United Kingdom

Now if only Washington could acquire a new baseball stadium, too, maybe we'd be able to get Os tickets.Next thing you know, the English will demand self-government within the United Kingdom, too.Say what else you will, the royal crash was the best thing that happened to Elton John's career in a long time.Jesse Helms for ambassador to Mexico!Pub Date: 9/15/97

Most renowned for its airborne combat radars, the local unit of Northrop Grumman Corp. has won a pair of contracts that illustrate how the division is branching out and looking overseas for business.A British company has awarded $5 million to a unit of the Linthicum-based Electronic Sensors and Systems Division to help develop an anti-submarine warfare sonar for the United Kingdom. The contract, from Babcock Defence Systems Ltd., eventually could top $150 million.The Northrop Grumman division's Anti-Submarine Warfare and Ships Systems unit in Sykesville will perform the work.

Eminently civilized, but not as buttoned-down as England; fanciful, but not as ephemerally as Ireland; witty, but not as barbed as Scotland, Wales has its own buzzwords.Portmeirion Hay-on-Wye Cardiff Castle.These are just three of the whimsical and amazing landmarks you'll find in this part of the British isles that will tickle your fancy in ways you won't find anywhere else. And many of these locations have a man-made wackiness and inventiveness about them that reveal imagination, wit and the occasional sense of sheer lunacy.

PHH Corp., founded in Baltimore 50 years ago by Duane L. Peterson, Richard M. Heather and Harley W. Howell, grew from a small partnership that managed company cars into one of the world's leading companies in automobile fleet management, corporate relocations and mortgage banking.The founders worked in a partnership until 1954, when they formed the corporation of Peterson, Howell & Heather Inc., then called PH&H. During the 1950s, the company formed divisions in Canada and the United Kingdom.

In a move reminiscent of the Band Aid/"We Are the World" projects of the mid-1980s, top bands from the chart-busting British pop music scene are joining forces to record an album for Bosnia charity War Child.The album, called "Help," will feature tracks from Blur, Oasis' Noel Gallagher, Portishead, Suede, the Stone Roses and Manic Street Preachers, among others. About 20 acts are expected to participate in the project.Blur and Oasis have the top two singles in the United Kingdom, having just concluded a highly publicized chart battle that was likened to the glory days of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

Murdock, MCI set on-line ventureNews Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said his company and MCI Communications Corp. will unveil a "very, very big" on-line services joint venture later this month, U.S. entertainment magazine Television Digest reported yesterday.Arrangements aren't final, Mr. Murdoch said, but the venture will likely be announced before the Fox Broadcast Co. affiliates meeting in Los Angeles on June 22. MCI officials have been briefing News Corp. executives in the United Kingdom.

Mycah Berryman, who has hardly ever left Anne Arundel County, will get to see what life is like beyond the Chesapeake this summer.The eighth-grader at Severn River Junior High School is to spend 22 days traveling in England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland as part of the People to People Student Ambassador Program. But before she can fly away, she has to raise $4,000 to pay for the trip and other expenses.Mycah, 13, and her parents began a letter-writing campaign this month to help her raise the money.

Stock in Giant Food Inc. isn't on many "buy" lists.The Landover-based grocer isn't opening many new stores. Its sales are under attack by Wal-Mart and club warehouses. Its profit margin has shrunk by more than a fourth since 1990. Its share price has never beaten a high set five years ago.J. Sainsbury PLC thinks Giant is a great prospect.Last week, the big British retailer said it will spend $325 million to buy out Giant's co-founding Lehrman family, acquiring a 16 percent ownership stake and half its voting stock, along with three seats on its seven-person board.

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Communications Commission is expected to vote today on proposals from two companies that could lead to lower phone rates between the United States and the United Kingdom.Two long-distance companies -- ACC Global Corp. and Alanna Inc. -- have asked the FCC for permission to offer phone services between the United States and the United Kingdom, using lines leased from other telephone companies. An FCC OK would allow the firms to cut their trans-Atlantic rates, offering greater competition to long-distance giants such as AT&T Corp.

Why mess with success? United International Pictures certainly won't when it starts rolling out the Paramount megahit "Forrest Gump" overseas Sept. 22.According to UIP senior vice president Hy Smith, the distribution giant won't be tinkering much with "Gump's" North American ad campaign, which has already helped the film sprint past the $230 million mark box-office revenues in the United States."