Omitted

Hoping to rescue a plan to add a new neighborhood to Columbia, the Rouse Co. made the Columbia Association a fresh offer yesterday, to provide more than $1 million in interest-free financing while eliminating some of the project's parks, tennis courts and other amenities. Rafia Siddiqui, the Columbia Association's vice president for administrative services, presented Rouse's new offer last night at a special meeting of the association's board of directors. She had asked Rouse officials this month to sweeten the deal after it became clear that a plan to annex a future Rouse development in North Laurel was likely to die in a tie council vote.

Hampstead Mayor Christopher M. Nevin announced last night that he will not sign off on plans to build an addition at Spring Garden Elementary School. The decision effectively cancels Carroll County's proposal to add classrooms to the overcrowded school without expanding the school's cafeteria, library and other common areas. Although town officials approved the project a year ago, Nevin froze the project last month as school officials sought to begin construction. The school was built for 600 pupils, though 755 attend.

Nerves are fraying on the Anne Arundel County Council as three of seven members chafe under a $1 billion budget proposal from County Executive Janet S. Owens that they say omits needed projects in their districts. Word spread quickly yesterday on the council that Owens, a Democrat, had said in an informal news briefing earlier in the day that she does not plan to present a supplemental budget this month. Because the council can add to the regular budget only for schools, a supplemental budget is the only way this year to revive other projects, such as a new library in Crofton or sound barriers on U.S. 50 near Annapolis.

Ivan Rodriguez failed to win the Most Valuable Player Award for his own team, but was named MVP of the American League yesterday. Pedro Martinez received the most first-place votes for Most Valuable Player, but he finished second, in part because two writers left him off their ballots.The bizarre nature of this year's voting, then, assures that the selection of Rodriguez will go down as one of the most controversial in baseball history. "I'm not going to start crying about it," said Martinez, the Boston pitcher who was picked unanimously for the AL Cy Young Award earlier this week.

HAYS, Kan. -- With the roar of a life-size animatronic Tyrannosaurus rex echoing in the background, Kansas biology teachers issued a loud statement of their own Saturday: They vowed to continue teaching evolution in the classroom, despite its omission from new state science standards. "We want to teach good science," Topeka West High School teacher Lisa Volland told nearly 40 instructors at the Kansas Association of Biology Teachers' fall conference in the Sternberg Museum of Natural History.

Browse through the Howard County school system's proposal to update its dress code and you'll see the usual prohibited suspects:No obscene slogans on T-shirts. No caps promoting tobacco, drugs or alcohol. No overly revealing outfits exposing too much skin or underwear.But though the school system was taken to court -- and prevailed -- over the question of an African-style head wrap, nothing in the code addresses ethnic or cultural dress.Superintendent Michael E. Hickey said the decision to omit that issue was his, despite lobbying from members of the school system's equity council.

Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre says that "As You Like It" contains more songs than any other play by Shakespeare, which makes it a good choice for the next production of the musically inclined company.ASGT continues its season with tomorrow's opening of an amended "As You Like It," featuring madrigals arranged or composed by Renaissance specialist Susan Nace of Colorado. The play will run for 17 performances through July 31.Much in vogue after Hollywood's recent Oscar-winning film "Shakespeare in Love" and having been voted "man of the millennium" in Britain, Shakespeare is also a proven favorite locally.

FOR CHEEKINESS, here is a peak moment in Bill Clinton's presidency: On April 22, he travels a few miles south of the White House to Alexandria, Va., to T.C. Williams High School to hail the virtues of nonviolent conflict resolution.For nearly an hour, the war-making president who in the past 10 months has ordered his military to deliver death by bombs and missile warheads to people in Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq and Yugoslavia, speaks earnestly to about 25 students in the school's peer mediation program.

In a radical departure from their past strategy for waterfront development in South Baltimore, owners of the HarborView property along Key Highway have scrapped plans to build four of six previously approved high-rise condominium towers and now intend to construct luxury townhouses and "canal homes" on most of the land instead. The developers unveiled yesterday plans to build a $16 million, 76-unit townhouse community on land that had been reserved for the four towers, which were to rise up to 290 feet.

Opponents of a Mothers Against Drunk Driving-backed bill to lower the blood-alcohol level required for a charge of driving while intoxicated are pushing a look-alike measure that omits the stiffer penalties of the original legislation.The MADD-backed bill would lower the standard for a DWI charge to 0.08 from the current 0.10. Drivers who test at 0.08 or 0.09 would be subject to the state's current DWI penalties -- a year in jail, a $1,000 fine and 12 points against their driver's license.