Younger Sister

"Overseas," at the Charles, has three things right with it: It is overintelligent, overinsightful and over here.A graceful choreography of ironies and epiphanies on the subject of the decline of empire, the French film follows as three sisters, beauties all, begin 1946 as the inheritors of the mantel of stewardship of Algeria. We see them first in a dinghy approaching the shore from a beach outing: fair, windblown, delicate and yet beaming with strength and confidence. The daughters of a powerful retired Colonial officer, they look forward to that which befits their status: prosperity, honor, stability, a sense of belonging.

"Overseas," at the Charles, has three things right with it: It is overintelligent, overinsightful and over here.A graceful choreography of ironies and epiphanies on the subject of the decline of empire, the French film follows as three sisters, beauties all, begin 1946 as the inheritors of the mantel of stewardship of Algeria. We see them first in a dinghy approaching the shore from a beach outing: fair, windblown, delicate and yet beaming with strength and confidence. The daughters of a powerful retired Colonial officer, they look forward to that which befits their status: prosperity, honor, stability, a sense of belonging.

I AM A PRISONER. I do not need more sorrow or regret. Yet in November 1991 I suffered a blow far more aching than was caused by the six police bullets I caught in 1972. From the former blow I will never recover.I was told by a guard to return to my housing unit. I asked why. To receive a telephone call, he said.Had a judge come to his or her senses, realized that my rights had been violated in 1972, and ordered my release? No, I decided. I would have been summoned to court first.Had Janet Jackson finally concluded that life without me was intolerable and she was eager to fly into my waiting arms?

Q. I have a 4-year-old daughter who refuses to eat meat or to try any different foods. She lives on about 10 different foods, including macaroni and cheese and peanut butter and jelly. She seems almost terrified if I offer her anything else. She is right in the middle of height and weight charts for her age. She is healthy, and her iron count is good. My husband is concerned about her diet, though. He's also concerned because I fix her a separate meal from the rest of the family every night.

YORK, Pa. -- Walking home from church yesterday morning, Charlie Robertson couldn't go more than a block at a time without someone stopping him to offer congratulations or tooting a car horn in support. He was up till midnight Saturday, answering "hundreds of calls" from friends and strangers in at least six states and as far away as Italy, according to the list he pulled from his suit pocket. Just hours earlier that day, a jury had acquitted him of murder charges in the 33-year-old race-riot killing of a black woman.

For three days, 60 miles and a few breaks in between, Lynne Pachico will be walking with a purpose. The South County woman, along with about 4,000 others, was scheduled to began a trek today from Frederick to Washington to raise money and awareness for breast cancer prevention. They will walk for 20 miles each day, sharing stories of friends and family who have been lost to breast cancer and who have survived it. Pachico, of North Beach, will tell the story of her younger sister, who recently completed treatment after her condition was diagnosed last year during a routine mammogram.

MAJURO, Marshall Islands - She sits on the grass on a warm, windy afternoon, with the Pacific tide rolling gently on the rock-strewn beach behind her. The placid scene contrasts sharply with the part of her young life she is describing. Five years ago, when she was 12, she and her younger sister were adopted by a Greenwood, S.C., couple. The sexual abuse by her adoptive father began almost as soon as she moved into his home, she said. The Sun does not publish the names of alleged victims of sexual abuse.

DEAR AMY -- I have a 79-year-old aunt who is driving everyone in the family nuts. I think she has some form of dementia, but my mother and their younger sister say she has always been this way, changing her targets throughout the years. Nearly seven years ago, she began a campaign to convince the rest of the family that her younger sister is insane -- in her words, "a sociopath," and when we disagreed with her, she demanded that we cease contact. This year, she targeted my mother. I wrote my aunt, only to have the letter returned with her address scratched out so viciously she tore holes in the envelope.

Details on family life murky in murder case On the day after Christmas, 20-year-old Jason Chen said, he discovered his father assaulting his mother during a morning argument in their three-story Ellicott City townhouse. Chen told police that he stepped in to protect his mother, took a knife from his father and stabbed him multiple times. The murder case against him will largely hinge on whether prosecutors and police believe his story. "Because he confessed, all of the work that normally would be done prior to an arrest is being done after it," said Sherry Llewellyn, a spokeswoman for Howard County police.

YORK, Pa. - Two white men convicted in the 1969 race-riot killing of a black preacher's daughter were sentenced yesterday to spend at least 4 1/2 and 9 years in prison. York County Judge John C. Uhler handed down the sentences - 4 1/2 years to 10 years for Gregory H. Neff and 9 years to 19 years for Robert N. Messersmith - at the end of an emotional court hearing in which Messersmith leveled new accusations against former York Mayor Charlie Robertson. The former mayor was acquitted in October of charges that as a police officer he offered encouragement and bullets to the white gang members who killed Lillie Belle Allen.