Rise

When the nation's average price of regular gasoline reached a record high in September 2005, the cause was pretty clear: Hurricane Katrina had just ravaged oil refineries. But explaining this week's record of $3.22 per gallon is more complicated because the rise resulted from a combination of factors. They include increased demand, lower inventory, refinery shutdowns in the United States and abroad, and the rising price of crude oil, which has gone from about $50 per barrel at the start of the year to $64.97 per barrel yesterday.

As Baltimore moves to be the first city in the nation to demolish all its high-rise public housing, it is exploding an idea for sheltering the poor born of utopian theories and segregation.City officials plan to use 375 pounds of dynamite at 10 a.m. Saturday to demolish the 14-story George B. Murphy Homes on the west side. The buildings will be the third of four high-rise projects to be torn down in the city by July next year.Following a national trend that will see some 100,000 public housing high-rise units leveled in Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Louis and a dozen other cities by 2003, Baltimore plans to replace the towers with townhouses.

T. Rowe Price Associates Inc.'s chief economist sees the country's economic engine chugging into the new year under a full head of steam."I am bullish on the U.S. economy," Alan D. Levenson said yesterday at Price's annual economic outlook seminar for reporters in New York.And little wonder. Inflation is low; the federal government's budget is balanced; unemployment is at rock-bottom levels; and productivity is rising, thanks to the booming information technology industry, he said.Levenson sees little that can stop the expansion except for a spike in inflation, which is about 2 percent.

U.S. consumer prices did not rise last month after an alarming jump in April, easing inflation fears and igniting stocks on hopes that the Federal Reserve won't have to raise interest rates more than once this year.The Labor Department's Consumer Price Index report, released yesterday, said prices for consumer goods and services held steady last month after April's 0.7 percent increase, the CPI's biggest single-month gain in nine years. Economists had expected a 0.2 percent rise for May."I think the data is telling us that we can stow away our worst fears on inflation," said David Donabedian, portfolio manager for the Baltimore office of Pell, Rudman & Co., a Boston investment firm that manages $6.5 billion for clients.

When Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke announced last summer that his administration would not support construction of a high-rise hotel near the foot of historic Federal Hill, many in south Baltimore breathed a sigh of relief.But for community activists seeking to preserve Federal Hill as a dominant feature of the harborfront and protect the water's edge from inappropriate development, limiting the hotel's height is turning out to be only half the battle.In many ways, Schmoke made a choice between two evils: support a high-rise hotel that would block views of Federal Hill, or support a mid-rise hotel that would block views from Federal Hill.

Home values continued to rise in the second quarter of 1999, increasing at an annualized rate of 5.5 percent nationwide.According to Freddie Mac's Conventional Mortgage Home Price Index, last quarter's increase continued the yearlong rise as home appreciation increased 5.3 percent from the second quarter of 1998 to the second quarter of 1999.The West North Central states led the nation in appreciation growth with a 9.9 percent increase, while the New England states came in second with an 8.9 percent rise.

ClarificationThe $2 rockfish permit was abolished June 1, rather than July 1, as reported last week. However, the cost of a bay fishing license for tidal waters will rise from $7 to $9.Pub Date: 6/20/99

THE ONLY CERTAINTY for the next 160 years is change. We will still have news and people reporting the news. But 22nd-century news outlets may not be recognizable to us as newspapers, as newcasts or even as Internet services.Think back to the year The Sun was founded: Still ahead were the telegraph and its ability to transmit news instantly; photography and its ability to capture an event almost as the human eye, and the steam-powered press that fostered the rise of mass-circulation newspapers and magazines.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. wholesale sales rose in February at the fastest rate in almost three years, suggesting growth may accelerate in the months ahead as companies place new orders to maintain inventories, government figures showed yesterday.February's 2.1 percent increase in wholesale sales, up from a rise of 0.8 percent a month earlier, was the largest since August 1994, the Commerce Department said.Inventories, meanwhile, held steady at a $260.1 billion annual rate during February after rising 0.8 percent in January.

AS HENRY CISNEROS prepares to leave the Department of Housing and Urban Development, he is hearing lots of praise. One enthusiastic academic even describes him as the best housing secretary the nation has ever had.Baltimore was helped by Mr. Cisneros' performance. He changed the often silly and impractical rules by which HUD had operated. He innovated, simplified, realigned and cut back. Things that had seemed impossible to do -- like demolishing Baltimore's troubled Lafayette Courts and Lexington Terrace high-rise projects along with a total 23,000 problematic units nationwide -- suddenly happened.

Ravens cheerleaders are dabbing on makeup and curling their hair in a changing room at M&T Bank Stadium. Poe, the team's overstuffed mascot, is pulling on his costume. And just a locker or two down, Rise and Conquer's personal assistants are trying to coax Baltimore's newest and most fussy football stars into their game-day uniforms. Conquer lays one gray beady eye on his outfit and lets loose a warning squawk. When Sandy Ziolkowski, an animal technician from the Maryland Zoo, nevertheless tries to work the black satin suit over the bird's twitching head and past its fearsome beak, the feathered one starts wildly flapping, banging a locker and knocking over a stack of Gatorade cups.

Furloughs, layoffs and budget cuts in every department except schools in the $1.4 billion budget proposed by County Executive Ken Ulman don't mean the government will disappear starting July 1. But residents will surely see and feel the difference, officials say. And while government spending would fall by 1.5 percent, most residents will pay more for reduced services, though neither the income nor property tax rates are to rise. Homeowners' property tax bills still would go up about 5 percent on average under the county's cap on rising state assessments, and water and sewer bills would rise an average of $10.95 per quarter for a family of four using city water, officials said.

Maryland Earnings Sourcefire loss nearly triples Columbia's Sourcefire Inc. which has twice in the past two months deflected acquisition attempts by a California competitor, said yesterday that its loss for the quarter ending June 30 nearly tripled, while revenue rose by 42 percent. The network security company lost $3.1 million, compared with $1.1 million during the corresponding quarter of 2006. Revenue was $16 million, compared with $11.3 million a year earlier. The company has struggled with losses since going public last year.

The East Baltimore building has a storied past: For decades it served as the Belnord Theatre. Then it became a neighborhood grocery store. Starting last week, it assumed a new identity: the Local High Rise, a new live-music venue geared mostly toward young local pop punk and rock bands. Clubs such as the Local High Rise are crucial for the development of budding bands. Most of the members are too young to play bars, and pop punk won't fly in most watering holes anyway. Aside from coffeehouses, house parties and St. John's Phoenix, these groups have few options.

At one point during the day in which he officially became Baltimore's top cop, Frederick H. Bealefeld III tapped his left wrist. Not his heart, not his head, but his wrist. "This was my grandfather's watch," he said. "I always wear it on occasions like this." The grandfather had been a police officer, one who walked the same beat around Greenmount and North for 25 years. The occasion was the grandson's promotion from acting to permanent police commissioner - whatever "permanent" means in a department whose chief seems to serve behind an ever-revolving door.

Brad Harman of Perry Hall was vacationing in Ocean City last week and got up early to watch the sun rise. "In the middle of the eastern sky there was either a star or a planet that beamed brightly like a giant light bulb," he said. "I thought it might be Saturn, but wanted to see if you could tell me for sure." Sure. That was Venus, rising now about 4 a.m. and blindingly beautiful well into the dawn. She will reach maximum brilliance Sunday morning.

Global warming will cause the number of heat-related deaths in Baltimore and other cities to more than double within 50 years, according to a report paid for by environmental groups. The number of summer days in Baltimore with temperatures above 101 is expected to rise from about six a year to 16 annually by the middle of the century, says the study co-written by climatologist Laurence S. Kalkstein of the University of Miami and a colleague. As a result, more people will die, Kalkstein predicts.

When the nation's average price of regular gasoline reached a record high in September 2005, the cause was pretty clear: Hurricane Katrina had just ravaged oil refineries. But explaining this week's record of $3.22 per gallon is more complicated because the rise resulted from a combination of factors. They include increased demand, lower inventory, refinery shutdowns in the United States and abroad, and the rising price of crude oil, which has gone from about $50 per barrel at the start of the year to $64.97 per barrel yesterday.

What's up with Citi- group Inc.? I had expected more from this stock. - R.R., via the Internet With its traditional umbrella symbol recently replaced by a red arc over "Citi" in advertisements, the international financial-services giant is seeking a leaner, more aggressive image. Perhaps it should have replaced that umbrella with a question mark. There's still some uncertainty about whether Charles Prince, the former general counsel who became chief executive in 2003 and chairman in 2006, can effectively master this diverse, profitable empire assembled by his predecessor and close associate, Sanford Weill.

In Baltimore development, it doesn't necessarily pay to be a pioneer. That's one message that came out of a recent public hearing about the newest high rise proposed for Baltimore's waterfront, a 23-story tower in Canton called the Icon. The city planning commission supports a proposal from a local developer that wants to build a $75 million, 260-foot-tall residential tower on the Lighthouse Point property, off the 2700 block of Boston St. But first the developer, Cignal Corp. of Timonium, needs the city to amend an urban renewal plan and remove a height limit for the property that currently permits no buildings taller than 72 feet.