Make Decisions

Trainer Rodney Jenkins breathed a sigh of relief yesterday evening, and it seemed everyone else involved in Maryland horse racing did, too. Jenkins, who trains the horses stabled in Barn 9 at Laurel Park, learned the Maryland Department of Agriculture's hold order on his barn will be lifted this morning. The decision was made by state veterinarian Guy Hohenhaus when Jenkins agreed to move two horses who did not clear the latest testing process for the equine herpes virus to a remote, isolated barn at the Bowie Training Center.

In President Bush's first term, some of the most important decisions about U.S. national security -- including vital decisions about postwar Iraq -- were made by a secretive, little-known cabal. It was made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. When I first discussed this group in a speech Oct. 19 at the New America Foundation in Washington, my comments caused a significant stir because I had been chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell for more than two years.

In late October 1995, the Orioles hired Davey Johnson to be their new manager and then waited almost a month to hire Pat Gillick to be the general manager. Team Decisive ate up nearly a half of the offseason putting its front office in order, but the Orioles went on to reach the American League Championship Series two years in a row. Apparently, Peter Angelos knows a winning management strategy when he sees it. He has made a habit of taking too long to make critical decisions - and he has those two ALCS appearances a decade ago to prove that dithering is a highly underrated corporate tactic - so why should this year be any different?

Wall Street wants to delve deep inside the minds of Main Street investors. But will it use this powerful information for good? In a string of announcements this spring, the educational arm of the NASD, formerly known as the National Association of Securities Dealers, granted more than $500,000 to researchers studying investors' psychological and gender biases, their susceptibility to fraud and their optimal learning strategies. The grants represent growing acceptance of behavioral finance, the field of study that attempts to explain how emotions and judgment color investment choices.

SALISBURY -- The timing couldn't have been better as Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps spoke yesterday to soon-to-be graduates of Parkside High about the "hardest time of my life" -- his drunken driving arrest here last fall. This is senior week at the Eastern Shore school. Friday is the prom, followed by the annual after-prom bash at the YMCA. Lots of parents, students and school officials are busy urging students to sign a Prom Pledge not to drink during the big weekend. As if on cue, Phelps strolled onto the school's auditorium stage yesterday morning, casually explaining how a loss of focus on his lifelong goals contributed to his decision to get behind the wheel of his 2005 Land Rover after drinking with two companions Nov. 4. He ran a stop sign and nearly sideswiped a police car. "I'm here to talk about making good decisions, because I made a bad one that could have endangered myself or someone else's life," Phelps said.

As a long and bitter battle over the fate of a brain-damaged Florida woman dragged drearily on yesterday, legal scholars, ethicists and medical experts said it was unlikely the case would offer any new lessons to Americans who quietly face the same wrenching decisions every day. Still, the case of Terri Schiavo, whose feeding tube was removed yesterday after she spent 15 years in a vegetative state, illustrates the end-of-life issues that advances in...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA is expected to decide by next week which, if any, shuttle-repair techniques astronauts will test during Discovery's planned return to flight in May. Program managers are evaluating five potential repairs for the thermal protection system that shields the spaceship during its fiery plunge through Earth's atmosphere. Three of the repairs are for the heat tiles that primarily cover the shuttle's belly. Two are for the reinforced carbon-carbon, or RCC, material that protects the leading edges of the wings and other surfaces from temperatures up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Howard County Council members wrestled with the perils of rezoning during a work session review in Ellicott City late yesterday, but no votes were taken and final decisions may be pushed off until April. The council is working to prepare for formal votes on 41 rezoning proposals left from last year's comprehensive rezoning of the county, and from a study of the seven-mile U.S. 40 corridor from Patapsco State Park west to the Turf Valley golf club and hotel. Members have labeled the review "Comp Lite."

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. has asked the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to get its scientists to stop calling for additional research before Maryland decides whether to introduce a foreign oyster into the Chesapeake Bay. In a letter last month to EPA Administrator Michael O. Leavitt, Ehrlich pointed out that the state has planned on making its decision early next year, when roughly a year's worth of research for an environmental impact...

COLLEGE PARK - It was not one of Joel Statham's best days yesterday inside Byrd Stadium. It was, perhaps, not even one of his good days. But Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen made it official anyway, naming Statham as his starting quarterback for the Terps' Sept. 4 opener against Northern Illinois. The move did not come as a surprise. Friedgen had said a week ago Statham, a 6-foot-1 sophomore, was leaps and bounds ahead of his other quarterbacks, and that something dramatic had to occur for someone to overtake him. But Friedgen also said he wanted to wait and see how Statham performed in Maryland's last scrimmage before setting it in stone.