Future

A dream had carried the boys so far from home, some 5,000 miles across the ocean to a cramped and dingy apartment in Philadelphia: a hope that ice hockey could change their lives. Ivan Pravilov could fulfill that dream, they were told. He could take them from the daily grind of post-communist Ukraine to the gleaming ice of the NHL. He'd done it before. He'd done if for Andrei Zyuzin, who went on to play for six NHL teams. He'd done it for Konstantin Kalmikov, a third-round draft pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1996.

So many parents and alumni of St. Denis Catholic School in Havertown supported merging with friendly CYO rival Annunciation B.V.M., the marriage should have gone off without a hitch. Instead, parishioners hoping to embrace the past and future in a name were told the regional school would honor the late Cardinal John Foley. The decision was, in their pastor's words, "nonnegotiable. " Children voted on a mascot, only to have their choices (Cardinals, Falcons, or Phoenixes)

Latasha Williamson, 12, of the J. Cooke Middle School, peers into a solar furnace exhibit yesterday at the 45th Annual Delaware Valley Science Fair, held at the Civic Center.

Hero Scholarship recipient Raymond S. Fredericksdorf (right) holds jumbo ticket to Hero Scholarship Show yesterday on City Hall tower, with help from (from left) Vyette and Milt Rosenberg, Norb McGettigan, Reginald Beauchamp and Abe Rosen. Fredericksdorf's father, Police Officer Raymond F. Fredericksdorf, was killed in 1972 in the line of duty.

Does man use tools or vice-versa? This question haunts 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick's masterwork about the evolution of humanity from monkey to man and of tools from club to computer. The Chestnut Hill Film Group is offering a rare opportunity to see Kubrick's 1968 masterpiece on the big screen, and to understand that no one imagined the way the future looked more evocatively than the filmmaker in his hugely influential, if sometimes impenetrable, space opera. 2001: A Space Odyssey is scheduled to be shown at the Chestnut Hill branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

It is of great importance to follow the news reports such as those published in The Inquirer about the emerging countries of South America - Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Peru, among others - because the true future of the United States lies with the republics south of the border. It is not far away the day when Hispanics of U.S. citizenship will represent America before the Latin American republics, hence the need to speak the Spanish language on the part of those willing to travel, do business or settle there.

'You can never plan the future by the past," said Edmund Burke. Too often, however, government plans for the future are based only on past experiences. When government does look forward, it may be for only one budget cycle. As a departure from this norm, the city controller's office undertook a project to make suggestions for the future based on an analysis of the challenges and opportunities that await Philadelphia in the next century.The product of that project became the book, "Philadelphia: A New Urban Direction.

With a Chuck Bednarik statue at Franklin Field under consideration, the Daily News was wondering who the next person should be to have a statue built. You can vote for your favorite at: philly.com/statue Paul Arizin Bill Barber Charles Barkley Bobby Clarke Billy Cunningham Joe Frazier Tom Gola Bernard Hopkins Allen Iverson Tommy McDonald Bernie Parent Steve Van Buren Reggie White

Although he has just become a teenager, Gerard is already thinking about a career. He may become a lawyer but is also considering other possibilities. The 13-year-old enjoys playing many sports, but feels he is best at basketball. He intends to keep playing that sport and football. Open, friendly and articulate, Gerard had a great time at summer camp recently. In school, he earns good grades and especially likes his history class. Gerard has a positive outlook on his present and future, and hopes that future will include being adopted.

What will become of Mexico? How can a country so powerful, so concerted, so modern, be so impotent, so chaotic, so backward? And how can Mexico, and all Latin America, take ownership of their futures? Of the many themes of Carlos Fuentes, the celebrated Mexican writer who died Tuesday in Mexico City at 83, those were always uppermost. This tireless writer in many genres, from screenplays to op-ed pieces, gained fame for his trenchant, postmodern fables of a people, country, and continent struggling into the light.

Someday, when Earth is a barren wasteland of robots gone rogue and Lady Gaga is queen of our moon colony, humanity will look back and wonder what the hell happened. When did technology go too far? Was it the Flowbee that pushed the edge? Did George Lucas invent some 5-D laser beam that replaced our memories with "Star Wars"? Or was it the guy from Gloucester County, N.J., who punched a few holes in his wrist last month and inserted some magnets so that he could hold his iPod Nano without some ugly-looking strap getting in the way?

With its towering pine trees and par-71 golf course, Woodcrest Country Club in Cherry Hill has served as an enclave for South Jersey's elite going back almost a century. But the club's future is now in doubt as a long-running dispute involving former members, a local bank, and millions in outstanding debt heads to bankruptcy court. The club filed for bankruptcy protection in U.S. District Court in Camden this week against debts owed to more than 100 creditors, including $10.7 million claimed by Sun National Bank in Vineland, N.J., according to court filings.

MATT CARLE kept his head down, carrying a bag of ice to melt away pain from a lingering, undisclosed injury. Tuesday night's Game 5 could have been Carle's last game in a Flyers uniform. Carle, 27, one of the Flyers' most steady and underrated defensemen, finished off his 4-year, $13.75 million deal this spring. He is set to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1. Due to salary-cap tagging restraints, restricting teams from exceeding this year's cap figure before next year's number is announced, the Flyers cannot possibly sign Carle before July 1. That means Carle's team, with Denver-based agent Kurt Overhardt, will be able to field offers from all 29 other teams when the clock strikes noon on the first day of July.

A Superior Court judge Monday temporarily blocked a planned Camden City Council vote that ultimately could put in the hands of voters a decision on whether to dismantle the city's police department in favor of a county force. Judge Faustino J. Fernandez-Vina decided to hear arguments June 11 on a complaint filed by Mayor Dana L. Redd and President Frank Moran that maintaining the department could cause the city "irreparable harm. " He issued an order preventing the city clerk from certifying before the Council a petition with more than 2,000 signatures requesting that Council vote on a proposed ordinance to maintain the department and, if the ordinance is rejected, the voters would get to decide what to do. A vote had been scheduled for Tuesday.

I WAS WRONG. The Sixers' backcourt of the future is not Jrue Holiday and Evan Turner. It's Evan Turner and Jrue Holiday. I got wrapped up in the semantics of saying the name of the player running at point guard first and shooting guard second. And in my personal take, I'd bought in to Holiday as the lead and Turner as the off guard. I admit that I was not totally on board with a lot of Sixer fans — who likely will remind me today — who believe that Turner and Holiday would both be better with a switch of roles.

The Delaware River Port Authority dipped into its general fund to help pay off nearly $100 million of its debt last month. That dropped the agency's outstanding debt to $1.2 billion, but that figure will grow later this year, as the DRPA expects to borrow up to $400 million for long-term upgrades to its bridges and railroad, agency finance officials said Wednesday. The DRPA operates four toll bridges over the Delaware River and the PATCO commuter rail line. The agency's debt has been a concern for years.

As she pulls glue off a metal scraper while laying tiles in a second-floor bedroom of a Camden public housing unit, 17-year-old Briana Russ brushes her bangs to the side with her forearm. "I like painting, but this is difficult," Russ says, shaking glue off her fingers. The Camden teen is in the middle of her construction training through YouthBuild, an alternative education program for high school dropouts ages 16 to 24 that provides classroom instruction and occupational-skills training.

ATLANTIC CITY — The Retirement Cha-Cha is a favored dance step of aging fighters who can't quite decide whether they want to remain in the ring for as long as they can, or step aside because recent results and possibly common sense dictate that they do so. Following his majority decision defeat at the much-younger hands of Chad Dawson, and with it the transfer of his WBC and The Ring light-heavyweight championship belts, 47-year-old boxing legend...

The first time Ashley Berke and John McGinniss saw the house in Fishtown that they now own, they bolted. "It was horrible — depressing!" as Berke recalls the three-story house, whose original section dates to the 1840s. Months went by as the couple searched for a home in the Philadelphia neighborhood, one they loved for its diversity, history and old dwellings, until — a year after that first visit — there was a call from a Realtor suggesting that the property might be worth a second look.