South Bronx

"Jay with Bike" is a kid on a bike, looking around to see what's going on; "Titi in Window" is a motherly-looking type leaning out of the window to take in the passing scene; "Kido and Ralph" is a big old guy with a major set of keys dangling from a belt loop, helping a kid across the street; Raymond andToby is a guy and his dog.These are people doing what the rest of us do every day, only they're sculptures in a gallery at the Baltimore Museum of Art. There's an irony here, a happy irony.

One of the goals of the Clinton administration's health care reform effort is to help Americans take more responsibility for their own health. The pharmaceutical industry has one suggestion for doing that: Take your medicine. A task force funded by the industry has pinpointed what it terms a costly problem -- the failure of Americans to take their medicine as prescribed."Noncompliance," as medical professionals term the problem, can be as simple as skipping a dose of medicine or as serious as the spread of tuberculosis by patients who refuse to take the drugs prescribed.

NEW YORK -- Somehow, the sweetness of Tasha Carter has endured.When she was 10, Ms. Carter lived in gymnasiums and welfare hotels, close to a dozen in all. As the oldest, she cared for five brothers and sisters, teaching them not to use the drugs that long ago turned her parents into "babies -- out of control, crying all the time, out of control."Now 19, Ms. Carter works the switchboard at the city morgue. She has a high-school diploma and big dreams about a house in the suburbs and law school.

NEW YORK -- What is the essence of Essence? It depends on whom you ask.To Tamara Hutchinson, a 20-year-old South Bronx, N.Y., woman, it is a good name to call yourself if you are an up-and-coming rap artist whose song is featured in the hit movie, "New Jack City."To Edward Lewis, publisher of Essence magazine, it is a valuable trademark name -- built on 20 years of serving primarily young, black female readers -- that should not be used without permission.But to New York federal judge Charles Haight, the battle over the name "Essence" is a complex legal dispute, worthy of a 66-page decision that ultimately sided with Hutchinson's use of her newfound stage name.

For months after setting up shop in Baltimore, New Yorker Billy Guy would travel here either by the Trump Shuttle airliner or a rented limousine. He stayed at the Inner Harbor's finest hotels and collected as much as $30,000 a week in drug profits.Between Guy's visits, lieutenants in his Baltimore drug operation wired him cash. Eastern District vice officers traced $125,000 in money transfers, which Guy used to buy diamonds for his many girlfriends."It was chump change," prosecutor Stephen May says.

Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling said former teammate Manny Ramirez's behavior in Boston was a drain on his teammates and disrespectful to manager Terry Francona. Speaking on a Boston radio station Wednesday, Schilling said Ramirez's "level of disrespect to teammates and people was unfathomable." Although he was the first Red Sox World Series Most Valuable Player, Ramirez caused more than his share of problems, with trade demands and nagging or phantom injuries that led him to ask out of the lineup.

"Hangin' with the Homeboys" is a scrapbook filled with postcards of modern urban life. It's superficial -- putting a pretty veneer on some ugly aspects of life in New York -- but it's attractive and its pages turn effortlessly.Director Joseph Vasquez's first feature-length movie follows four young men from the South Bronx on a boys' night out in August. This is a movie filled with symmetries (two of the four are Hispanic and two are black) and it strives for inclusiveness. Except that none of the group is a scary punk, they cover every stereotype associated with poor youth of their background:Johnny (John Leguizamo)

NEW YORK - It was a final Christmas gift for the man they called "The Chief." Snowflakes fell on the two fire engines - a truck and a hook and ladder - parked across the street from the funeral home in Harlem last week. Inside, filling a cramped room, firefighters sat on folding chairs. And in a plain blue casket - wearing a dark suit with a white carnation in the lapel - lay Alex Davis. No one really knew how old he was. The death certificate said 56, but everyone guessed he was in his late 70s. One thing was certain: It was the best Davis had been dressed in decades.

NEW YORK -- Behind the 30 percent drop in murders and shootings reported in New York City this year is a startling development: Drug dealers and gang members have apparently begun to leave their guns at home.Police department and federal law enforcement officials say that gunplay has decreased from the South Bronx to the Rockaways, partly as a result of the tightening of local and federal gun-control regulations and crackdowns on youth gangs.But more than anything else, federal and local officials say, it is the increase in police friskings for such minor violations as loud radio playing and public beer drinking that has discouraged people from carrying unregistered guns.

Agreement reached on redliningAnother East Coast regional bank criticized for alleged redlining practices has agreed to change its lending policies and make loans to low-income neighborhoods in the Bronx.National Westminster Bancorp. said yesterday that it will lend in minority neighborhoods of the South Bronx and open an office there under an agreement with Inner City Press-Community On the Move, a group that accused the bank of redlining.The agreement follows a similar deal between the government and Chevy Chase Federal Savings Bank, a Maryland savings and loan charged in a civil suit with redlining -- refusing to lend in an area on the basis of its racial makeup.