Omar

With staccato regularity, guns are killing children. Epidemic. Public health crisis. Tragedy. By whatever name, these deaths bring profound loss to families and communities. This series attempts to capture the look, the sound, and the feel of this loss. Omar ("Lil O") Rodriguez was too scared to go to school. The walk from his eighth-grade classes at Roberto Clemente Middle School to his Kensington rowhouse - along a volatile route where kids from Clemente, CEP Allegheny, Edison, and Olney High Schools often collide - had become a bruising gauntlet.

It's not easy being Omar. The miles pile up on his Nissan Sentra. There's the challenge of finding the right touch of eyeliner and eye shadow. Some nights, his bum knee throbs with every twist and turn. And then there are the women. Oh, the women. Sometimes they get carried away, as Omar may find out when he gets undressed later.. No, it's not easy being Omar the belly dancer - one of the few male belly dancers in America and the only one dancing regularly in the couscous circuit, the local round of Middle Eastern restaurants and clubs.

Everyone is a friend in Omar's life, even passing motorists. Omar, 4, will help load the car to go on a picnic, check the seat belts of the two little ones who live with him, and station himself by the window. Then, as they travel along the road, Omar waves at every car. When the mail-carrier arrives, Omar will chat pleasantly with him before going back in the house. And he's delighted when he hears noisy trash trucks. The men working smile and exchange hellos with Omar before going on their way. Omar is a healthy and active.

The paid informant who infiltrated a group of men accused of plotting an armed attack on Fort Dix was convicted of federal bank fraud in 2001 and sentenced to six months in prison. Mahmoud A. Omar pleaded guilty just weeks after his arrest and agreed to testify against the ringleader of a counterfeit-check-cashing scheme who recruited him. Omar, an Egyptian national who said he entered the United States illegally through Mexico, was released from prison in February 2002, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons.

Omar, 6, is drawing a wavy box with circles inside. "Is that a tooth with cavities in it?" he's asked. "No!" he answers. "It's a refrigerator, with the door open. That's cheese, a hoagie and a glass of grape juice. " Leaning over, he peers at a tree with a blue trunk, and shakes his head. Then the woman fills in the leaves with green and adds heart-shaped apples. When he looks in her face, she says, "I eat an apple every day, and that's why I'm absolutely gorgeous. " A snort of laughter escapes him before he can get a grip on it, and he draws his chair closer so that he can hand her more crayons.

MINNEAPOLIS - A Minnesota man accused of helping to recruit and finance U.S. fighters for an overseas terror group heads to trial Monday in a case that's expected to show how some young Somalian expatriates in Minneapolis were persuaded to risk their lives for insurgents back home. Mahamud Said Omar, 46, faces five terror-related counts as part of an investigation into recruiting by al-Shabab, a U.S.-designated terror group linked to al-Qaeda at the center of much of the violence in Somalia.

Omar, 10, and his brother, Maron, 9, want to be together. They live in different foster homes and don't get to share their similar interests very often. They like riding bikes, going on the swings and slides at the park, and playing football, basketball and computer games. Both were born with drugs in their systems and were "failure-to-thrive" babies. There are neglect, abuse and deprivation in their backgrounds, and Omar receives therapy and medication for hyperactivity. Maron is in fourth grade and enjoys spelling.

Omar, 10, is walking around the bookstore, pausing the longest to look at children's stories that have happy faces on the cover. He seems amazed at books with reproductions of paintings and he murmurs, as he carefully turns each page, "That's pretty. That's wild. I like that one. " Then on to the sports books and pictures of football players he can identify. Gold-colored wrapping paper catches his eye. He stands in front of it with a thoughtful expression. "I could get 10 rolls of this and paper my wall," he announces.

"My Beautiful Laundrette. " A comedy-drama starring Daniel Day Lewis, Gordon Warnecke and Saeed Jaffrey. Directed by Stephen Frears from a screenplay by Hanif Kureiski. Photographed by Oliver Stapleton. Edited by Mick Audsley. Music by Luedies Tavalis. Running time: 93 minutes. An Orion Classics release. At the Ritz Five, 214 Walnut St. Atmosphere is the lifeblood of movies. This is what separates film from the stage and from television. If a movie has ambiance, it really doesn't need anything else.

Rapper-turned-Rocky-impersonator Will Smith returned to Philadelphia yesterday to shoot some scenes - including this one on the Art Museum steps - for the season finale of "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" (Channel 3, 8 p.m. Mondays). The plot of the May 23 episode has Will (Smith) coming home to visit his mom (Vernee Watson Johnson) and settle an old score with Omar (Jacques Bolton), the bully described in the series theme song.

Omar Vizquel has been hired by the Los Angeles Angels as a roving infield instructor. The 45-year-old Vizquel played for Toronto as a reserve infielder last season, finishing up his 24-year major-league career with 2,877 hits. The three-time all-star won 11 Gold Gloves. Former Arizona Diamondbacks television analyst Mark Grace has been sentenced to four months in jail under a work-release program. The 48-year-old former first baseman with the Diamondbacks and the Chicago Cubs pleaded guilty Thursday to felony endangerment and misdemeanor driving under the influence of alcohol.

MINNEAPOLIS - A Minnesota man accused of helping to recruit and finance U.S. fighters for an overseas terror group heads to trial Monday in a case that's expected to show how some young Somalian expatriates in Minneapolis were persuaded to risk their lives for insurgents back home. Mahamud Said Omar, 46, faces five terror-related counts as part of an investigation into recruiting by al-Shabab, a U.S.-designated terror group linked to al-Qaeda at the center of much of the violence in Somalia.

Egypt's former spy chief Omar Suleiman, 76, one of the most trusted advisers of ousted president Hosni Mubarak and a key CIA partner in the Middle East, died Thursday in the United States, the Egyptian government said. The state-run Middle East News Agency said that Mr. Suleiman had suffered from lung and heart problems and that his condition had sharply deteriorated over the last three weeks. He was being treated at a hospital in Cleveland. Mr. Suleiman was closely associated in the minds of many Egyptians with Mubarak's iron-fisted rule.

As world-music bills go, Tuesday's double-headliner at Union Transfer — pairing the Cambodian American band Dengue Fever of Los Angeles and northeastern Syria's electro-street-pop/ethno-party-jam vocalist Omar Souleyman — held promise. But groundbreaking? Or even, perhaps, Philadelphia's best onstage international mash-up of the year? Unexpected — yet it happened when the two acts joined forces for a spell. Both artists have wowed Philly before. Souleyman, the dabke genre master who has sung in Arabic and Kurdish on more than 600 releases (mostly cassettes)

This must the be the Golden Age for baseball senior citizens. Jamie Moyer is turning back the clock in Colorado and Omar Vizquel, who turned 45 on Tuesday, started a pair of double plays at second base for the Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday. Now in his 24th major-league season, Vizquel made his debut on April 3, 1989. George H.W. Bush was barely two months into his presidency, Rain Man was the No. 1 movie at the box office and future author Jose Canseco was the reigning American League MVP. Vizquel, a native of Venezuela has played in four different decades with six different teams, has 11 Gold Gloves, 2,842 career hits and is a three-time all-star.

Sharif Omar, 32, has been appointed chief executive officer of Pottstown Memorial Medical Center, effective immediately, the hospital announced today. He has been chief operating officer since 2009 and interim CEO since March. A new COO is to be announced shortly. Omar replaces John Kirby, who left to take another job. Omar had previously worked in administrative positions at Tulane University Hospital & Clinic and Southwest Medical Center and at Medical Partners International.

The Eagles are not pursuing their 15 free agents as NFL business resumes, and will almost certainly not bring any of them back, including starters such as linebacker Stewart Bradley and punter Sav Rocca and backup running back Jerome Harrison. Safety Quintin Mikell, long expected to depart, agreed to a deal Tuesday with the St. Louis Rams. Kicker David Akers also has been expected to leave ever since the Eagles drafted kicker Alex Henery in the fourth round. Other free agents expected to be allowed to depart include cornerback Dimitri Patterson, guards Nick Cole, Max Jean-Gilles and Reggie Wells, and linebackers Ernie Sims, Omar Gaither and Akeem Jordan.

CANASTOTA, N.Y. - Mexican icon Julio Cesar Chavez was one proud papa when the older of the two sons following in his pugilistic footsteps, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., won his first world championship last weekend by dethroning WBC middleweight titlist Sebastian Zbik on a hard-fought majority decision at Los Angeles' Staples Center. The baby-faced Chavez Jr., trailing on two of the judges' scorecards, had to win the last three rounds to get the nod, and did. As they embraced in the center of the ring after the decision had been announced, the six-time world champ, in three weight classes, whispered something in his son's ear, whereupon both broke into wide smiles.

KABUL, Afghanistan - If the latest reports of Mullah Mohammed Omar's demise are greatly exaggerated - as Mark Twain once quipped about his own premature obituary - they nonetheless offer a glimpse of the zeitgeist in Afghanistan and Pakistan after the death of Osama bin Laden. A Taliban spokesman Monday vehemently denied assertions that the movement's spiritual leader had died or been killed, even as Afghanistan's main intelligence service said the reclusive cleric had disappeared from his alleged Pakistan hideout.

"The Office" meets al Qaeda in "Four Lions," a movie that applies the British talent for institutional satire to a U.K. terror cell. Making comedy from very real, palpably looming terror is probably a doomed enterprise, but writer-director Chris Morris keeps "Four Lions" going for an impressively long time (while also reaffirming that the British curse so much better than we do). Morris is working with the same writers (Simon Blackwell, Jesse Armstrong) who satirized the war on terror in "In the Loop," and here satirize terror itself - a comparison that shows that the terrorists and their adversaries in western governments have the same internal problem.