Athens

ATHENS, Greece - Torrential rainfall in Greece's capital Friday crippled traffic, inundated basements and streets, and was blamed for the death of a woman whose car was trapped in floodwater, authorities said. The overnight storm swept across greater Athens, flooding hundreds of homes, causing blackouts in parts of the city, and forcing authorities to close major roads and a central subway station in Athens. "We have many, many problems - it's hard to know where to begin describing it," Deputy Fire Chief Vassilis Papageorgiou said.

The Olympic Rowing and Canoeing Centre is actually in Schinias, about 4 kilometers from the site of the Tomb of Marathon, the epicenter of the historic battle (Commentary, Aug. 13). Both are in the municipality of Marathonas, an area of about 38 square miles, but they are at different sites. E.G. Vallianatos is correct to point out that Schinias is a rare wetland area that deserves protection. We strongly agree. In 1923, the area was drained, and the natural spring that fed the wetlands was rerouted to the sea. The Olympic facility is a means of reintroducing fresh water into the area by a carefully designed lake system fed by the original spring.

Although the 1996 Olympics will be in Atlanta, the marathon race may be run in Athens. International Olympic Committee chairman Juan Antonio Samaranch said Thursday that the group would consider Athens as the site of the marathon, and Robert Helmick, president of the U.S. Olympic Committee, said yesterday that the idea was first presented to the IOC by Andrew Young, then mayor of Atlanta, two years ago. Athens lost out to Atlanta last month...

While Greek organizers were seeking to assure the world that the Athens Games will be safe, anti-Olympics activists firebombed two government vehicles yesterday to coincide with a major meeting of International Olympic Committee officials. Two environment ministry trucks were set ablaze by cooking gas canisters soaked in gasoline, causing an estimated $37,000 in damages, fire officials said. A group calling itself "Phevos and Athena" - the names of the Olympic mascots - said in a call to an Athens newspaper the attack was tied to the meetings of the IOC and the Association of National Olympic Committees.

Now that another Olympics has come and gone, fortunately without any major disaster - except a controversy about doping, the protests of the Aborigines and the arrogance of a few American athletes - we can turn our thoughts to 2004 when the games return to their original locale, Athens. The International Olympic Committee's retiring (hurrah) president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, is threatening to move the games if the Greek committee doesn't get its act together. I believe we should take another look at how and where they're held.

Athens, Ga. Inside/Out is a lively snatch of local color from the college town that has been home to generations of folk artists and musicians - from the devout painter, the Rev. Howard Finster to that irreverent band the B- 52s. Though it lacks what might be called a coherent thesis, this rock-and-roll potpourri is an Intro to Pop Culture 101 that pulses to the beats of different local drummers. It focuses not so much on regional landmarks like the town's Greek revival architecture, but rather on places like Walter's Bar-B-Q, a pit stop of a motley style frequented by Athens' local heroes, R.E.M.

Less than 24 hours after declaring a fragile truce, Premier Costas Simitis fired a senior Athens 2004 official for trading insults with a government minister over control of major construction projects for the Olympics. Simitis fired Costas Liaskas, a 2004 executive director. Liaskas, an engineer and former public works minister, is president of the Technical Chamber of Commerce of Greece. In an effort to smother the crisis, Athens 2004 head Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki also demanded Liaskas' resignation after his public exchange of thinly veiled insults with Public Works Minister Costas Laliotis.

I met up quite by chance with Dionysus, the god of theater and wine, among other things. It was on a recent Sunday, after I'd just arrived in Athens on an unusually warm winter day. My jet lag probably led me to Dionysus. I decided, 16 hours after I'd left Philadelphia and finally touched down, to climb the Acropolis. I was too tired to focus on a map - travelers, you know the feeling - so I ended up scaling the wrong side. I climbed and climbed, up narrow streets leading to the revered ancient Athens hilltop, having started out in the almost-as-ancient Plaka neighborhood - Athens' version of Old City, only way older.

EIGHT YEARS after winning Olympic medals in Athens, four track and field athletes from eastern Europe were ordered to hand them back Wednesday because of positive doping tests, while Lance Armstrong can hold onto his bronze medal from the 2000 Sydney Games a little while longer. The International Olympic Committee executive board disqualified four athletes whose 2004 Athens doping samples were retested this year and came back positive for steroids, including shot put gold medalist Yuriy Bilonog , of Ukraine.

When the U.S. Olympic team entered the stadium at the Games' opening ceremonies here, there was polite applause. When the Iraqis emerged, there was foot-stomping and cheering, and a few standing ovations. When the U.S. basketball team played its first game, against Puerto Rico, on Aug. 15, there was little doubt whom the crowd wanted to win - and it wasn't the Dream Team. And when two top Greek runners were involved in a doping scandal, while Greeks did not excuse their behavior, some were sure that larger (i.e.

Back in 1994, Bill Mallonee and his Athens, Ga., band, Vigilantes of Love, attempted to introduce themselves to a national audience with their fourth album, and their first with major-label distribution. Its title, Welcome to Struggleville , was apt, even prophetic. For Mallonee is a cult artist who's never found a wide audience despite consistent critical acclaim. In 2006, he was ranked the world's 65th best living songwriter by Paste magazine - ahead of Michael Jackson, Merle Haggard, and Allen Toussaint, among others.

The Philadelphia Artists Collective shows its collective courage once again. In choosing to give us a rare production of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens , it undertakes what few theater companies dare to do. It's a tough play, full of unlikable characters and difficult language; it hammers home the same idea over and over again, and this requires power and subtlety of delivery. So, I'm torn between admiration for the valiant attempt, and disappointment in the production. Written (probably)

ATHENS, Greece - Greece's cash-strapped government detailed Monday its plans to sell 28 state-owned buildings on long-term lease, including tax offices, ministry buildings, and the main police headquarters in Athens. A government privatization fund said it hoped to make 30 million euros - $39 million - annually from the lease agreements lasting 20 to 25 years. Included on the list of buildings for sale are the main properties used by the ministries of justice, education and culture, 12 tax offices, and the greater Athens police headquarters.

ATHENS, Greece - Torrential rainfall in Greece's capital Friday crippled traffic, inundated basements and streets, and was blamed for the death of a woman whose car was trapped in floodwater, authorities said. The overnight storm swept across greater Athens, flooding hundreds of homes, causing blackouts in parts of the city, and forcing authorities to close major roads and a central subway station in Athens. "We have many, many problems - it's hard to know where to begin describing it," Deputy Fire Chief Vassilis Papageorgiou said.

Eight years after winning Olympic medals in Athens, four track and field athletes from Eastern Europe were ordered to hand them back on Wednesday because of positive doping tests. Lance Armstrong , meanwhile, can hold onto his bronze medal from the 2000 Sydney Games for a little while longer. The International Olympic Committee executive board disqualified four athletes whose 2004 Athens Games doping samples were retested earlier this year and came back positive for steroids, including shot put gold medalist Yuriy Bilonog of Ukraine.

EIGHT YEARS after winning Olympic medals in Athens, four track and field athletes from eastern Europe were ordered to hand them back Wednesday because of positive doping tests, while Lance Armstrong can hold onto his bronze medal from the 2000 Sydney Games a little while longer. The International Olympic Committee executive board disqualified four athletes whose 2004 Athens doping samples were retested this year and came back positive for steroids, including shot put gold medalist Yuriy Bilonog , of Ukraine.

LONDON - While some Europeans swelled with pride when the European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize, howls of derision erupted from the continent's large band of skeptics. To many in the 27-nation bloc, the EU is an unwieldy and unloved agglomeration overseen by a top-heavy bureaucracy devoted to creating arcane regulations about everything from cheese to fishing quotas. Set up with noble goals after the devastation of World War II, the EU now appears to critics to be impotent amid a debt crisis that has widened north-south divisions, threatened the euro currency and plunged several members, from Greece to Ireland to Spain, into economic turmoil.

ATHENS, Greece - Greece's premier embarked Wednesday on a diplomatic push to earn his nation more time to complete reforms and retain access to bailout loans, but a top European official said that any decision will depend on a report by international debt inspectors next month. Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs meetings of eurozone finance ministers and is Luxembourg's prime minister, insisted that Greece must remain within the euro. Its exit from the currency used by 17 European Union countries would hurt both the country and the wider continent, he said.

LONDON - If they gave points for consistency, Matt Emmons would have three Olympic gold medals in the three-position air rifle event. Athens. Beijing. London. Three times, Emmons needed merely to make one last shot. Three times, the Mount Holly native produced his worst shot of the competition. Three times, he dropped in the final standings. This time, Emmons didn't fall all the way off the podium. He came away with a bronze medal, which is a fine achievement by any standards.

BRENDAN HANSEN went 2-for-2 in the Summer Olympics, winning a gold medal in the 4 x 100 medley relay on Saturday. Hansen, of Havertown, swam the breaststroke leg of the event, which earned Michael Phelps (butterfly) his record 22nd Olympic medal. Phelps won his fourth gold and sixth medal of the London Games. Matt Grevers (backstroke) and Nathan Adrian (freestyle) swam the other legs. Hansen, 30, was the team captain for the Americans. He took to Twitter to talk about his accomplishments.