Lent

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals upheld yesterday a $1.4 million jury award to purchasers of eight houses sold by Robert L. Beeman, a pioneer in the epidemic of property flipping that swept across Baltimore in the late 1990s. The court also sent the case back to city Circuit Court for proceedings on awarding the buyers additional, punitive damages. Beeman, operating through his company, A Home of Your Own Inc., flipped more than 100 Baltimore houses over a four-year period. In September 2000, he pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to a count of mail fraud and received a three-year prison sentence.

THE TAX rate on dividend income has been cut to 15 percent, a nice break for investors. But here's an important question: Do you know where your stocks are? Wall Street has some explaining to do. You won't get a break if your broker or mutual fund has lent the shares to someone else, a thriving business on Wall Street. Typically, shares are lent to traders who sell them, so-called short-sellers. When your shares are lent, you receive a "payment in lieu of dividends," which does not qualify for the tax break.

Robert Abplanalp, 81, a confidant of President Richard Nixon and inventor who changed aerosol technology, died of cancer Saturday in Bronxville, N.Y. In 1969, Mr. Abplanalp lent Nixon the money to buy the 29-acre property at San Clemente, Calif., that became the western White House. After Nixon resigned over Watergate in 1974, Mr. Abplanalp flew to California to be with him. Mr. Abplanalp ran the Precision Valve Corp., which he started in 1949 to manufacture a patented aerosol valve. This plastic model could be mass produced, and was more efficient.

The news director of WBAL-TV announced yesterday that she would leave the station, saying personal ties were luring her back to Philadelphia. "I have decided to quit, for the first time in my crazy career, to care about my personal life," Margaret Cronan said yesterday in an interview. She said she decided to move to avoid the long-distance relationship she has been maintaining with her boyfriend, who lives there. Cronan, 38, also referred to job opportunities that are likely to arise in Philadelphia once her current contract ends.

Midterms are over and spring break is coming, but Joe Boskovich still has one test left. Can he travel to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, later this month, spend four days partying with hordes of shot-downing, skin-baring female students and just say no? He's not sure. Boskovich, 22, a senior who is a member of the University of Southern California football team, said he debated with himself for weeks before deciding to give up hard alcohol for Lent, the 40-day Christian season of repentance.

At Ash Wednesday services this week in Howard County and around the world, worshipers received the sign of the cross marked in ashes on their foreheads and heard their pastors say, "Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return." Ash Wednesday, for some branches of Christianity, heralds the start of the Lenten season of repentance, reflection and prayer in preparation for Easter. The ashes are a reminder of each person's mortality, say area clergy, and a token of the hope of resurrection and redemption through Jesus Christ that Easter commemorates.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - They talked about baseball. They talked about life. They laughed, they cried and they hugged. For a few hours early Monday morning, when she wasn't sure if her husband would live or die, Kiley Bechler had someone she could turn to: Orioles vice president of baseball operations Mike Flanagan. Steve Bechler, a 23-year-old Orioles pitching prospect, collapsed during Sunday's practice and suffered heatstroke, with his body temperature rising to 108 degrees. Kiley Bechler, who is 7 1/2 months pregnant, was driving cross-country when she got the news.

Money may be key in statewide races, but post-election campaign finance reports for Howard County show it has limited value locally. County Executive James N. Robey, a Democrat, won a second term with more than twice the money raised by Republican challenger Steven H. Adler, though each collected less than $9,000 in the last month, according to reports due yesterday. Yet, Republican state Sen. Sandra B. Schrader raised less than half the money Democrat C. Vernon Gray did and still won their Senate contest.

IT'S ALWAYS a jolt when I miss something that stood in a place for a lifetime. So it was, the other day, while heading off to lunch, that the Belair Market disappeared. It was gone. Where the block-long market building stood is now a freshly tilled vacant lot. When I say stood, I mean for centuries. There was a market in Oldtown, on Gay Street, for ages. Newspaper articles say the market was founded in 1813. My mother's family, who settled in Baltimore in 1760, acted as if the Belair Market was a venerable institution when they arrived.

In all of the hoopla surrounding the 25th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death(has it really ever ended?), the death of Bing Crosby, a few weeks later in 1977, has seemingly been forgotten. Crosby, one of the most popular entertainers of the 20th century, recorded more than 1,700 songs for Decca and sold more than 300 million records during his 50-year career. He also appeared in such movies as the Big Broadcast of 1932, The Big Broadcast of 1936, The Bells of St. Mary's, Holiday Inn and Going My Way, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, and was a fixture on network radio and television for years.