State Lines

A fatal disease that attacks deer and elk and has forced wildlife officials to slaughter thousands of the animals across the country has been discovered just eight miles from Western Maryland. State biologists met yesterday to map their response to reports that chronic wasting disease was found in a 2 1/2 -year-old buck outside Slanesville, W.Va., near Allegany County. It is the first case in the region. "This is as close to the other side of the creek as you want it to be," said Paul Peditto, director of the Wildlife and Heritage Service of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

You can order everything from used cars to fine works of art online and have them delivered to your doorstep in Maryland - but not wine. A case the Supreme Court began hearing yesterday might change that, in Maryland and 23 other states that now ban direct interstate wine shipments in one form or another. The justices listened to arguments yesterday on three appeals of laws in Michigan and New York. Out-of-state wineries have argued that they should be allowed to sell to consumers in those states by phone or computer.

Six months ago, Robin Pickering, a technical writer in Catonsville, was hardly a political mover and shaker. But now she moves more Marylanders in the name of politics than just about anyone else. A spark of curiosity in the spring about how she might be able to help John Kerry's presidential campaign has ballooned unpredictably into Pickering's arranging for hundreds of Marylanders to cross state borders every weekend to campaign in neighboring battleground states such as Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

CHICAGO - Life in New York involves many frustrations that can drive a person to drink. But stressed-out Gothamites seeking solace in the bottle may find they don't have their choice of bottles. New York does not allow residents to order wine from out-of-state wineries. So if they happen across a heavenly Cabernet while traveling through the hinterlands, they may be out of luck upon returning home. The Supreme Court recently agreed to consider whether the ban is tolerable in an age when you can buy just about anything you want, from anywhere you want, over the phone or the Internet.

Charlie Keithley ambled into Patricia Hammond's computer room at the Mason-Dixon Community Services offices in southern York County, Pa., on a recent cold, clear afternoon and settled down to a red-sugar-sparkly cookie. Between bites, the 10-year-old with buzzed blond hair and mischievous eyes said that if he didn't come to this after-school program for moderate- to low-income kids, he would "roam around Delta," the tiny town where he lives with his dad and grandmother. He could go all the way to Bel Air if he wanted, he said with a certain nod. His schoolmates Tiffany Carraway and Kaitlyn Pritt, sitting across from him, rolled their eyes.

THE REMINDER last week that daily life can be cast back to the Gilded Age at the flick of a circuit breaker was sobering. But even that might not push lawmakers past their sluggish, top-heavy approach to the nation's energy policy. Take the ponderous bills that House and Senate committees have debated over the past few years and are to start cobbling together next month - please. Congress doesn't need to reach consensus on the merits of fuel-efficient cars or drilling in Alaska before agreeing that the nation's creaky transmission connectors need fixing.

North Carolina State, at 5-0, is one of the early season darlings of college football, and former Dunbar High standout Antoine Colvin has been part of the ride to a No. 17 ranking in the Associated Press Top 25. Colvin is a second-year freshman offensive lineman on a team making signs that it could mimmick Maryland's surprising 2001 success in the Atlantic Coast Conference. He was on the field for 21 snaps in the first three games of the season as a backup to senior Shane Riggs at left guard, before moving to center to provide depth the previous two games.

CUMBERLAND - With little fanfare, West Virginia is creating dozens of new, legal gambling venues within a few miles of small towns across Western Maryland. A state law that took effect Jan. 1 allows as many as 9,000 video gambling devices to be installed in bars and social clubs throughout West Virginia. The law sparks a significant change in Maryland's gambling landscape that some predict will add fuel to the political debate in Maryland over the fractious issue of legalizing slots. Although the video gambling devices have just started trickling into bars along the Maryland border in recent weeks, their impact is being felt by some businesses near the state line.

WASHINGTON - A key Senate panel approved a transportation spending bill yesterday that includes more than $25 million for projects in Maryland, including improvements in air traffic control, transit subsidies for the working poor, and planning for a proposed magnetic levitation rail service. "Each year I fight for federal funding to make traveling in Maryland safer, faster, and easier," said Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat who helped secure the money. "This [spending] lives up to that promise."

A 35-year-old Alaskan oil pipeline worker was charged yesterday with traveling to Maryland intending to have sex with a 13-year-old boy, who was an undercover FBI agent on the Internet. Larry Breshears, a welding inspector for the North Slope Alaska oil fields, was arrested at an Annapolis hotel after flying into Baltimore-Washington International Airport to meet "Josh," the undercover name used by the agent, 31-year-old Stacey M. Bradley. Bradley met Breshears in December in an America Online chat room, where she was posing as a child as part of the FBI's Innocent Images program.