Panelists

GIZA, Egypt -- Pity the poor Sphinx.Through the ages, the Guardian of the Pyramids has suffered countless indignities. Target shooters shot off its nose during the Ottoman occupation. Explorers ripped off the half-man, half-lion's beard for the British Museum.For years, tourist buses zoomed around its base, rattling the weary old beast's foundation. Today, it sits atop salt water and sewage, partly swaddled in scaffolding, choking in smog.For centuries, Egyptologists frantically tried not only to stop the march of time, but also to turn the clock back to the days of the pharaohs when the noble monument was built 4,600 years ago.Restorers plastered it over with cement and then later peeled it open.

The League of Women Voters and the Towson branch of the Baltimore County Public Library have scheduled several discussions, starting Thursday, on referendums that will appear on the Nov. 6 ballot. A panel will delve into Perspectives on the Dream Act, the measure that would allow in-state tuition rates to children of illegal immigrants, at 6:30 p.m. Thursday. Panelists include Mark Krikorian, executive director at the Center for Immigration Studies; Tamar Jacoby, president of ImmigrationWorks USA; and Patricia Chiriboga-Roby, office director of World Relief Immigration Legal Clinic.

LOS ANGELES -- At roughly 9 o'clock this morning, 12 men and women were to head to the courtroom of Judge Lance A. Ito. But instead of taking their customary spots in the two rows of blue seats that are the jury box, they will sit around a table in a room nearby and begin weighing the fate of O. J. Simpson.Estimates of how long they will take range from a few days to several weeks. But these predictions, like almost everything else about the panelists and their predilections, are what Mr. Simpson's chief lawyer, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., would call "rank speculation."

An hour before Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama squared off on national television on Oct. 3, the pre-presidential-debate debate got under way at Carroll Community College, with one student speculating out loud, "I wonder when the shoe-throwing is going to start?" Not to worry — no shoes, rotten tomatoes, spitballs, mean-spirited invectives or anything else went airborne. In fact, the hour-long debate, which featured a seven-member panel representing the county Republican and Democratic central committees, the Carroll County League of Women Voters, the Libertarian Party and We, The People — a local offshoot of the Tea Party movement — was cordial.

Telling anyone who would give up a sunny spring afternoon to attend a forum on prejudice that hatred is alive and well in post-Sept. 11 America is a bit like preaching to the choir, acknowledged Rep. Elijah E. Cummings. "But you have to tell someone about it. ... You have to do something about it," the Baltimore Democrat told an audience yesterday. The forum, titled "We Are One Community," aimed to encourage people to do just that. Held at Howard Community College and sponsored by a variety of groups including Maryland State Police and the U.S. Department of Justice, the event was designed to raise awareness but mainly to encourage people to act against racism and bigotry.

Telling anyone who would give up a sunny spring afternoon to attend a forum on prejudice that hatred is alive and well in post-Sept. 11 America is a bit like preaching to the choir, acknowledged Rep. Elijah E. Cummings. "But you have to tell someone about it. ... You have to do something about it," the Baltimore Democrat told an audience yesterday. The forum, titled "We Are One Community," aimed to encourage people to do just that. Held at Howard Community College and sponsored by a variety of groups including Maryland State Police and the U.S. Department of Justice, the event was designed to raise awareness but mainly to encourage people to act against racism and bigotry.

The Johns Hopkins University School of Continuing Studies is sponsoring a five-part discussion series starting this week on free speech, the media and privacy:* Wednesday, defense attorney Barry Scheck and Associated Press court reporter Linda Deutsch will talk about free speech and trials.* Oct. 14 -- Frank Sesno, Washington Bureau Chief for CNN, will deal with the balance between common decency and the public's right to get information.* Oct. 21 -- Hal Buell, chief international photo editor for the AP, photographer Felice Quinto and Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig will discuss the paparazzi and privacy.

Round 2 of the presidential debates was a split decision, but the winner was again the slightly hoarse governor from Arkansas, Bill Clinton, according to a panel of eight Baltimore area voters who have viewed the first two presidential debates together at the invitation of the Baltimore Sun.The panel had judged Mr. Clinton the shutout winner of the first debate -- 6-0, with two voting for a tie -- mostly on the basis of strength on the issues. Last night five members voted him the winner again -- including all three undecided voters on the panel -- while two said President Bush won it and one declared independent candidate Ross Perot the winner.

The League of Women Voters and the Towson branch of the Baltimore County Public Library have scheduled several discussions, starting Thursday, on referendums that will appear on the Nov. 6 ballot. A panel will delve into Perspectives on the Dream Act, the measure that would allow in-state tuition rates to children of illegal immigrants, at 6:30 p.m. Thursday. Panelists include Mark Krikorian, executive director at the Center for Immigration Studies; Tamar Jacoby, president of ImmigrationWorks USA; and Patricia Chiriboga-Roby, office director of World Relief Immigration Legal Clinic.

WASHINGTON -- Black men in Baltimore and other American cities are in the midst of a deepening crisis, according to a congressional panel that recommends education and job training as key antidotes."

Baltimore's only televised debate among incumbent Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and all her challengers will take place from 7 to 8 p.m. Aug. 29 and be hosted by Maryland Public Television at its Owings Mills Studio, according to a campaign spokeswoman for the mayor and a news executive at WBFF (Channel 45), which has agreed to stream the debate online and carry it on tape delay. MPT had not yet confirmed the details, but a spokesman for the public brodacsting outlet said they would have an announcement later today.

— Kermit Bye, the senior member of a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said very little during Friday's 70-minute hearing on the legality of the NFL lockout. But what Bye said as proceedings wrapped up before a standing-room-only crowd might resonate for the owners and players. "We won't be all that hurt if you're leaving us out and should go out and settle the case," Bye said. "We will keep with our business, and if that ends up with a decision, it's probably something both sides aren't going to like, but it will at least be a decision.

A day after Dr. Mark Geier's medical license was suspended in Maryland over allegations of putting children with autism at risk, state officials were seeking to remove his son from a state commission that advises the governor on the disorder. The officials were also struggling to explain why David Geier, who has an undergraduate degree in biology and does not have a medical license, was identified by the Commission on Autism as its "diagnostician. " The commission's website had listed him as a doctor until Wednesday, which officials said was a clerical error.

A city jury awarded two sisters more than $123,000 in damages on Monday and found that Baltimore Police Sgt. Allen Adkins committed false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and battery, among other counts filed by the women in a civil suit against him. A second officer, Sean Dallesandro, was cleared on all counts. The plaintiffs "are thrilled that somebody listened to their story, they are absolutely thrilled," said attorney Richard Winelander, adding that the case is a bitter pill for the city to swallow.

It's TMI - too much information, in the language of the Internet, cell phone texts and social media posts. Easy juror access to cyberspace is a growing problem for courts, whether it involves the criminal trial of Baltimore's mayor, an Anne Arundel County murder trial or a Florida drug case. Last week, a Maryland appeals court upended a first-degree murder conviction because a juror consulted Wikipedia for trial information. Earlier this year, the appeals judges erased a conviction for three counts of assault because a juror did cyberspace research and shared the findings with the rest of the jury.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The jury weighing fraud charges against HealthSouth Corp. founder Richard M. Scrushy had to start its work from scratch after the presiding judge replaced a juror for health reasons on the 17th day of deliberations. U.S. District Judge Karon O. Bowdre said she preferred to seat an alternate rather than proceed with 11 jurors at the trial, which began Jan. 25. Jurors started deliberations May 19 and sent several notes indicating they were divided on the conspiracy charge at the heart of a 36-count indictment accusing Scrushy of inflating profit by $2.7 billion.

Howard County victims' rights advocates and social service administrators spent three hours yesterday watching a satellite-linked panel discussion by national leaders on ways to stem violence in America.And they came away frustrated because what they consider the most pervasive form of violence in the county wasn't addressed."I think they're afraid of looking at family violence," said Stephanie Sites, executive director of the Domestic Violence Center of Howard County. "If you're not safe in your home, you're not safe anywhere."

Alan Keyes and Sister Souljah. It certainly makes for one of the livelier match-ups you'll see this fall on PBS.Keyes, the Republican candidate for the Senate in Maryland, and rap musician Souljah are two of the panelists featured in "The Issue Is Race: A Crisis in Black and White" tonight on MPT (Channels 22 and 67). The two-hour forum on race relations is presented by Phil Donahue and includes Washington Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly among its other panelists. U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, Keyes' opponent, was invited to be a panelist, but declined, Donahue tells viewers.

A Carroll County Circuit Court judge has dismissed an $80 million lawsuit filed by former ethics commission members, who had accused the county commissioners of taking malicious action against the ethics panel before the members were forced to resign. Filed in December, the lawsuit claimed the county commissioners wrongfully fired ethics commission members James F.W. Talley, Suzanne Primoff and John Harner. Harner died before the lawsuit was filed. The lawsuit linked the dismissals to an ethics commission investigation of Commissioner Julia Walsh Gouge, who was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Three weeks after a Howard County murder verdict was thrown into question by a juror's lack of U.S. citizenship, court officials and a state legislator say they are working to make sure the scenario is not repeated. Jury Commissioner Steve Merson has begun reviewing basic requirements for jury service during his morning talk to prospective jurors. At least one Howard prosecutor has added qualification inquiries to questions she wants judges to ask during voir dire, the process of interviewing prospective jurors in a courtroom.