Manpower

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- When looking back at yesterday's lacrosse game against North Carolina, Maryland coach Dick Edell will be thinking about the eight first-half extra-man opportunities.Four that No. 8 North Carolina converted into goals and four that No. 7 Maryland did not as the Tar Heels defeated the Terrapins, 12-7, before 2,000 at Fetzer Field."They hurt a lot," Edell said. "Four for four. So much of playing a man down is heart and desire; we did it in the second half."Trailing 8-2 at halftime, the Terrapins outscored the Tar Heels, 4-1, in the third quarter.

PHILADELPHIA - Daisy Myers vividly remembers the rocks through the windows, the taunts and name-calling and cross-burnings and the day-and-night blaring of "Old Black Joe" that greeted her arrival as a member of the first African-American family in Levittown, Pa., 40 years ago.Memories of nights, more than a week of them, in which a mob that was estimated from 200 to 1,000 people gathered along Deepgreen Lane in the Dog Hollow section screaming racial epithets,...

WASHINGTON - Security forces at the nation's nuclear facilities are being weakened by deteriorating training programs, manpower shortages, long hours and fatigue, raising doubts about their ability to respond to terrorist attacks, according to investigations by federal inspectors and a public watchdog group. Ten nuclear weapons facilities have curtailed or eliminated key elements of a training curriculum designed in part to fend off terrorist attackers, the Energy Department's inspector general reported yesterday.

While Charles R. Alfred may be looking to 1998 and beyond as he seeks to secure the long-term future of the General Motors Corp. assembly plant in Baltimore, the UAW Local 239 president is also keeping a close eye on the calendar this week.With the expiration Saturday of the local's contract with the Southeast Baltimore van assembly plant looming, Alfred said much still needs to be accomplished before a new pact is ready for rank-and-file approval."Negotiations are pretty much at a standstill," Alfred said late last week.

The Howard County Sheriff's Office has added a third shift and reallocated manpower in an effort to serve all "peace orders" issued against alleged perpetrators of domestic violence. From January 2006 through September, one of every five peace orders issued by the county's judicial system was not served by the sheriff's office or Police Department. Of the 1,035 peace orders issued during the 21-month period, 211 did not reach the intended persons, according to Sheriff's Office statistics.

AITA SHAAB, Lebanon -- To enter southern Lebanon these days you drive down roads where traffic is directed by young men in gray Hezbollah civil defense corps T-shirts and past bulldozers from the Holy War for Reconstruction Co. Hezbollah has emerged as the lead player in the cleanup in southern Lebanon. It has the volunteers, owns the equipment, and has spent years burnishing its image as a champion of the people. Men who were fighting Israeli troops days ago are working beside the Lebanese Red Cross on the grisly job of pulling bodies from the rubble.

GAMBLING WITH LIVES is the only way to describe the juggling of shifts and equipment occurring within the Baltimore Fire Department. There's no better example of the need for city government to undergo the necessary streamlining that would allow it to spend its meager resources where they are needed most, providing essential services that ensure the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of Baltimore.No stop-gap revenue measure should deter Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and the City Council from making tough decisions about where tax money would be best spent.

When their parent team, the NHL's Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, made a wholesale raid on their roster last week, it appeared the Bandits might have trouble coming up with a full complement of players for a game that night against Cape Breton. Making matters worse is that the team's hottest goal scorer at the time, Mike Maneluk, called in sick.A quick scramble fixed the situation momentarily, with three players being summoned from Raleigh of the ECHL. The Bandits got goals from five different players while beating Cape Breton, 5-2, on Wednesday.

ANNAPOLIS -- State and national fire officials say a fire like the one that killed 25 trapped workers in a North Carolina chicken processing plant last week could happen in Maryland -- or in any state -- as long as fire inspection requirements far outstrip the manpower available to do the job."It could happen as we speak," said John H. Coburn, state fire marshal for Missouri and secretary-treasurer of the National Association of State Fire Marshals. "None of the states have enough funding to do the jobs that most of us are mandated to do."

Tied on fences, stapled to poles, propped atop pumps and plastered on walls, cigarette posters and banners grow like kudzu at many gas stations and convenience stores.The signs are evidently effective, because such shops account for the majority of cigarette sales in the United States, tobacco companies say. And with the Marlboro Man and his cigarette-selling sidekicks scheduled to be booted off billboards and taxis in April under the states' tobacco settlement, such signs will soon become the most visible remaining outdoor tobacco advertising.