Lansing

UMBC has received oral commitments from Matt Skalsky, a 6-foot-4 guard from East Lansing, Mich., and Anthony Thompson, a 6-2 guard from Allegany Community College.Skalsky was a sixth-team all-state selection in Michigan. A three-year starter, he averaged 18.6 points and 3.5 assists.Thompson, from Parkdale High in Riverdale, Md., was a Region XX all-star this past season, when he averaged 16.0 points and 3.5 assists.

Stephen C. Bounds, a 44-year-old Woodbine attorney in his last year of a six-year term on the Howard County school board, confirmed last night that he is a finalist for the school superintendent's job in Lansing, Mich. Bounds is the only incumbent up for re-election in the county's March 7 school board primary. He said that he was a "semifinalist" for the job in Lansing, which has a school system of some 19,000 students. School officials in Lansing, Bounds said, will be interviewing candidates March 6, 7 and 8 before narrowing the field to two or three hopefuls.

Altec Lansing speakers deliver at reasonable cost Not everyone has space around his computer for four or five satellite speakers and a subwoofer. And many of us don't want to pay $200 or more just to get good sound out of our PCs. Altec Lansing's Model 2100 solves both problems. It's a three-piece system that costs only $100 and delivers excellent sound without requiring you to lay down wires and hang a bunch of speakers like Christmas decorations on the walls and shelves around your computer.

LOS ANGELES -- Lyle and Erik Menendez killed their parents, then confessed to a therapist that they were driven by hatred and the desire to be free from their father's "domination and impossible standards," prosecutors said as the brothers went on trial for murder.In their opening statements yesterday, defense attorneys countered that what the brothers wanted to be free from was physical, emotional and sexual abuse. After threatening to expose the abuse, the brothers killed their parents in the living room of the family's $4 million Beverly Hills, Calif.

Athletics: Oakland has been shut out five times in the past 15 games.Blue Jays: The team concluded a nine-day, 10-game road trip with a 2-8 record.Braves: Second baseman Mark Lemke sat out with a sore shoulder sustained when he was upended on a double play Monday night.Expos: Second baseman Mike Lansing missed his fourth straight game because of a strained left rib cage. Mark Grudzielanek hit his major-league-leading 40th double in the fifth.Pub Date: 8/06/97

Hitting Moises Alou, Astros: 3-for-5, HR, 3 RBIs. Mike Lieberthal, Phillies: 4-for-5, 1 RBI, 2 runs. Tony Womack, Pirates: 3-for-4, 2 runs, stolen base. Curtis Pride, Braves: 1-for-3, walk, HR, 2 RBIs, 4 runs. Tony Graffanino, Braves: 4-for-4, HR, 2 RBIs, 3 runs. Matt Luke, Dodgers: 3-for-3, 2 HRs, 3 RBIs, 3 runs. Mike Lansing, Rockies: 2-for-5, double, HR, 3 RBIs. Pitching Chris Peters, Pirates: 7 IP, 5 hits, 1 run. Pub Date: 7/20/98

HittingMike Lansing, Rockies: 3 HRs, 4 RBIs.Karim Garcia, Diamondbacks: 2 HRs, 3 RBIs.Kelly Stinnett, Diamondbacks: 3-for-4, HR.Barry Bonds, Giants: 3-for-3, HR, triple, 3 RBIs.Joe Carter, Giants: 3-for-3, double, RBI.Aaron Boone, Reds: 3-for-4, 3 RBIs.Ron Gant, Cardinals: 2-for-2, HR, 3 RBIs.PitchingMatt Morris, Cardinals:9 innings, 5 hits, 0 runs, 0 walks, 10 strikeouts.Terry Mulholland, Cubs: 8 innings, 6 hits, 1 run.Chan Ho Park, Dodgers: 8 innings, 6 hits, 2 runs, 6 strikeouts.Kevin Millwood, Braves: 5 innings, 6 hits, 1 run, 5 strikeouts.

"There is one area where the teaching research is definitive: The best way to teach childre to read is phonics. No new theory or method has ever improved on it." -- Gov. George W. Bush, speaking to members of the Latin Business association in Los angeles, about school reform and student achievment "We should test new elementary school teachers...as a part of a national crusade to ensure that every child can read independently and well by the end of the third grade." -- Vice President Al Gore, in remarks prepared for delivery to the Michigan Education Association in Lansing

MALCOLM: THE LIFEOF A MAN WHO CHANGEDBLACK AMERICA.Bruce Perry.Station Hill Press.542 pages. $24.95.Before reading this book, admirers of Malcolm X had best sit down and have a stiff belt of their favorite potent potable. According to Bruce Perry, Malcolm X -- born Malcolm Little -- was considered a sissy by his boyhood companions; had serious doubts about his manhood and a streak of misogyny that drove him to at least two homosexual trysts in his teen years; and firebombed his own house the week before his assassination Feb. 21, 1965.

Studio chiefs have come and gone in Hollywood history, some of them trailing slime and some of them gentlemen of the old school. But Sherry Lansing, the first of their number not to be of their gender, did something no one, before or since, had ever thought of, and it stunned a town where rumors insist that writers' skeletal remains have been discovered clutching dusty, silent telephones. Sherry Lansing called people . . . back.Now, some seven or eight years removed from her hectic and sometimes controversial reign as head of Twentieth Century Fox, Lansing can laugh about it."