Pardon

The Tennessee Titans are 2-6 and tied for last place in their division, welcoming back a starting cornerback from a one-game suspension for his third off-field incident in two years, and resting their future on a rookie quarterback. So pardon coach Jeff Fisher if he's feeling a little testy. Fisher seemed to take umbrage after he was asked about the state of the franchise during a conference call with media that cover the Ravens. "Have you followed this franchise?

Not long after Fay Rumsey was married in Sherwood, Mich., in 1901, he and his wife, Sarah, went west. They homesteaded along Sarpy Creek in southeastern Montana and raised 12 children. Their world fell apart in 1918 when Rumsey, 49, was convicted under the state's harsh sedition law and sentenced to two to four years in prison. He was among 78 people who were convicted of sedition in Montana during the waning days of World War I. Rumsey and 40 others were sentenced to prison terms of one to 20 years and fined from $200 to $20,000.

"See, at ESPN it's not just Bonds on Bonds. It's `SportsCenter' on Bonds, `Baseball Tonight' on Bonds and Pardon The Bonds. Next up, Vitale on Bonds." Bob Raissman New York Daily News columnist, on ESPN's excessive coverage of Barry Bonds "I think the old Phil would rely on those amazing moments to kind of vault him along in the tournament, eagles and chip-ins, skip the ball across the water. ... The way he manages his game now, he puts so much into preparing. He's finally found what works for him."

WASHINGTON -- Sometimes, I wonder about the white man. That's all the identification history has ever given him. We know the name of the man who was driving the bus that evening: James F. Blake. We know the names of the Montgomery, Ala., police officers who answered Mr. Blake's summons after a "colored" passenger refused to surrender her seat: Officers Mixon and Day. And of course we know the name of the passenger: Rosa Parks. But the past has closed like muddy water around the identity of "the white man" whose arrival on the bus precipitated Mrs. Parks' arrest that December night a little over 50 years ago. I've read reconstructions of the arrest, studied news accounts, looked at the police report.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. announced yesterday that he will grant clemency tomorrow to 12 people, including a Baltimore man who was sentenced to life for murder. Ehrlich will pardon Charles Davis, 66, who was convicted of murder in 1960, because he has been an exemplary inmate, according to a statement from the governor's office. Davis has served 44 years in prison. He has completed alcohol treatment and has had no institutional infractions for the last 24 years. Davis was intoxicated when he and another man robbed and assaulted Frank Creamer, who was then 49 years old. Creamer fell to the ground and died after hitting his head on an iron railing, according to the governor's office.

WASHINGTON -- Every November, the president of the United States is presented with the National Thanksgiving Turkey - and promptly issues it a formal pardon. But unlike the turkeys reprieved over the past 15 years, this year's bird will not be sent to Frying Pan Park, an animal farm in the Washington suburbs, to gobble to his heart's content for the rest of his days. This afternoon, minutes after his life is spared, the 35-pound presidential turkey - along with a backup bird - is going to Disneyland.

MEXICO CITY - The capital's popular mayor challenged the federal government yesterday to charge him with a crime now that lawmakers have stripped him of immunity and jeopardized his 2006 presidential bid. Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the early presidential front-runner in opinion surveys, said he would defend himself in court against expected charges related to a land dispute. "I committed no crimes, neither large nor small," he told foreign reporters yesterday. Lawmakers stripped Lopez Obrador of his official immunity last week.

ONE OF these days, Mark McGwire is going to face the questions that every other accused baseball steroid cheat has faced, and will face until it all gets resolved. But before that, McGwire needs to face one other question that is even more important than the others: When did you become a made man? McGwire is untouchable, exempt, a sacred cow. Suggest that this scandal in any way brushes against him, and be prepared to face the consequences. Ask Jose Canseco, who directly implicated his former teammate in his forthcoming book.

The state government will decide tomorrow how much to pay Michael Austin for the 27 years he spent in prison on a faulty murder conviction, potentially turning the Baltimore man into a millionaire. Maryland law limits compensation for exonerated and pardoned prisoners to the actual economic damages they suffered while imprisoned, such as lost wages, plus additional payments for financial or other counseling. State officials would not say yesterday what those damages come to in Austin's case, but using as a guide the 2003 payment to Bernard Webster, who served 20 years for a rape he did not commit, Austin would get roughly $1.2 million.

MOSCOW - Amid rising ethnic tensions in the north Caucasus, thousands of protestors took to the streets of Grozny, the Chechan capital, yesterday to protest the proposed pardon of a Russian army colonel who murdered a teenage Chechen girl. Students and teachers from Chechen State University and other campuses marched and held signs demanding that Col. Yuri Budanov serve the 10-year jail term handed down by a court last year. Hundreds of police surrounded the demonstrators in Grozny's war-ravaged center, Russian television showed, but made no effort to interfere.