Trench Coat

The weather has changed, and you've stretched your summer outfits as far as they can go. Face it: It's time to go in search of a fall wardrobe. And shopping for clothes can be expensive. So how can you update your closet without sending yourself straight to the poorhouse? "One place you're going to want to spend money is on a couple of really key accessories," says Amy Cafazzo, style expert for Marshalls. When most women think accessories, they think handbags. Purses in oversized styles with fancy hardware have been hot for several seasons.

Apparently, the ballroom was "shellshocked" by last week's bottom two. The ballroom needs to toughen up. Tonight is Latin night. I hope that doesn't mean every other dance is a rumba - booooorrrrring .  We start with Carlos Santana performing "Evil Ways," though they don't identify the vocalist. Holy smokes - Maria Menounous has a full-on showgirl headdress on. Applause for her. One of the backup singers in the band is wearing a trench coat - we know this show is live - did he get there late with no time to remove the coat?

On screen, Julie Bowen plays a perfectionist mom, a sane obsessive surrounded by slightly crazy compulsives: the father who married a hottie younger than her. The man-child of a husband she considers her fourth child. The pigeon- and hotel bedspread-fearing gay brother and, well, just about everyone else in her aptly named "Modern Family," last season's breakout TV comedy. In real life, Julie Bowen is another mom but in a decidedly saner family - only her 3-year-old seems out of a sitcom, referring to his twin baby brothers as John and Other John.

Peter Falk had a fine career on the stage and in feature films. His crazed comic performance in "The In-Laws" alone would guarantee a major appreciation from film critics and scholars. But it is his network television work in the 1970s as a modest, sly, stub-of-a-cigar-smoking detective in a well-worn wreck of a trench coat for which he will be fondly remembered and celebrated for years to come. Falk, who died at his Beverly Hills home Thursday at age 83, gave life to a fictional detective named Lt. Columbo who was and is one of the only American crime solving characters who can rival the best in British detective fiction.

TOKYO -- Let historians and economists debate for years whether President Bush's trip here this month helped or harmed his cause -- one achievement can be recorded immediately.The trip enriched Japanese with something every language needs, a socially acceptable verb for one of life's unspeakable miseries.The new verb is "Bushusuru": to do a Bush.As in this conversation in the Roppongi nightclub district between a man in a trench coat and a companion in a dark suit.Trench coat (pointing to sidewalk)

An 18-year-old New Windsor man was charged yesterday with an early-morning robbery this month at a Westminster gasoline station, city police said. Stephen Michael Manning of the 100 block of Church St. was arrested yesterday at his home on charges stemming from the robbery of the Cranberry Exxon station, in the 300 block of Baltimore Blvd. (Route 140), at 1 a.m. April 4, police said. He was in custody last night at the Carroll County Detention Center on 11 charges, including armed robbery, conspiracy, carrying a deadly weapon, assault and possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute.

The belted khaki coat's enduring popularity and stylish variations make it both a classic and cutting-edge fashion statement.In the world of fashion, classic can be a dirty word. Not so with the trench coat. "There are certain pieces we have in our imagination that we ought to own," says Sally Singer, fashion news director of Vogue magazine, explaining why a belted khaki coat born in the trenches nearly a century ago has attained almost mythic status. "It's the most simple and elegant way to protect yourself from the rain.

County police were searching yesterday for a man who robbed a Crownsville gas station at gunpoint Saturday night, handcuffed an attendant and a customer and escaped in a stolen pickup truck.Several witnesses watched as the masked suspect drove off in a red, 1989 Toyota truck shortly after the 9:40 p.m. robbery at Crownsville Chevron, in the 1200 block of Generals Highway.Police officers spotted the stolen truck minutes later, but the man bailed out near Route 32 and Gambrills Road and disappeared into the woods.

LITTLETON, Colo. -- Tad Boles' mother bought him a black duster for Christmas in 1996 because they were on sale at Miller Stockman, a Western wear outlet, for $99.A week or so later, Tad's closest friend, Chris Morris, had the same kind of coat."

WASHINGTON -- Tourists in front of the White House noticed a strange thing Saturday: Though it was a warm day, a man was walking around wearing a trench coat.Tourists noticed this. The Secret Service apparently did not.After the trench-coated man sprayed 20-30 rounds of semiautomatic rifle fire at the White House, tourists wrestled the man to the ground.Tourists subdued the man, not the Secret Service.What did the Secret Service do?It said security at the White House is fine. Under review, but fine.

On screen, Julie Bowen plays a perfectionist mom, a sane obsessive surrounded by slightly crazy compulsives: the father who married a hottie younger than her. The man-child of a husband she considers her fourth child. The pigeon- and hotel bedspread-fearing gay brother and, well, just about everyone else in her aptly named "Modern Family," last season's breakout TV comedy. In real life, Julie Bowen is another mom but in a decidedly saner family - only her 3-year-old seems out of a sitcom, referring to his twin baby brothers as John and Other John.

The weather has changed, and you've stretched your summer outfits as far as they can go. Face it: It's time to go in search of a fall wardrobe. And shopping for clothes can be expensive. So how can you update your closet without sending yourself straight to the poorhouse? "One place you're going to want to spend money is on a couple of really key accessories," says Amy Cafazzo, style expert for Marshalls. When most women think accessories, they think handbags. Purses in oversized styles with fancy hardware have been hot for several seasons.

The belted khaki coat's enduring popularity and stylish variations make it both a classic and cutting-edge fashion statement.In the world of fashion, classic can be a dirty word. Not so with the trench coat. "There are certain pieces we have in our imagination that we ought to own," says Sally Singer, fashion news director of Vogue magazine, explaining why a belted khaki coat born in the trenches nearly a century ago has attained almost mythic status. "It's the most simple and elegant way to protect yourself from the rain.

An 18-year-old New Windsor man was charged yesterday with an early-morning robbery this month at a Westminster gasoline station, city police said. Stephen Michael Manning of the 100 block of Church St. was arrested yesterday at his home on charges stemming from the robbery of the Cranberry Exxon station, in the 300 block of Baltimore Blvd. (Route 140), at 1 a.m. April 4, police said. He was in custody last night at the Carroll County Detention Center on 11 charges, including armed robbery, conspiracy, carrying a deadly weapon, assault and possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute.

A lean man in a trench coat stands in a darkened lobby gazing out onto the street. Light from an open doorway beckons, but the man appears frozen in an attitude of perpetual watchfulness. Outside, people walk by seemingly unaware of the lonely figure in the shadows. Jack Eisenberg, who photographed this scene at Baltimore's Rochambeau Apartments, Franklin and Charles streets, back in the 1980s, is a portly, white-haired man who looks more like Santa Claus than the shadowy silhouette in the trench coat.

LITTLETON, Colo. -- Tad Boles' mother bought him a black duster for Christmas in 1996 because they were on sale at Miller Stockman, a Western wear outlet, for $99.A week or so later, Tad's closest friend, Chris Morris, had the same kind of coat."

The greyhound wore a trench coat.Chip, retired from dog tracks out west, managed to combine fashion, economy and sensibility with his $27.95, water-repellent and wool-lined coat from the Richter Co. of New York.Like most top models and almost all greyhounds, Chip has thin skin, short hair and almost no body fat. The trench coat kept him warm, comfortable and oh-so-stylish on a cold morning in Baltimore yesterday as he stepped out at the Fourth Annual Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Fashion Show.

No trench coat. No deferential manner. No bumble or stumble. No "Just one more thing, sir." No murder committed in the opening sequence. No half-lighted cigar. No fiendishly clever murderer. And no clash of classes, with the rich and successful killer matching wits against the working-class cop.Tonight's "Columbo" movie has Peter Falk in the title role. It has a murder. And the murder gets solved. But those are the only links between this and the frequently wonderful "Columbo" movies of the past.

WASHINGTON -- Tourists in front of the White House noticed a strange thing Saturday: Though it was a warm day, a man was walking around wearing a trench coat.Tourists noticed this. The Secret Service apparently did not.After the trench-coated man sprayed 20-30 rounds of semiautomatic rifle fire at the White House, tourists wrestled the man to the ground.Tourists subdued the man, not the Secret Service.What did the Secret Service do?It said security at the White House is fine. Under review, but fine.

No trench coat. No deferential manner. No bumble or stumble. No "Just one more thing, sir." No murder committed in the opening sequence. No half-lighted cigar. No fiendishly clever murderer. And no clash of classes, with the rich and successful killer matching wits against the working-class cop.Tonight's "Columbo" movie has Peter Falk in the title role. It has a murder. And the murder gets solved. But those are the only links between this and the frequently wonderful "Columbo" movies of the past.