Burger King

The Whitpain Township Planning Commission has recommended approval of plans for a small-scale office park on Union Meeting Road. By a 5-0 vote at its meeting Thursday night, the commission endorsed plans by Hansen Properties for an eight-building subdivision on a 50-acre tract. The commission's action is subject to approval of landscape plans by the township engineer and the township planner. The plan will then be reviewed by the Board of Supervisors, which will make a final decision.

NEW YORK MADONNA-DAVE: A DOZEN BLEEPS A petulant, foul-mouthed Madonna waxed super-raw on network TV last night, lacing the "Late Show With David Letterman" with obscenities that NBC bleeped out more than a dozen times. Letterman has been trying to lure the pop singer onto the show for years - but after her contentious appearance last night, it was doubtful whether he found it worth the wait. "It turned kind of ugly, didn't it?" a visibly shaken Letterman said on the show after the superstar's combative appearance.

IT IS ESSENTIAL to all organizations, no less Burger King than our national government, to hire those who can demonstrate that they are qualified for the job at hand. Judges are of particularly importance because court decisions have such a critical effect on our lives as citizens, and no judge affects our lives more than one who sits on the U.S. Supreme Court. If Harriet Miers is unable to actively and concretely demonstrate her qualifications to be a Supreme Court justice, our senators have a responsibility to reject her candidacy for the Supreme Court.

The end may finally be near for Collingdale's two major eyesores, an abandoned three-story apartment house at 102 Chester Pike and a burned-out Burger King at 423 MacDade Blvd. The Borough Council voted Monday night to ask the Delaware County Council for the money to demolish the apartment, the borough's tallest building, and revealed that a mini-mall may replace the Burger King. "There is no guarantee the county will come up with the demolition funds, estimated at around $25,000," Council President William McGowan said, "but we want to be optimistic.

The Colby brothers' new Burger King has not even been open one week, and it has already sold more Whoppers than there are people in this historic borough. That's not hard, considering that only 1,369 people live here, and that Michael Colby - a 31-year-old Pemberton Township native - knows many of them by name. Craig Colby, Michael's partner and twin, knows those names his brother doesn't. The early success is also not surprising considering that the restaurant sits at Hanover Street and Route 38, a bustling crossroads where hungry motorists headed for Burlington County College, the nearby military bases, or the Jersey Shore might be likely to stop for a quick bite.

A Tredyffrin Township property owner has spent five years and untold dollars trying to get township officials to utter four words from an old Burger King slogan: "Have it your way. " Joseph Palmer, owner of a four-acre shopping center at Plank Avenue and Lancaster Pike, has become a familiar figure at hearings of the Tredyffrin Zoning Board of Adjustment. He has been appearing before the board since 1983 in a battle to keep a sign advertising the 10 stores of his Depot Shoppes center.

Although the data show that Americans are as fond of hamburgers as ever, some restaurant chains report they've noticed a trend away from beef on a bun. And the nation's leading fast-food chains are diversifying their menus, partly in response to the public's escalating demand for poultry and other, lighter fare. Michael Kostick, general manager of the Ground Round, Roosevelt Boulevard and Red Lion Road in the Northeast, said he's noticed a decline in burger orders of about 30 percent over the last three years.

On Blackwood-Clementon Road in South Jersey, the newest reinforcement in Checkers' David-and-Goliath battle against the McDonald's and Burger Kings of the hamburger world is about to take the field. In this case, the combat will be in close quarters. The Checkers opening this week is alongside the McDonald's and one door away from the Burger King. The creation of a hamburger enclave along the small stretch of roadway in Blackwood in Camden County is visual evidence of the intense fight for a share in the $37.6 billion-a-year hamburger-chain segment of the fast-food market.

They're called the Hardy Souls. Every weekday morning, 100 to 150 people, most of them elderly, visit the Springfield Mall to walk. The mall opens early for them, at 8:30, and most finish their rounds - five laps is about a mile - before the stores open at 10. "People walk here for the companionship and to stay healthy," said Jule Niemeyer, 77, the group's unofficial greeter, who has had three heart bypass surgeries and has been walking the...

Given the cruel pace of fast-food stickups in the Northeast, you might want to change your eating habits. To something safer, like TV dinners or bean sprouts. Tuesday morning's savage robbery and murder at the Hardee's Roy Rogers at Roosevelt Boulevard and Welsh Road is but the latest in a stream of fast-food violence. The trend stretches into the suburbs and into South Philadelphia, where Philadelphia police officer Charles T. Knox Jr. was murdered Aug. 30 when he and his partner disrupted a stickup.