Target Practice

Maryland Agricultural Commission, meet the Agricultural Stewardship Commission. One group answers to the governor, the other to the Senate president and House speaker. Both plan to make recommendations for the 2006 legislative session on how to best preserve farming in Maryland, and not necessarily the same ones. Not that the agriculture community is complaining. "We're just delighted that we've got that much interest in farming now," said Lewis R. Riley, secretary of the state Department of Agriculture.

MIAMI - Burger King Corp., the second-largest U.S. hamburger chain, said yesterday that it has been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury investigating Coca-Cola Co. for possible accounting fraud. Burger King will comply with the subpoena seeking records relating to a rigged marketing test for Frozen Coke in March 2000, said Rob Doughty, a spokesman for the Miami-based hamburger chain. Coca-Cola, the world's largest soft-drink maker, said last week that it had settled a dispute with Burger King, retaining the company as a customer.

The Howard County Council is poised to make official a longstanding practice to employ an easier standard for granting zoning changes to construct schools and other government buildings. Now, governmental agencies, such as the school system, do not have to meet the strict standards used by the county Board of Appeals when asking for construction variances for its buildings, as other entities do. They deal only with the County Council, which has a much more lenient criterion: that the variance be in the "public interest."

The Maryland Jockey Club announced that it will rename the Hirsch Jacobs Stakes in honor of longtime Pimlico Race Course general manager Charles John "Chick" Lang , who died Thursday at 83 of natural causes. The Grade III sprint will be run on Preakness Day, May 15. Laurel Park: Hagerstown native Rick Dutrow 's Dont Blame the Cat is the 6-5 favorite in today's $70,000 Private Terms Stakes for 3-year-olds. The rest of the field is Plantation (3-1), Regal Warrior (5-1)

MEMOTO: Our gentle Sunday morning readers, clad in silk pajamas and bunny slippers, sipping espresso from little teeny cups.FROM: Your executive editor, sitting in his gloriously cluttered-and-knick-knacked office, five stories above Calvert Street, which, from this height, is a target-practice range for pigeons, who hide on ledges here, out of range of those murderous USF&G peregrine falcons.RE: Sun Magazine's I-Can-Write-a-Romance-Novel-Ending-Better-Than-You-Can contest.I'm about to make a withdrawal from the favor bank.

A 35-year-old Howard County man who was taking target practice with a friend was accidentally shot Saturday.Orlando Rodriguez, of the 6800 block of Waterloo Road in Elkridge, was flown to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore by a state police helicopter after the shooting, which occurred at 3:25 p.m. He was in serious and stable condition after being hit near his right elbow, a hospital spokesman said.Police said Mr. Rodriguez was at the home of a friend, Enrique V. Cabrera, in the 3000 block of Sams Creek Road between Taylorsville and Marston, and the pair was shooting targets with a .30-.

REDFORD, Texas -- A Marine will be the subject of a grand jury inquiry into the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old who was tending a herd of goats on his family's farm near the Mexican border.District Attorney Albert Valadez said he would proceed with the investigation of the Marine, whom he did not identify, based on reports from Texas Rangers who are investigating the shooting of the youth, Ezequiel Hernandez Jr.Hernandez died May 20 after he was shot by a member of a Marine team from Camp Pendleton, Calif.

The project manager at the former Patterson Park High School in Highlandtown stood atop a roof terrace and said, "This is not a cookie-cutter property. " That's an understatement. Shaffin Jetha and Chuck Nale, officials of Focus Development, gave me a tour of the Southeast Baltimore landmark it has taken me 50 years to visit. I wasn't procrastinating; I just never got an invitation to view this under-recognized Art Deco-style school that once accommodated 3,200 students. It is now being made into 138 apartments.

Nothing extra The Orioles' game against the St. Louis Cardinals yesterday didn't go past regulation because Cesar Crespo wouldn't allow it. Crespo, summoned twice from the minor league camp, singled with two outs in the ninth inning to score Terry Tiffee and give the Orioles a 6-5 victory in Jupiter, Fla. Crespo's hit came against major league veteran Russ Springer. Still struggling Freddie Bynum has been regarded as a leading candidate to fill the last spot on the 25-man roster, but he went 0-for-4 with one strikeout, lowering his average to .135.

Student charged with carrying BB gun at schoolState police arrested a Westminster High student yesterday after school officials found he was carrying a BB pistol on school grounds.The boy was arrested just before school dismissal at 2:30 p.m. and charged with carrying a weapon on school property, police said. He was released into his father's custody.The gun was never fired and no one was hurt, police said."Appropriate disciplinary action is being taken," said Peter B. McDowell, director of secondary education for Carroll County schools.