Andorra

In the jammed parking lot of the Supermercat Jumbo, where nearly every car bore a Spanish license plate, shoppers were stuffing their trunks with bags of buys - Dutch butter, Danish hams, Spanish cheeses, liquor, cigarettes, auto parts, radios, television sets, pots and pans. "The prices here are ridiculously cheap," said a man from Barcelona, who had bought a dozen huge bottles of Italian cooking oil. "I come here every month to stock up. Everbody I know shops in Andorra. " It wasn't so long ago that the tiny country of Andorra, perched high in the Pyrenees between Spain and France and covering little more ground than the city of Philadelphia, was an isolated alpine aerie inhabited mostly by impoverished shepherds and a few smugglers.

In Philadelphia's Andorra section, a thicket of forest gives way to Houston Meadow, a haven for two types of butterflies found nowhere else in the city, and a bevy of red squirrels, birds, and other small animals. The Fairmount Park Commission, which says the meadow was much larger 50 years ago, has been cutting down tree species that started growing there relatively recently to expand the meadow from 15 acres to about 47 acres. Fairmount Park managers say removing trees from 25 acres and thinning them on an additional eight will improve the habitat for some animals, but the plan has rattled some neighbors who prefer the shady canopy of leaves.

This morning's sunrise may have found John Fean paddling alone through the back bays of Brigantine or strolling the sand there with his wife before the holiday crowds hit the beach. Fean, like thousands of other motorists yesterday morning, was headed to the Jersey Shore with his family for the Fourth of July weekend when he lost control of his SUV on Interstate 76 near the Walt Whitman Bridge in Camden, New Jersey State Police said. Fean, 53, an electrician and father of three from the Andorra section of Philadelphia, was ejected from his black Ford Explorer when it overturned, police said.

The Rev. Arvey J. Ibbotson, 88, of Penn Valley, who was a banker as well as a minister, died Monday at Nazareth Hospital in Philadelphia. Mr. Ibbotson began working at the Philadelphia Saving Fund Society in 1926. He retired in 1971 as the assistant vice president of the mortgage department. In 1930, he was ordained a Baptist clergyman and became the pastor of Manatawna Baptist Church in Roxborough. The congregation soon merged with and became known as Andorra Baptist Church, also in Roxborough.

Annette Joffe Fabrican, 87, former owner and operator of the Ivyridge Nursing Home in Roxborough, died of multi-organ failure Feb. 7 at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center in California. In 1954, Mrs. Fabrican, a registered nurse, and her husband, Edward L. Fabrican, a chemist and pharmacist, opened the Ivyridge Nursing Home. When her husband died in 1966, she continued to run the 52-patient facility while raising three children. "If a nurse called out sick, my mother worked the shift," said her daughter, Susan.

Two men accused of murdering a Hahnemann University Hospital parking lot attendant will stand trial, a judge ruled yesterday. Len Ellis, 23, the alleged gunman, and Zaire Thompson, 19, who prosecutors say was the lookout, are charged with murder, robbery and related offenses in the slaying of William Palmer, 18, the son of two Philadelphia police officers. Ellis, of the 5900 block of North 20th Street in East Germantown, waived his right to a preliminary hearing yesterday.

MOUSE IN THE PYRENEES EMERGES FROM MIDDLE AGES The tiny, landlocked Pyrenean state of Andorra announced yesterday that it would hold its first general election Dec. 12 after more than 700 years of life based on semi-feudal laws and traditions. Before a constitution was approved this year, political parties and unions were illegal in the co-principality, which historically has been ruled by the president of France and the Roman Catholic bishop of Seo de Urgel, Spain. Andorra borders on France and Spain and is only half the size of New York City.

En route to the funeral of a city worker last night, Mayor Rendell's limo (top) was involved in a collision at Henry and Port Royal avenues. The mayor continued on to the funeral of Gerald Ebbecke, a supervisor with the City Streets Department, who was shot to death Friday at the Traffic Signal and Sign office in Juniata Park. Pallbearers (bottom) carry Ebbecke's casket from Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Andorra after the service. Police said the mayor's Crown Victoria collided with a Nissan just before 8 p.m. Two women in the Nissan were treated for minor injuries at Medical College of Pennsylvania Hospital.

The United Nations keeps growing, and so does its commemorative flag series. Next Friday, the U.N. will issue eight stamps depicting flags of its newest member nations. The stamps, each 34 cents, reproduce flags of Slovenia, Palau, Tonga, Croatia, Macedonia, Kiribati, Andorra and Nauru. The additions bring total membership to 191 states. The flag series debuted in 1980. Groups of 16 nations were represented on sheetlets each year until 1989, at which point all the world's nations had been honored.

Robert Theodore Healy, 80, of Roxborough, a retired city surveyor, died Thursday, July 15, of complications of a stroke at Meadow Springs, a nursing facility in Plymouth Meeting. For 41 years, Mr. Healy was a surveyor with the City of Philadelphia. One of the projects he was involved with was the restoration of Germantown Avenue, including Belgian-block paving and new trolley tracks, said a son, David. Mr. Healy graduated from Germantown High School. During the Korean War, he served in the Marine Corps in North Carolina.

This morning's sunrise may have found John Fean paddling alone through the back bays of Brigantine or strolling the sand there with his wife before the holiday crowds hit the beach. Fean, like thousands of other motorists yesterday morning, was headed to the Jersey Shore with his family for the Fourth of July weekend when he lost control of his SUV on Interstate 76 near the Walt Whitman Bridge in Camden, New Jersey State Police said. Fean, 53, an electrician and father of three from the Andorra section of Philadelphia, was ejected from his black Ford Explorer when it overturned, police said.

In Philadelphia's Andorra section, a thicket of forest gives way to Houston Meadow, a haven for two types of butterflies found nowhere else in the city, and a bevy of red squirrels, birds, and other small animals. The Fairmount Park Commission, which says the meadow was much larger 50 years ago, has been cutting down tree species that started growing there relatively recently to expand the meadow from 15 acres to about 47 acres. Fairmount Park managers say removing trees from 25 acres and thinning them on an additional eight will improve the habitat for some animals, but the plan has rattled some neighbors who prefer the shady canopy of leaves.

Actress Anne Hathaway , accompanied by a harpist, sang "Ave Maria" at the Funeral Mass of her paternal grandmother, Jacqueline Ann Gouin , on Wednesday at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in the city's Andorra section. Her grandmother, who died Aug. 21 at age 86, lived at Cathedral Village. Hathaway's father, Jerry , is one of five children. The actress' mother, Kate McCauley , also grew up in the area and went to Mount St. Joseph Academy and acted in the troupe at La Salle.

The Andorra/Roxborough crowd is abuzz with speculation that new Philadelphia Eagle Michael Vick has bought a seven-bedroom, 4 1/2-bath house on nearly three-quarters of an acre in the Andorra section that's on the market for $1.3 million. So abuzz that TV crews showed up the other night on a quiet street that backs up to Fairmount Park. But any sale is news to Rana Bakhtiari , the Realtor who has the listing. "There are no offers on the table," she said. "There's been a lot of interest.

Two men accused of murdering a Hahnemann University Hospital parking lot attendant will stand trial, a judge ruled yesterday. Len Ellis, 23, the alleged gunman, and Zaire Thompson, 19, who prosecutors say was the lookout, are charged with murder, robbery and related offenses in the slaying of William Palmer, 18, the son of two Philadelphia police officers. Ellis, of the 5900 block of North 20th Street in East Germantown, waived his right to a preliminary hearing yesterday.

Annette Joffe Fabrican, 87, former owner and operator of the Ivyridge Nursing Home in Roxborough, died of multi-organ failure Feb. 7 at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center in California. In 1954, Mrs. Fabrican, a registered nurse, and her husband, Edward L. Fabrican, a chemist and pharmacist, opened the Ivyridge Nursing Home. When her husband died in 1966, she continued to run the 52-patient facility while raising three children. "If a nurse called out sick, my mother worked the shift," said her daughter, Susan.

Basia Cierkosz, 55, of Andorra, who was in a wheelchair more than half her life, battling for greater accessibility for the disabled, died Saturday at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, one month after being diagnosed with liver cancer. Ms. Cierkosz' life changed forever when she was 24. She slipped on a boat in dry dock, fell 15 feet, and broke her back. She was found six hours later. That was the summer between her junior and senior years at the University of Pennsylvania, where she was studying chemistry.

The gun was pointed at him. Then at his stepdaughter. This was a stickup, in broad daylight, right in the busy parking lot of the Andorra Shopping Center Saturday. And the man started to shoot, police said. So Jaison Potts reacted, they said. Authorities said Potts, an off-duty Philadelphia police officer from the 19th precinct, drew his service pistol and shot his assailant three times in the chest, killing him. The name of the assailant, described by police as a heavy-set black male in his 30s, was not released because his family had not been notified.

When the news spread Sunday that the AMC Andorra was closing for good, moviegoers from the neighborhood encompassing Chestnut Hill, Mount Airy, Germantown and Roxborough weren't surprised. After 38 years in business and little in the way of recent maintenance, the speakers stuttered and the projectors needed corrective lenses. And let's not talk about why our soles adhered to the carpets. "Audiences clearly prefer the modern megaplex theaters," AMC spokesman Rick King said yesterday, citing his circuit's state-of-the-art Plymouth Meeting 12 nearby.