Picket Line

School issues are expected to be debated on the sidewalks of Riva Road even before the Board of Education begins meeting tonight at 7:30 p.m.Students angry about budget cuts and the effect on their education will join employees from unions representing teachers, principals, custodians and bus drivers in picketing outside of the Board of Education building. The group will be protesting stalled contract talks.This year's negotiations mark the first time that all unions havereached impasses with the board, whose negotiators have refused to budge on non-monetary issues.

Khalil Reid, an African-American student at City Neighbors Charter School, said he has never been denied service at a restaurant because of the color of his skin. He hasn't been turned away at a department store or movie theater either. But he didn't like finding out that was the case for others years ago. On Saturday, the sixth-grader was one of 40 City Neighbors students who formed a picket line at the former Read's drug store at Howard and Lexington streets in Baltimore, where African-Americans were denied lunch counter service in the 1950s.

The two women sat in a restaurant somewhere in the Baltimore metropolitan area. Neither wanted to give her full name. Not after their supervisors urged them not to cross the picket line "for our own safety."So Mary and Christine - they decided to use their first names - now find themselves on strike against United Parcel Service. It is a company that pays well and has excellent benefits - even for part-timers - that include profit-sharing and tuition reimbursement. Besides, they actually like the company.

A. Robert Kaufman, a lifelong civil rights activist, political gadfly and socialist who ran for just about every office ranging from Baltimore City Council to president of the United States, died early Friday. He was 78. Those who knew Mr. Kaufman said he formed his political views at an early age and never backed down from a debate. He was arrested countless times, thrown out of candidate forums and kicked out of council meetings. But he'd always be back, trying to use the political process to further his causes - from civil rights in his younger days to his more modern push to legalize drugs as a means to cut their street value.

Because a union plans to picket a downtown hotel, the Democratic National Committee is moving its fall meeting from Baltimore to Virginia, disappointing local and state leaders who had anticipated the spotlight of a presidential campaign landing briefly on the city. The event would have brought leading candidates to Baltimore between Nov. 29 and Dec. 1 to appeal for support from undecided national committee members -- those party leaders sometimes called "super delegates" because they can vote for whomever they choose at the summer nominating convention.

BOSTON -- Caught in an acrimonious labor dispute between the mayor of his hometown and the city's police and firefighter unions, John Kerry sided with the unions yesterday. Kerry flew home to Boston on Saturday to rest after a 48-hour cross-country trip. He was to return to the campaign trail here this morning with a speech to the U.S. Conference of Mayors. But members of the city's largest police union, who have been working without a contract for two years, and the city's firefighters, who are also in contract talks, have been picketing Mayor Thomas M. Menino, the host of the conference, wherever he goes.

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. -- It's not much, an eyesore, really -- plastic-covered lean-to, two old barrels and some rusty pipe fashioned into a wood-burning stove for cold nights, a cracked podium, chairs, a soiled bouquet of silk roses, a dirty American flag.But, for the 260 members of United Auto Workers Local 695 who have been on strike for nearly 2 1/2 years, the lean-to collection is their sanctuary. They come here not only to maintain their picket, but also to renew their strength and commitment to a labor action that has made them outcasts in their own town.

Far from the negotiating tables at the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington, the Verizon Communications employees picketing along Pratt Street in 90-degree heat yesterday said it's not just more money they're striking for. In fact, Zarina Maith wouldn't mind earning a bit less. As the strike by 87,000 Verizon employees entered its third day, Maith and other Baltimore area workers said forced overtime is one of the worst aspects of their job, and the one they most want Verizon labor negotiators to change.

Hey, players! If this is a strike, the fans are entitled to a picket line.

An article in yesterday's editions of The Sun about a strike against Ryder System Inc. incorrectly implied that Local 239 of the United Auto Workers Union would honor a picket line at the General Motors Corp. assembly plant here. The president of the UAW local assumed that Teamster drivers would honor a Teamsters' picket line.The Sun regrets the errors.

A. Robert Kaufman, a lifelong civil rights activist, political gadfly and socialist who ran for just about every office ranging from Baltimore City Council to president of the United States, died early Friday. He was 78. Those who knew Mr. Kaufman said he formed his political views at an early age and never backed down from a debate. He was arrested countless times, thrown out of candidate forums and kicked out of council meetings. But he'd always be back, trying to use the political process to further his causes - from civil rights in his younger days to his more modern push to legalize drugs as a means to cut their street value.

Live late-night TV returns just in time for the presidential primary season. But the real political story to watch tonight as David Letterman and Jay Leno swing back into action is how the shows without writing staffs fare - and what effect that has on the two-month-old Hollywood writers' strike. Only two shows, Late Night with David Letterman and the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, will have writers onboard for their return. That's because the two programs that air on CBS are owned by Letterman's Worldwide Pants production company, which reached an interim agreement Friday with the Writers Guild of America.

From the cover Globes: all questions, no answers So the 82 voting members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association have punted. They're either unable or unwilling to designate any sort of Oscar frontrunner and so have nominated as many as 12 films for either best drama or comedy, for the 65th annual Golden Globe Awards. Sprinkling their gold dust everywhere, the group handed out nominations for dramas, seven in all, for films such as Atonement, the World War II tale of love thwarted by a child's overactive imagination, to Ridley Scott's ode to drug lords, American Gangster, to the Coen brothers' violent modern-day Western No Country for Old Men. And there were the five nominees in the musical or comedy category, including Sweeney Todd, based on the Sondheim musical about a barbarous barber; Hairspray, based on the John Waters film and Broadway play; the unplanned pregnancy comedy, Juno - and on and on. Some of the films, like Across the Universe and Charlie Wilson's War, haven't set the critics afire, but what does that matter, when Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks can be nominated and invited to the party?

The writers strike claimed a major casualty yesterday as the Democratic National Committee canceled a presidential debate planned for Los Angeles Dec. 10. CBS was scheduled to hold the debate with anchorwoman Katie Couric as moderator. But leading candidates had said they would not cross a writers' picket line, and yesterday 500 CBS writers who had authorized a strike vote seemed on the verge of announcing a walkout for Dec. 10. "The possibility of picket lines set up by the Writers Guild of America and the unwillingness of many candidates to cross them made it necessary to allow the candidates to make other plans," CBS News said in a statement issued late yesterday.

Because a union plans to picket a downtown hotel, the Democratic National Committee is moving its fall meeting from Baltimore to Virginia, disappointing local and state leaders who had anticipated the spotlight of a presidential campaign landing briefly on the city. The event would have brought leading candidates to Baltimore between Nov. 29 and Dec. 1 to appeal for support from undecided national committee members -- those party leaders sometimes called "super delegates" because they can vote for whomever they choose at the summer nominating convention.

Ever since the curtain went up Oct. 2, 1871, on its first production -- Shakespeare's As You Like It, starring James W. Wallack -- Ford's Theater came to symbolize the legitimate stage for generations of Baltimore theatergoers. But from the time of its founding, Ford's meant something else to African-Americans who were excluded from purchasing orchestra or box seats and banished to the theater's second balcony. On Feb. 17, 1946 -- 60 years ago yesterday -- the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People began picketing against the now-demolished Fayette Street theater's discriminatory seating policy.

Cherry blossoms are slow this spring but the Birds are on time.If everyone who can't get tickets would hang around outside the stadium, Jesse Jackson would have one heck of a picket line.Profile in Courage: Bill faced Annapolis middies, Oregon lumberjacks and Boris Yeltsin in three successive days.

Live late-night TV returns just in time for the presidential primary season. But the real political story to watch tonight as David Letterman and Jay Leno swing back into action is how the shows without writing staffs fare - and what effect that has on the two-month-old Hollywood writers' strike. Only two shows, Late Night with David Letterman and the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, will have writers onboard for their return. That's because the two programs that air on CBS are owned by Letterman's Worldwide Pants production company, which reached an interim agreement Friday with the Writers Guild of America.

A construction worker was injured early yesterday when someone hurled a brick or rock through his car windshield as he drove into the new Ravens complex in Owings Mills, Baltimore County police said. The 5:30 a.m. incident marked the start of a daylong protest that drew dozens of members of the Baltimore carpenters union who said they are angry that nonunion workers have been used for construction of the Ravens complex. They said they would return every workday until the Ravens start using union employees.

The threat of police picket lines is altering plans for Maryland Democrats heading to Boston for next week's presidential nominating convention and could force tough choices for Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley and other delegates. Maryland delegates joined those from several other states yesterday in canceling a welcoming reception to be hosted by Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino. The Democrat has been embroiled in a labor dispute with city police, who received a permit to picket the event at the Boston Children's Museum.