Rubble

Property rights have once again prevailed in Beverly Hills, Calif. - a city that has thrived on its role as a cradle for popular culture but has tended to accommodate wealthy homeowners who would rather tear down than restore dwellings where the entertainment elite once lived. The latest structure to be reduced to rubble is 1019 N. Roxbury Drive, the house where tenants George and Ira Gershwin wrote "They Can't Take That Away From Me," "Shall We Dance" and "Our Love Is Here to Stay." Singer Rosemary Clooney lived there for half a century.

The Harford County Council approved the administration's solid waste management plan last night but not before eliminating plans to reopen a controversial landfill in the fast-growing Abingdon area. The plan was approved by a vote of 6-1 after the council adopted a series of amendments, including one that eliminated the former Spencer sand and gravel pit off Abingdon Road as a landfill for construction and demolition debris. Council President Robert S. Wagner ended any suspense on the landfill issue during a public hearing an hour before the council session.

Harford County's proposed solid waste management plan calls for four rubble collection sites, including the reopening of a controversial landfill in the fast-growing Abingdon area. There is already growing opposition, among residents and County Council members, to a plan to use the Spencer sand and gravel pit off Abingdon Road as a landfill for construction and demolition debris. "That's not the place for a landfill," said Council President Robert S. Wagner. "The population has grown significantly in that area since the site was closed in the early 1990s."

MEULABOH, Indonesia -- Amid the haunting reminders of loss here along the coast of north Sumatra, reminders of life are reappearing too. Survivors are beginning to contemplate rebuilding houses and businesses, a subdued nightlife is returning and students are back in school. On the first day of classes in Calang, there were no lessons, just the recording of names and the organizing of students according to grade level. No one had an accurate counting of how many students and teachers from the local schools were alive or dead.

A flap over a proposed landfill has raised the stakes of the usually low-key Greater Crofton Council elections, which are set for tomorrow. Council President Torrey C. Jacobsen Jr. is locked in a heated re-election fight because of his support for Halle Cos.' proposal to erect a rubble landfill on 481 acres that the Silver Spring-based company owns near Odenton. In return for the council's nonbinding support last fall, Halle has offered to build a high school, a community center and a 500-acre park near the landfill and provide up to $750,000 a year to local community associations.

The World Governments are failing the children of the world, with more than 1 billion living in a state of severe threat from hunger, disease, exploitation or lack of security, the United Nations children's agency said. A U.S. consular office in eastern Saudi Arabia was stormed by five militants firing guns, grabbing human shields and killing five people. Four of the attackers were killed and one was wounded in an ensuing battle with Saudi forces. The Nation President Bush flatly rejected a payroll tax increase to shore up Social Security, narrowing the range of options available to lawmakers to address the retirement system's long-term financial needs.

You can't get lost in Dresden. Wherever you go, you can see the stately white dome of the Frauenkirche, as much a landmark in this eastern German city as St. Peter's is in Rome. It isn't just that the church towers 300 feet above Dresden's lovely baroque skyline, that its colossal dome was an architectural marvel when consecrated in 1734 or that it stood for religious tolerance in a Protestant city ruled by the Catholic electors of Saxony. Even its extraordinary acoustics, which inspired composer Richard Wagner, don't fully explain its profound meaning to Dresden and the world.

Everybody loves a good demolition. People pulled their kids out of school, offices shut down, police closed the roads and at least one company planned a party, all as part of a 13-second event yesterday on U.S. 40 in Belcamp: the demolition of the 65-year-old former Bata Shoe factory that was once Harford County's largest employer. "Everybody would like to blow something up," said Kevin Klass, the project manager in charge of the show. His northern Baltimore County company, Controlled Demolition Inc., has blown up structures from the Kingdome stadium in Seattle to remains of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

In what community leaders are calling a gesture of good will, the developers of a proposed rubble landfill in Odenton have offered to build a public high school in Gambrills and a community swimming pool and 500-acre park near the site. But the offer gets the developers no closer to formal approval of the landfill, which has faced opposition from local activists and county leaders for 15 years and still requires a state environmental permit. The package being offered by Halle Cos. of Silver Spring was approved in a vote Tuesday by the Greater Crofton Council, a community group that helped negotiate the deal.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Walking past the food delivery bays at a Cape Town technical college, Noor Ebrahim stopped abruptly and pointed to the pavement like a man discovering lost treasure. This, he said, was the spot where his family's home once stood. "It was a double-story house made of bricks," said Ebrahim, spreading his arms wide to show the dimensions of a house that now exists only in his memory. "When they bulldozed my house I was standing right there," he said. "I couldn't stop them.