Push

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton faced the stinging defeat of a prized foreign policy objective last night, as the Senate moved toward an agreement to delay voting on a nuclear test ban treaty indefinitely.Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott tentatively agreed to withdraw the treaty without a vote after Tom Daschle, the Senate Democratic leader, promised not to push for a ratification vote until after Clinton leaves office.The president's Democratic allies in the Senate are short of the two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, needed for passage of the treaty.

DURING THE election season, I watched Julia Walsh Gouge's red, white and blue elephant ride down the streets of Westminster, and I thought, "That is what small-town politics are all about."Parents pulling together to push for a new school that is desperately needed are also a big part of small-town politics.Over the next few weeks there will be plenty of opportunities to participate in the push for a new Westminster high school.A group called Citizens for Schools has launched an organized, focused campaign to remind planning and zoning officials and the county commissioners that Westminster needs a second high school -- one that has been promised for years.

WASHINGTON -- Bob Smith left the Republican Party in a huff last week, accusing the GOP of terminal perfidy. Standing on the Senate floor, he spent three-quarters of an hour detailing his charge that the party of Lincoln has fallen into the thrall of pollsters, corporatists, internationalists, gun-controllers and squishes.It was a Shakespearean performance -- full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Mr. Smith is a nice guy. Bellicosity does not become him. In this instance, it made him look half-comic, half-demonic.

Devil Rays: First baseman Fred McGriff took batting practice after receiving medical clearance to resume playing. McGriff has a contusion near his right eye, which occurred during a play at the plate Wednesday. The team will wait until after Bobby Witt's next side session before deciding whether to push back his next start. Witt reported a twinge in his shoulder during Friday night's game.

To shape drop cookies, use one spoon to scoop dough and a second of the same size to push dough onto baking sheet. Use both spoons to mound and smooth dough. -- Cole's Cooking A to Z

Bryn Mawr freshman Nyam Kagwima said she's been fortunate to have Tess Deanehan as a teammate. The two cross country standouts, who often have found themselves alone at the head of the pack this fall, work to push each other.Yesterday, the two helped push the Mawrtians to an Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland championship.Kagwima won in 20 minutes, 9 seconds, and Deanehan took second, three seconds back, as Bryn Mawr's 37 team points bettered defending champion Notre Dame Prep by 10 at St. Timothy's.

Quarterback Stoney Case could not believe the turn his professional life had just taken. As Peyton Manning's backup, he had completed his first preseason effort with the Indianapolis Colts with a solid effort, connecting on five of six passes and showing good scrambling ability.No matter. Case, who had signed a two-year deal with the Colts and collected a $500,000 signing bonus, found out last Wednesday that Indianapolis was cutting him to make room for newly acquired backup Steve Walsh. With that, Case signed a one-year deal with the Ravens, with whom he practiced for the first time yesterday.

Higher ed planners must keep in mind UMAB's great valueAs state officials and members of the General Assembly work to strengthen Maryland's public higher education system, they must be careful to preserve and maintain the University of Maryland, Baltimore's ability to pursue its growth, which is spawning an economic rebirth of Baltimore's west side.On any given day, 25,000 students, teachers and staff members are drawn to classes and work at UMAB's 33-acre urban complex that is the only exclusively graduate campus in this state's higher education system.

THREE YEARS after Russian troops were driven out of Chechnya, they are pushing back into the Islamic breakaway republic. As of yesterday, they had retaken a third of the mountainous region surrounding the capital of Grozny.This success has emboldened Moscow: What started as an operation to form a security buffer along the Russian border is turning into an attempt to wipe out the rebels altogether.In betting he can conclude the war before the onset of winter, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin is taking a reckless gamble.

CHICAGO -- The Rev Jesse L. Jackson, surrounded by representatives of national civil rights and social justice organizations, opened the annual conference of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition yesterday with the promise to weld those organizations into a force capable of "setting the agenda" for the next presidential election."

Name: : On Your Weigh Luggage Scale by Travelon What it is: : A sleek, portable luggage scale that you can pop into your carry-on and use before you enter the check-in line at the airport, preventing those last-minute repacking episodes at the counter that hold up fellow travelers. It comes with two lithium batteries. How it works: : Push the button on the front to deploy the handles by which you raise your bag as it hangs from a large hook. The hook also deploys when you push the button.

DVD Push ** (2 stars) Starring Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning. Directed by Paul McGuigan. Released by Summit Entertainment. $26.95 (Blu-ray $34.95). Set "two days from now," in a Hong Kong where you can't walk 10 yards without encountering someone with mutant powers (including a posse of Asians whose power consists of making bug eyes and bursting glass fish-tanks with their high-decibel shrieks), Push watches as a bunch of second-generation mutants have-at each other, with the future of all Mutantdom as the prize!

Baltimore money manager Legg Mason's stock rose 11 percent Wednesday after a British newspaper reported that billionaire activist investor Nelson Peltz has acquired 9 percent of the company and may push for a sale or breakup. Shares gained $2.44 to close at $24.48. The stock has lost 66 percent of its value since January last year. The Daily Telegraph, citing "well-placed" but unidentified "market players," said Peltz wants to build his stake up to 20 percent and plans to persuade management to give him a couple of board seats, so that he could eventually push for Legg's sale or breakup.

Name: : Davek Traveler Umbrella What it is: : Compact umbrella How it works: : Pretty much like any other collapsible pocket umbrella - until a gust of wind turns it inside out. Then you push a button and the umbrella closes, fixing its inside-out ribs. Pushing the button one more time redeploys the once-again-perfect umbrella. The good: : The mechanism on this sturdy umbrella works, which means no more hunting for a trash can to chuck your latest wind-ruined umbrella. It's attractive and comes in a range of colors.

In one corner, defense lawyers explaining away a developer's expensive gifts to two city officials with showstopping legal gymnastics. In the other, a prosecutor who had courtroom spectators on the edge of their seats, but only because she shouldn't have been working without a net. Retired Howard County Circuit Judge Dennis Sweeney held a hearing Thursday on motions to dismiss the criminal cases against Mayor Sheila Dixon, City Councilwoman Helen Holton...

The painfully inscrutable paranormal thriller Push introduces us to a host of characters with various gifts - some can see the future, some can heal, some can plant ideas, some can make change for a dollar. By the time the credits roll, your most fervent wish is to run into a "wiper" (one who can erase memories) after stumbling into the lobby. That, or a telepath who could convince you that you just watched Slumdog Millionaire instead. We are told in a windy, opening-credits prologue that psychic experiments started by Nazis are now being continued by the U.S. government to create some kind of super army.

'Blart: Mall Cop' retains No. 1 box office ranking Paul Blart: Mall Cop wasn't ready to turn over his box-office badge this weekend, as the film about a bumbling shopping center security guard earned $21.5 million to take the No. 1 spot for a second week in a row. The comedy, starring Kevin James, has grossed $64.8 million in its two weeks of release and appears on its way to surpass $100 million. The third installment of the Underworld series fared well in its opening weekend. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, a prequel that looks at the roots of a feud between vampires and werewolves, made $20.7 million.

From an opening filmed image of an amber field of grain in Kansas, to a live closing shot of a wildly cheering crowd in Florida, Democratic candidate Barack Obama's 30-minute, prime-time campaign infomercial last night was affecting and effective. It wasn't that the production broke any new ground in media and politics. The producers essentially worked within the well-worn and time-tested genre of candidate films shown at national conventions. Think: Bill Clinton and The Man From Hope.

The photo that accompanies this text should probably have included a fake beard and dark glasses, but hear me out. First and foremost, any coach in the NFL will tell you competition is a healthy thing. Secondly, the NFL is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately league and is all about winning. While Matt Stover will go down as one of the most accurate kickers in league history, is an all-time fan favorite here and might very well deserve his day in Canton, Ohio, the 40-year-old, 18-year veteran is currently not performing to the high standard he has set. For the season, he has connected on just four of seven field-goal attempts and has missed all three tries from more than 40 yards - including a pivotal, momentum-breaking wide right with 14 seconds left in the first half of Sunday's 13-10 loss to the Tennessee Titans.

He was a slim, twitchy guy with red hair and rage - and as I recall, he worked as hard or harder than any of us rookie docs back when a best-seller called House of God had just blown the cover on the grueling days and nights, raunchy jokes and general misery of U.S. medical trainees. In those days, high-tech hospitals were just a gleam in some muckety-muck's eye. In other words, at our vaunted citadel, there were no fancy scans, no computerized labs, and certainly no one but the lowest grunt on the totem pole to hang blood or push meds or run EKGs between taking histories and probing organs and orifices of the seemingly endless stream of new arrivals on the ward.