Washington Post

Through an unusual cooperative effort by a judge, the State's Attorney's Office and defense attorneys, the case of the shooting death of a Mount Airy mother of three was closed Monday morning in Carroll Circuit Court.Anne Rita Downs, 30, was murdered about 2:30 a.m. Dec.19 in the master bedroom of her home on Wind Ridge Road.On Monday, her 31-year-old husband admitted shooting her in the back of the head as she slept.Edwin F. Downs Jr. pleaded guilty tofirst-degree murder and using a handgun in the commission of a crime.

Consumer-confidence drop persistsConsumer confidence slipped for the third consecutive month in July, amid poor employment prospects and slow-rising wages.The Conference Board's consumer-confidence index declined to 57.7 this month, from a revised reading of 58.6 during June, originally reported as 58.9. With the July report, the index stands more than 20 points below the high of 78.1 it reached in December after Bill Clinton's election to the White House.Southern Hotel gets extensionThe owners of the vacant Southern Hotel on Light Street received a guarantee from the city zoning board yesterday that they had until 1997 to start construction at the site.

You've read about them, now here's your chance to try one out firsthand: Baltimore-based American Personal Communications is looking for 100 Baltimoreans to try out a new, pocket-sized cordless phone as part of a public trial aimed at building the telephone system of the future."

WASHINGTON -- For any editor, the choices are terrible: Cave in to a terrorist, publish a lengthy diatribe and set a dangerous precedent. Refuse, and run the risk that the terrorist will kill more people.That is exactly what editors at the New York Times and the Washington Post face as they consider whether to run a 62-page, single-spaced manifesto from a terrorist dubbed the Unabomber, whose 17 years of random bomb attacks have killed three people and wounded 23."I can well understand an editor or publisher wanting to head off the possibility of a calamity by bending journalistic rules a bit," said Marvin Kalb, a former CBS News correspondent and now a media analyst.

WASHINGTON -- A two-star admiral who heads the Navy's supply system is under investigation for possible sexual harassment, a Pentagon official said Friday night.Rear Adm. R. M. Mitchell Jr. was relieved of his duties in Mechanicsburg, Pa., as head of the Navy's supply network and its 10,000 workers pending the outcome of the inquiry, according to Rear Adm. Kendell Pease, the chief Navy spokesman.The Pentagon is also investigating accusations of harassment against the Army's general counsel, William Coleman III, according to the Washington Post, which reported the inquiries involving both men in yesterday's issue.

THOSE who claim that the diminished number of daily newspapers in the United States means there is less competition haven't been in a newsroom lately. No one I know at The Sun accepts being beaten on a story by another news organization, especially on a story about Baltimore or Maryland. Competitive zeal is bred in the bone of most newspaper reporters and editors. It is an essential ingredient for success. If your news-gathering process is seen as passive or slow, it hurts your personal and institutional pride and damages readers' perception of your newspaper.

Ericka Blount Danois is native of Washington who lives in Baltimore. She has written for regional publications, including Baltimore magazine and The Washington Post. In this edition, Danois talks with Gerry Garvin of TV One's Turn Up The Heat with G. Garvin, who was in town recently. In another article, she writes about Baltimore's Mo'Nique who continues her crusade for acceptance of plus-size women. Danois asks experts about whether what Mo'Nique is promoting is healthy for women of color.

Richard L. Coe, 81, longtime drama critic for the Washington Post, died Sunday of lymphoma at his home in Washington. In his more than four decades of reviewing, he was among the most influential theater critics outside New York City and was the leading theater reviewer in Washington when it was a major tryout stop for shows headed for New York. Directors often used his reviews to smooth out productions before they reached Broadway.Sir Robert Stephens, 64, an award-winning Shakespearean actor, died Sunday of liver and kidney problems in London.

Ann Devroy, 49, who covered the White House for the Washington Post, died of uterine cancer yesterday at her home in Northwest Washington.Born and raised in Green Bay, Wis., she worked for a Gannett newspaper in Bridgewater, N.J., before she was transferred to Gannett's Washington bureau in 1977.She covered the New Jersey and Vermont congressional delegations, the Supreme Court and the Carter and Reagan administrations before she joined the Post as political editor in 1985. She began covering the White House at the beginning of the Bush administration in 1989.

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