Unfinished Business

CHESAPEAKE, Va. - Dennis Bowman spent the past six weeks hearing stories of serial murder and ruined lives. As a juror in the John Allen Muhammad sniper case, he was haunted by the grisly autopsy photographs of people shot in the head, and he didn't sleep the night before he voted to put Muhammad to death. Now he's sitting through it all again. On a day when he could have stayed home with his family, Bowman sat yesterday in the crowded courtroom where Muhammad's alleged accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, is on trial on capital murder charges.

SEE THE TEST scores go up five years in a row? Just don't look down, at the bottom line. It's been no secret that successive administrators allowed the Baltimore school system's structural deficit to balloon; that managers' pledges to cut spending or freeze hiring routinely went unmet without consequences; that unrealistic and inaccurate projections and a lack of adequate business checks and balances hindered the school board's effectiveness. On a reform report card, this is called flunking.

COLLEGE PARK - Ten months ago, Maryland middle linebacker E.J. Henderson announced he would return for his senior season, saying he liked being on campus and that he wanted to take care of unfinished business - like beating Florida State. The news elicited groans from football coaches like Clemson's Tommy Bowden, whose Tigers face the Terrapins on Saturday night. "I wish he wouldn't have stayed - he was close to coming out after last year," Bowden said recently, talking about last year's Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year.

One preaches for a living, another handles discrimination complaints. A third nurses the sick, while a fourth is a corporate type. Then there is the computer-aided designer, and don't forget the union president. The candidates for the House of Delegates from the 10th District are a diverse lot who are vying to represent nearly 59,000 registered voters on the southwest side of Baltimore County. It's a district that saw significant changes when boundary lines were redrawn this year. Gone from the 10th District are the city precincts.

For Baltimoreans who have placed their faith in Mayor Martin O'Malley, his decision to complete his term ends an uneasy period during which they fretted that he might not be around to finish what he grandly started. From developers to small-business owners to church and neighborhood leaders, those with a stake in the city said yesterday that they had invested their hopes - and in some cases time or money - in the young mayor and that they hadn't gotten a sufficient return on their investment.

COLLEGE PARK - Ralph Friedgen, who had emerged as a candidate to lead the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, announced his intention to remain Maryland's coach yesterday morning. Friedgen, 54, had met with Buccaneers executive vice presidents Joel and Edward Glazer Monday night, but removed his name from consideration after ESPN.com published reports of the meeting later that evening. "I don't know how this story broke," the coach said, "but that put me in a position where I need to pull my name out of the hat."

WASHINGTON -- Everywhere you look these days, you see the Bush team bathed in an Olympian glow. Laurel City, as 41 might say. Self-consciously posing for Annie Leibovitz as Men of Steel plus Condi, the Bushies are hailed as conquering heroes and heroic conquerors in the new Vanity Fair. Mr. Bush is favorably compared to Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and Harry Truman, and proclaimed "the president who rose to the occasion." Dick Cheney is christened "The Rock" (a refreshing change from "The Drill")