Diapers

Neither casino workers nor their bosses seem to be happy with the compromise that the Atlantic City Council came up with in the dispute over curbing smoking on the gambling floors. The council voted to restrict smoking to 25 percent of casino floor space. The casinos had wanted at least 40 percent of the space for smokers, fearing a loss of revenue from a ban; the workers had wanted zero percent, fearing for their health. Let me suggest a better compromise, based on sound economics and health policy.

Here's an Olympic event many parents would just as soon forget - the Diaper Dash through the canyons of Toys R Us. True, the diapers are deeply discounted. But in most Toys R Us stores, the Pampers were far from the front door. And pity the poor parent towing a whining child past shelves stocked with every cool toy. Not a gold-medal winner in the shopping derby. But, nonetheless, a good way to explain how Toys R Us is changing its look. Nowhere is the "new" Toys R Us more evident than at a retrofitted Langhorne store on East Lincoln Highway.

When John and Mindy Chirico of Lansdale traveled to Central America, they took passports, luggage and 240 diapers. They ran out of diapers. On Sunday, the Chiricos and other parents of adopted foreign children met at Gwynedd-Mercy College in Lower Gwynedd and exchanged foreign travel and first-time parent anecdotes. Many of these couples - all alumni of Adoptions International Inc., a Philadelphia-based agency - have experienced miscarriages and stillbirths, failed in-vitro fertilization attempts and years on adoption waiting lists.

Helping Phil's jury LOS ANGELES - The judge in record producer Phil Spector's murder trial decided yesterday not to allow the deadlocked jury to consider a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter. But he asked them how the court might help them break the impasse - a 7-5 split, according to the foreman, who has not said which way the panel is leaning. Ex-astronaut's lawyers say she was just having a bad day ORLANDO, Fla. - Accusations that the former astronaut Lisa Nowak had made a diaper-assisted, 1,000-mile drive to confront a woman vying for the affections of the same space shuttle pilot turned into water-cooler and late-night TV punchlines.

What would happen," Slats Grobnik asked, "if the bartender in this place went on strike? Would I die of thirst?" Of course not. If such a crisis occurred, we could walk down the street to another joint. "Yeah, but what if every bartender in the city went on strike and no replacements were hired, what would happen then?" Then we'd go over to your house or mine and get something out of the refrigerator or pantry. "Yeah, and my wife wouldn't have to phone and ask if I left yet, because I'd be home.

Ten minutes into the ride, Melanie Styer, 17, chased Faith Lily into the back row of the minivan, where she changed the lamb's diaper. The rest of the 45-minute ride to Chester Springs, where the lamb would be moving, was not eventful. Even if it had been, Melanie's parents, Robert and Peggy Styer, didn't look as if the 4-week-old, 18-pound lamb could upset them. "It's sort of like a dog. Sheep are so easy," Peggy Styer said, but then speculated on why they aren't sustainable pets.

A former scoutmaster for a Main Line Boy Scout troop has been charged with trading child pornography and allegedly admitted to a "close relationship" with a scout. Gerrett Conover, 47, of Woolwich Township, Gloucester County, was scoutmaster of Radnor Troop 284 from at least 1999 until 2001, said Thomas Harrington, chief executive officer of the Boy Scouts Cradle of Liberty Council. He was arrested Sept. 16 while trying to cross the border from Canada at Ogdensburg, N.Y. Authorities allegedly found child porn on a laptop computer he was carrying.

Two Philadelphia-area schoolchildren were among nine national winners who were honored for their creativity yesterday in a program called Invent America! Like the other national winners, Dave Ott, 8, a second grader from Newtown Square, and Sally Mallison, 11, a sixth grader from Wilmington, both received an engraved medallion, a $500 savings bond and congratulations from Vice President Bush. The children displayed their inventions in the J. W. Marriott Hotel ballroom alongside those of 43 other regional honorees in the program, administered by the nonprofit U.S. Patent Model Foundation.

Yo! Did that get your attention? Do you blanch at the very sound? No matter the reaction, you recognize the word. It says "Philly. " Which is where the third annual YO! festival will take place Sunday and Monday. The bulk of this event is a musical riot for grown-ups (see Page 17 for lineup), with a separate sports activities area (keep an eye out for the Phillie Phanatic and the Sixers' Big Shot mascots) and abundant pig-out opportunities. But organizers, considering the two days a family occasion, have wisely included tons for kids to do and see in their own YO!

When a baby is due, a sibling-to-be has enough weighty matters to consider without worrying about that mysterious hospital where Mother will live for a few days. Quelling youthful visions of long, dark hallways and grumpy nurses, sibling-preparation classes are educating children of pregnant mothers in the realities of childbirth - on their level. The classes have become so popular that hospitals are adding sessions to accommodate the youngsters. "The children's greatest concern is usually, 'Where is Mom going?