Puerto Rican

WASHINGTON -- Hillary Rodham Clinton stomped on plenty of toes in her first tango with the New York Puerto Rican community last week, bruising a group known for its power to shake the state's politics and swing close elections."

THE CLINTON administration has enmeshed itself in the politics of terrorism or, more precisely, the politics of forgiving and forgetting terrorism, from the 50 states to Puerto Rico to Italy.The White House and the Justice Department have sent a clear signal: Even convicted violent terrorists who remain defiantly remorseless for their crimes can expect lenient treatment -- if they have friends in high or vote-rich places.And so the key question isn't just what role the prospective New York Senate candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton played in the sudden decision to appease powerful Puerto Rican-American politicians in New York by offering to release 16 Puerto Rican terrorists.

Hillary Rodham Clinton called on President Clinton yesterday to immediately withdraw his offer to commute the prison sentences of 16 members of a Puerto Rican terrorist organization, saying they had failed to meet his demand to renounce violence in exchange for clemency.The White House responded by saying it had set a deadline of 5 p.m. Friday for the prisoners, who have been connected to at least 130 bombings of military and political installations in the United States between 1974 and 1983, to meet the president's conditions.

SAN JUAN - A hundred years after the United States seized this small, strategically important gateway to the Caribbean, more than 2 million voters here will go to the polls today for the third time to seek an end to their lingering national limbo.For decades, this former Spanish colony has considered becoming the 51st state, but voters intent on adding a star to the U.S. flag have been unable to edge out those who preferred retaining their status as a U.S. "commonwealth" - a sort of halfway house of Americanness devised in 1952.

One of the best things a critic can experience is walking into a show so alive with creativity that it's hard to settle down and concentrate on one work at a time. That's the case with "Ceramica Puertorriquena Hoy/Today," a show that brings the work of 22 Puerto Rican ceramics artists to Baltimore's School for the Arts.A lot of the show's energy derives from the fact that there doesn't seem to be any dominant influence or style at work here. A few of the pieces are at least theoretically functional, but all exist primarily as sculpture, and no artist's work looks like that of any other.

COLLEGE PARK -- If the Maryland basketball team isn't satisfied with its standing in the Associated Press preseason Top 25, it can do something about it.Maryland is No. 6 in the initial rankings released by the AP yesterday, and in the span of less than four weeks, the Terps will get the chance to knock off three of the five teams ahead of them.The first five consists of Duke, Connecticut, Stanford, defending NCAA champion Kentucky and Michigan State.Only once in the last two decades has Maryland begun a season with greater advance notice: The Terps were picked No. 4 in 1980.

The Detroit Free Press said in an editorial Friday:AFTER more than 11 hours of sometimes bitter, partisan debate, the U.S. House of Representatives has voted to hold a special referendum in Puerto Rico offering its citizens the option of statehood. The House vote, as ugly and as narrowly decided as it was, was a vote for fairness and decency. Puerto Ricans deserve the right to define their relationship with the United States on their own terms.The legislation calls for Congress to approve the results of any vote in Puerto Rico.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- The white-haired woman sits patiently on the front porch of her house, her dog resting nearby. This gentle-looking woman is Lolita Lebron, who in 1954 led a group of Puerto Rican nationalists into the U.S. House of Representatives' visitors gallery and opened fire.For her role in that protest for independence for Puerto Rico, Lebron, now 77, served almost 26 years at the Federal Reformatory for Women in Alderson, W.Va. While she was there, both of her children -- a preteen son and a grown daughter -- died.

A CINDERELLA season" is how manager Mike Shue describes Carroll County Rangers' 1996 baseball season. The team of 11- and 12-year-olds finished its freshman season on a high note, placing third in the American Amateur Baseball Congress Pee Wee Reese World Series Tournament in Puerto Rico earlier this month.The boys and their families returned from the five-day tournament Aug. 12. The Rangers were one of only eight teams from the United States. They competed against teams from Michigan, Tennessee, Texas, California, Ohio and Puerto Rico.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- It's the Psychic Connection against some guys who weren't always on the same channel.Edgar Padilla and Carmelo Travieso are nearly always on the same wavelength in the Massachusetts backcourt. They think so much alike, they could be twins, and the fact is that they were born on the same day 21 years ago, in Puerto Rico.While the Puerto Rican Express goes the distance for the Minutemen, Kentucky may have too many guards for its own good. Tony Delk is the only player who has started every game for the Wildcats, but the shooting guard began the season at the point.