York City Police

NEW YORK -- They've waited 54 years, and now they'll have to wait two more days. Or maybe five more. Or -- heaven help us -- maybe another half-century.Maybe forever.This was to be the night -- the start of the party, the end of the curse. Only problem was, the New York Rangers forgot to win. And now their tortured history is an issue once more.The Vancouver Canucks trail this series, three games to two. They can tie it by winning at home tomorrow. They can win it if they get to Game 7 at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday.

NEW YORK - Concerned about a series of slashings and robberies along the A line, janitor Jesse Atallah began carrying Mace last month on his ride to work at Kennedy Airport. Yakobzol Lyudmil, a Brooklyn hospital worker, avoids the B line because, she says, there are never officers around to break up teen-agers' fights. And Sophia Adams, a retired teacher, recently stopped riding the subway at night."Beginning last year, you could sense the change," says Adams, who lives on Roosevelt Island in the East River.

The videotaped images of Los Angeles policemen taking turns clubbing and kicking a lone suspect with apparent abandon suggest for Dr. James McGee the animal instincts that surface when humans acting in groups get swept into a frenzy."

Mayor Martin O'Malley is big on symbols. Plastering the city with black-and-white posters to convince Baltimore to believe in itself. Running the 1814 flag up city poles to highlight local history. Putting a new coat of paint on troubled schools to give students a lift. And then there's the photo of the partial glass of water that O'Malley's senior staff has been known to send out in response to newspaper articles it considers negative. "Bet I can guess what you think this is," reads the accompanying message.

NEW YORK -- Behind the 30 percent drop in murders and shootings reported in New York City this year is a startling development: Drug dealers and gang members have apparently begun to leave their guns at home.Police department and federal law enforcement officials say that gunplay has decreased from the South Bronx to the Rockaways, partly as a result of the tightening of local and federal gun-control regulations and crackdowns on youth gangs.But more than anything else, federal and local officials say, it is the increase in police friskings for such minor violations as loud radio playing and public beer drinking that has discouraged people from carrying unregistered guns.

The search for the killers of Baltimore millionaire J. Schuyler "Sky" Alland was at a standstill in the summer of 1992. Whoever executed the businessman for his $80,000 black BMW apparently had gotten away with murder -- not to mention the car.U.S. Park Police Detective Timothy M. Squires was handling the first murder of his career, but he made a bold promise."He promised that he would find these guys," said Dorothy Alland Leighton, Mr. Alland's mother. "He said, 'Even when I retire, I'll continue to work on this case with no pay until I find who killed your son.' "His promise was fulfilled Wednesday when federal prosecutors wrapped up an intricate nationwide investigation into the February 1992 murder with the conviction of the killer, John Graham Bridges, 30, of Norfolk, Va. A co-defendant, Robert Patrick Gray, 25, of Cockeysville pleaded guilty Nov. 5."

* The Rev. J. Robert Williams, 37, the first openly gay man to be ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church, has died of an AIDS-related pulmonary infection. Mr. Williams, who was asked to resign just six weeks after his controversial ordination in December 1989, died on Christmas Eve at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He was diagnosed with AIDS in November 1990. He renounced his association with the Episcopal Church in 1991, but continued to work as a Christian priest, joining the Western Orthodox Catholic Church in America.

WASHINGTON -- Republican Daniel Bongino, the former Secret Service agent who ran an unsuccessful campaign for U.S. Senate last year, said Tuesday he is "95 percent" certain he will run in Maryland's 6th Congressional District in the 2014 election and recently filed federal paperwork allowing him to raise money for that race. Bongino, a 38-year-old Severna Park man, was the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Maryland last year. He captured 26 percent of the vote against Democratic incumbent Sen. Ben Cardin, despite a spirited campaign that frequently landed him on national television and established the first-time politico as a rising star in the state party.

The bus carrying Cody Stanton and other wounded soldiers breezed up Interstate 95 on Tuesday to the site of the former World Trade Center in New York, with an escort arranged by Baltimore's police commissioner. The side door opened, and Stanton, who lost his legs and two fingers in an explosion in Afghanistan, was lowered on his wheelchair. More than one hundred construction workers were protesting working conditions at the site, but when they saw the soldiers, they suddenly broke into a thunderous applause, chanting "USA!

The Palestinian immigrant and his brother lived next door to each other in homes in West Ocean City , over the years opening a number of businesses throughout the area — three pizza shops, a Mexican restaurant, a liquor store, gas stations, and development companies, court records show. This week, however, authorities in New York alleged that Basel, 42, and Samir Ramadan, 39, were also at the top of a multimillion-dollar cigarette-smuggling ring and said they believe members of the organization may have funneled some of their proceeds to terrorist groups.