS education.The Independent Underground coffee shop and retail store at 85 W. Main St. is planning the party after spending the past four weeks smoothing a rocky relationship with some neighbors.Westminster police, who received 33 calls from the time of the coffee shop's opening in mid-February to April 30, say complaints have decreased since then.

FEW WORDS INVOKE stronger negative feelings among Americans than "secession." But in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Quebec, secession is associated with freedom, democracy, and the aspirations of the oppressed - as was the case when the United States was founded in 1776.With the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, secession fever has spread all over Europe. The former Soviet Union split into 15 independent republics, many of which have their own internal secessionist groups which are striving for independence as well.

MORE THAN A YEAR after a devastating sneak attack was orchestrated on American soil, Congress is finally on the verge of launching an independent outside investigation of why the nearly 3,000 killed were left so utterly unprotected. The national bipartisan commission being created to conduct the inquiry is long overdue, but more welcome than ever. From what a much narrower probe by the congressional intelligence committees has learned so far, it's clear there were plenty of warning signals that went unheeded by the leaders of the intelligence community.

JUST IN TIME to chip away at this year's long-awaited Wall Street rebound, the recent accusations of illegal or improper dealings by certain large mutual funds are more than a confidence-shaker. They're a sharp reminder that this burgeoning industry's broader practices are ripe for tighter regulation to better protect the owners of these funds, their shareholders. Until New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer this month charged a handful of funds with allowing favored insiders to engage in illegal late trades and improper market timing - at the expense of other, less well-positioned fund investors - these much-touted investment vehicles have largely escaped the scandals rippling through corporate America the last two years.

BOOT HILL" was a cheesy, fake, run-down cemetery across the railroad tracks from the station where the steam train took tourists for a short ride on weekends. My family took that ride enough times that I came to know the cemetery's bad jokes by heart. Among the fictitious people resting in peace was the town doctor, who "died from his own medicine, but at least that heartburn ain't botherin' him no more." When you look at how regulators and legislators are resolving issues raised by improper fund trading, you sometimes have to wonder if funds or shareholders might be headed for Boot Hill, killed by a cure that is worse than living with the disease they've got. Between regulatory proposals and legislative issues, there are well over 100 different ideas being kicked around for "reforming" mutual funds.

Just how independent are those corporate directors? That's a question experts say investors ought to ask when they look at a company. A look at a company's annual proxy statement can determine whether it is doing business with directors or their firms, and if so, how much. An analysis of the 30 companies that make up the Dow Jones industrial average found that at least 22 had such dealings, known as related-party transactions, with directors or executives last year; another two said they might have had such dealings but that they didn't meet disclosure thresholds.

WASHINGTON -- In purely political terms, the prudent course for Attorney General Janet Reno would be to name a special prosecutor to look into Democratic fund-raising for the 1996 campaign. Such a decision would insulate her from the charges she is trying to cover up a scandal embarrassing to President Clinton.But the Republican reaction to her refusal to do so has been so extreme that the political equities may be quite different from what they appeared to be.Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich accused Ms. Reno ofbehaving like a latter-day John N. Mitchell, the late attorney general who helped in the Watergate cover-up for President Richard M. Nixon in 1973.

MINSK, Belarus -- Thousands of demonstrators gathered here last night even as President Alexander Lukashenko seemed assured of an overwhelming re-election victory, as unofficial results showed him receiving more than 80 percent of the vote and his nearest competitor about 2 percent. Supporters of the main opposition candidate, Alexander Milinkevich, dismissed those figures, pointing to different polling data that indicated Lukashenko had failed to receive the 50 percent necessary to avoid a runoff.