Sword

THE CEASE-FIRE around Fallujah continued not to hold very well yesterday. The siege there may well be remembered one day as the turning point in President Bush's campaign for Iraq. But which way will it turn? Either the resistance will be subdued, impressively, and a relieved population will finally be able to go about building a peaceful life there - or it will be the place where Iraqis remember they decided to take a stand against a frustrated and indiscriminate American occupation. A complete picture is impossible to come by, but the news coming out of Fallujah is not encouraging.

HARPERS FERRY, W.Va. -- John Brown's last shot came from the fire engine house at the foot of Shenandoah Street; his Bible and a broadsword from Bleeding Kansas are on display in a nearby museum. Nearly 145 years have passed since Brown led 21 raiders on a mission to seize 100,000 guns stored here at the federal arsenal. A militant abolitionist, Brown hoped that runaway slaves would join his "liberation army," which would take refuge in nearby mountains and fight a guerrilla war against slaveholders.

Missing, 1931. Scrawled in pencil on the worn corner of a 3-by-5-inch note card, the notation is the museum's only inventory record of the mysterious theft of the U.S. Naval Academy's Worden Sword. One word, one date - preserved in the depths of one of the academy's old filing cabinets labeled "personal swords." It wasn't much. But it was all the evidence FBI agents needed when they phoned academy museum curator Jim Cheevers recently to inquire about the disappearance of the Civil War-era sword seven decades ago. "They told me up front they thought they had found it," said Cheevers, curator for the past 36 years.

The mysterious disappearance of a Civil War-era ceremonial sword from the U.S. Naval Academy's campus in Annapolis in 1931 has long baffled federal agents and descendants of the Union war hero to whom it was awarded. But no longer. Today, FBI officials will clear up the mystery of the Worden Sword's theft as they return the ornate Tiffany & Co. sword to the academy. "We're extremely excited about having this coming-home," said academy spokesman Cmdr. Rod Gibbons. For members of the Worden family, news of the sword's recovery brought back long-buried memories.

The mysterious disappearance of a Civil War-era ceremonial sword from the U.S. Naval Academy's campus in Annapolis in 1931 has long baffled federal agents and descendants of the Union war hero to whom it was awarded. But no longer. Today, FBI officials will clear up the mystery of the Worden Sword's theft as they return the ornate Tiffany & Co. sword to the academy. "We're extremely excited about having this coming-home," said academy spokesman Cmdr. Rod Gibbons. For members of the Worden family, news of the sword's recovery brought back long-buried memories.

The FBI announced yesterday plans to return a historic sword that once belonged to a Civil War captain to the U.S. Naval Academy Museum, where it was housed until it was reported missing in 1931. Bureau officials will be in Annapolis on Monday to return the sword, a gift from the state of New York to Capt. John Lorimer Worden. He commanded the USS Monitor in the 1862 naval battle with the CSS Virginia, a Confederate warship better known as the Merrimack. Worden died in 1897, leaving the Tiffany & Co. sword to his son. He donated it to the museum in 1912.

Before Aragorn, the titular monarch played by Viggo Mortensen, can ascend to the throne and wrap up The Return of the King, his sword, Anduril, must be reforged. "The blade was broken," says a skeptical skeleton in the finale to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Aragorn sets him straight: "It has been remade!" In Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Quentin Tarantino's chop-socky opera, Uma Thurman's avenging Bride has a list of people to dispatch, starting with Lucy Liu's yakuza boss O-Ren Ishii.

It slices! It dices! It chops and blends! And it's a whiz at dismembering! It's not your trusty Cuisinart or your beloved Henckel. It's the sword of vengeance wielded with blinding precision by Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, Vol. 1, Quentin Tarantino's new samurai-inspired bloodbath. Thurman may dazzle with her kung fu acrobatics and athletic yellow track suit, but it is her weapon - a unique Japanese sword that can behead like it's going through butter - that is the movie's true star. In one fight scene, it dismembers 88 opponents (which called for more than 100 gallons of fake blood)

He walked into the Dallas office of the FBI late on a Friday afternoon in 1980. Frank Varelli said he had information about some killings in his native El Salvador. He listed dates and places. He named names. "We contacted the CIA, and they verified the killings were committed," recalled Gary Penrith, then acting head of the FBI office. "So this guy looked like he might be giving us reliable information." With the FBI's blessing, Varelli infiltrated the Dallas branch of a group he said was behind the killings - the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, which opposed U.S. policy in Central America.

A 29-year-old Edgewood man was being held last night, accused of attacking his girlfriend in their home with a sword, taking her car, leading police on a five-mile chase along U.S. 40 and trying to ram a state trooper's cruiser before being forced to a stop, authorities said. Edwin Lugo of the 200 block of Sedgemore Court was being held at the Harford County Detention Center on two counts of first-degree assault and several assault and traffic offenses. State police in Bel Air said the incident began shortly after 7 a.m. when they responded to a 911 call reporting that a woman, Tracy Denise Harris, 30, was being assaulted with a "Samurai-style sword" at the home she shares with Lugo.