Step By Step

"Step by Step," a sitcom premiering at 8:30 tonight on ABC (Channel 13), turns out to be much better than expected. But then, we weren't expecting much.In fact, we were expecting the worst: Noted bimbo Suzanne Somers ("Three's Company") and noted poker face Patrick Duffy ("Dallas") in a domestic comedy from the same producers who gave us "Full House."But Ms. Somers and Mr. Duffy triumph over their stereotypes, and are supported by a excellent cast of actors who play their six children. "Step by Step" proves to be a superior example of the Friday-night light genre ABC has done so well.

Waltz With Bashir views war from the inside out and the outside in. It carries the shock of full disclosure. Ari Folman, the writer-director, was a member of the Israeli Defense Forces in 1982, during the Israeli army's occupation of southern Lebanon and the massacre conducted under its eyes by Lebanese Christian Phalangists at the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. The bloodletting came after the assassination of Lebanon's Christian president, Bashir Gemayel. But from the outset, grotesque cruelty marked the Christian militia's treatment of Palestinian terrorists and civilians.

Washington. -- Rome was not built in a day, and the Treaty of Rome, establishing the bases of European Union has been decades in developing. But, step by step, the construction and integration of Europe proceeds. The first of this year, the single European market was born. The first of last month, the Maastricht Treaty came into effect.Without fireworks the European Community thus transformed itself into the European Union -- the EC into the EU. The citizens of the 12 member-states became citizens of the European Union as well.

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They have come by the hundreds to the Challenge for Change convention at the Omni Inner Harbor Hotel, a safe house where inner children can meet other inner children, cry, hug and confess with no sense of shame.They are young and old, white and black, middle-class and blue-collar -- and all veterans of Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Food Addicts Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous and other 12-step programs for compulsive behaviors.The 12-step method, pioneered in the 1930s as a road to recovery for alcoholics, has become much more than a treatment.

cakecentral.com This site is for those who want their cakes to be works of art. You can get ideas from the photos and discussion forums, and learn step-by-step decorating techniques.

WASHINGTON -- Mindful of lessons learned in the last four years, President Clinton and his aides are developing incremental proposals to fill gaps in health insurance coverage, administration officials said.The proposals, to help provide coverage for some of the nation's 10 million uninsured children and to help pay premiums for workers who are between jobs, look more feasible now because medical costs are coming under control.Donna E. Shalala, secretary of health and human services, said last week that the administration would try to expand coverage step by step, rather than by proposing a grand scheme to redesign the health care system.

If it's true that you can tell a lot about a society by its celebrities, what does it say about us that Patrick Duffy is ZTC becoming one of our biggest stars?This is something we should worry about, I think.Duffy's new sitcom, "Step by Step," is the second highest-rated new show of the season, and tonight at 9 (Channel 2) NBC trusts him to carry Danielle Steele's "Daddy" against game four of the World Series on CBS.While Duffy is surprisingly good at comedy on "Step by Step," he is not much of a dramatic actor.

"Backyard Ballistics," by William Gurstelle (Chicago Review Press, 169 pages, $16.95) Just in time for Fourth of July preparations is this generally outrageous but responsible celebration and guide to serious amateur fun that goes bang. Subtitled "Build potato cannons, paper match rockets, Cincinnati fire kites, tennis ball mortars, and more dynamite devices," it is properly heavy on safety warnings and instructions. All the 13 grown-up toys that are outlined are intended purely for the fun of it -- none is potentially lethal, though they should all be built under adult supervision.

* Name:Becky McDivitt, 16, of Glen Burnie.* School: Glen Burnie High School.* Accomplishments: Becky is a high school sophomore in the top 5 percent of her class. She has been selected to the All-County cross country team for the past two years and plays the alto saxophone in her high school's marching band. She is also a Student Government representative for her class.In addition, she is on the Severna Park YMCA swim team.In her spare time she enjoys roller-blading, skiing and reading adventure novels.

A few rounds in the gym. A jog to school. A lap around a lake. With a few hundred steps here and a few hundred steps there, about 30 students at Northwood Elementary School are each aiming to log 26.2 miles by spring. That's a marathon - an entire adult-sized, sweat-producing, medal-earning marathon. These kids and close to 2,000 others at 15 Baltimore City elementary schools and five Baltimore County schools are working toward that Olympic-sized goal as part of a new program that prods youngsters to change their increasingly sedentary and sometimes dangerously unhealthy ways.

As dusk settles, the glittering lights of downtown emerge, just a few miles away -- but a world removed -- from one of the roughest areas in one of the deadliest cities in the country. A group gathers on the corner of North Patterson Park Avenue and East Hoffman Street in East Baltimore, within blocks of the scenes of at least eight homicides this year. Police officers and representatives from the mayor's office, a mother from South Baltimore and a couple hand-in-hand, two members of the Guardian Angels in their signature red jackets and berets.

Over a year ago, Kenneth Shook's brother sent him a letter containing a challenge: Complete the enclosed puzzle, and he would pay him $2. Solving the puzzle just required a little logic, said Shook, a 76-year-old Westminster resident. He quickly completed the puzzle, stuffed it into an envelope and waited for his $2. But the money didn't come. "My brother told me he wasn't going to pay me until I wrote down how I completed the puzzle," Shook said. "So I wrote step-by-step instructions on how I solved it."

GARDENING FIND PRESERVING PRECIOUS PETALS If you want to preserve flowers -- from a prom, wedding or graduation or for craft creations -- Universal Flowers has just the product in Forever Flowers, a liquid flower preservative. Each flower is prepared by simply dipping it into this patented substance for one to three seconds. The flower dries in minutes and remains pliable and soft to the touch. Light-colored flowers, such as yellow, pink, white and peach, take on an antique finish. Darker-colored flowers hold their tone, and take on a satiny sheen.

Tomorrow night, the audience at Jim Rouse Theatre in Columbia will watch international ballet stars from the American Ballet Theatre perform selections from famous classical ballets. But to see the hardest job in ballet, say instructors from Columbia's Ballet Royale Institute - which is sponsoring the event - look behind the soloists and watch the corps de ballet move in unison, matching everything from the tilt of their heads to the angle of their feet. "It is difficult to dance in an ensemble," said Svetlana Cravtova, a Ballet Royale instructor who was a professional dancer in Russia before moving to the United States.

2000 is a year recalled fondly by members of Fallston High School's dance team club. At the same time, it's one the dancers would like to forget. It was the year when the school founded the team. It also was the year when the dance troupe, led by a science teacher with no dance expertise, performed at just four school athletic functions and finished 31st out of 36 teams at a regional competition. "We didn't know what we were doing, but we made do with what we had," said Carrie Cummings, an earth science teacher who has been the coach of the team since the beginning.

GARDENING FIND PRESERVING PRECIOUS PETALS If you want to preserve flowers -- from a prom, wedding or graduation or for craft creations -- Universal Flowers has just the product in Forever Flowers, a liquid flower preservative. Each flower is prepared by simply dipping it into this patented substance for one to three seconds. The flower dries in minutes and remains pliable and soft to the touch. Light-colored flowers, such as yellow, pink, white and peach, take on an antique finish. Darker-colored flowers hold their tone, and take on a satiny sheen.

The 17-year-old girl pulls on her black dance shoes and checks her appearance in a wall-length mirror. Spanish pop music pipes from a portable CD player in the exercise room. Her instructor tells her: "Step, together. Step, together. Step, cross. Step, cross." The girl's long, lean body - graceful, if wobbly at times - follows a line of masking tape across the carpet. Shannon Pierre-Jerome is learning to dance again. An honor student and cheerleading captain at Lansdowne High School, Shannon had planned to begin her freshman year at Towson University this month.