Panic Attacks

A former member of two local volunteer rescue squads was sentenced yesterday to 15 years in state prison for setting the squad buildings ablaze last November. James T. Shue, 23, of Pennsauken, caused $178,000 in damage when he set fire to the Maple Shade Heavy Rescue Squad building Nov. 7. The second floor was gutted. Ten days later, he torched a car inside the Palmyra Rescue Squad building; repairs to the vehicle and to the building cost more than $53,000. "I am sorry . . . I need help," a trembling Shue said as he was sentenced by state Superior Court Judge Thomas S. Smith Jr. in Burlington County.

A former member of two local rescue squads pleaded guilty yesterday in Superior Court to setting a series of fires last fall, fires that his attorney said he could not prevent himself from starting. In entering his pleas, James T. Shue, 23, told the court that he suffered "panic attacks" that caused him to set the fires. The blazes in November damaged buildings housing the Maple Shade Heavy Rescue Squad and the Palmyra Ambulance Association. Shue, of Pennsauken, was a member of both associations.

CHOLESTEROL REMOVER Someday you may be able to vacuum out excess cholesterol. A machine that does just that is designed for people who can't lower their cholesterol levels by drugs or dieting. It is being tested to obtain U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval. The machine removes, cleans and returns a person's blood, minus the cholesterol. MOISTURIZING As temperatures drop and thermostats and heating systems click on, that all-over humidity bath that our skin enjoys during the summer evaporates.

Margaret began to tremble. Her heart was pounding madly. She broke out in a sweat and began to breathe heavily. "Maybe this time," she thought. "Maybe this time it will kill me. " But it didn't. She lived through this panic attack, but it left her with the realization that she had to do something. She couldn't continue to hide in her "safety zones," to lie to her friends about why she needed them to drive her places, to limit what she could achieve in her career. "I had been suffering panic attacks for two years," she said, "as often as twice a day. Panic, and avoiding panic attacks, were the dominating factors of my life.

The Fixer: Susan Sabo, 46, Organizers Inc., West Chester, www.organizersinc.com The problem: Although Joffe never neglected her clients, her success with them had outstripped her ability to handle routine business functions, such as billing. She lost notes scribbled on scraps of paper. Her disorganization interfered with her enjoyment of her family. The solution: Sabo advised Joffe to review her schedule for the next day at night and to make better use of technology, such as invoicing software and computerized faxing for contacting the media.

Imagine being too afraid to open your front door and step outside. You choose, instead, to stay safely inside your own four walls for months, even years. This mental disorder, called agoraphobia, gets a credible portrayal amidst the Hollywood terror and gore of the current No. 3 box office draw, "Copycat. " Actress Sigourney Weaver plays criminal psychologist Helen Hudson, who has been too terrified to leave her apartment after being nearly slashed to death 13 months earlier by a serial killer.

Maryland sure has a funny way of showing respect for the North Carolina tradition. Obinna Ekezie, saddled with foul trouble the first half, rebounded with 19 points over the final 17:41 as the visiting Terrapins, ranked fifth, defeated No. 9 North Carolina, 89-76, last night, winning at the Smith Center for the third time in the last four years. The Terps' five wins there are more than any school. "We just came in here with a good attitude," Maryland's Laron Profit said. "We love this arena, we love the excitement, we love looking at the banners, we love thinking about the history and the tradition that this place has. "We want to put on a good show when we come here, because we feel like that's being respectful for what they've done for the game of basketball.

It was hot outside, with the temperature breaking 100 degrees for the second day in a row. Several softball games were in session Monday night and the Klein Branch of the Jewish Community Centers, at Red Lion and Jameson Roads, was bustling inside and out. But down a quiet hallway, in Room 205, a group of 20 people were there to hear about fears and phobias. Steven R. Cohen, 43, a friendly looking, tall and slender man with graying hair and a full beard, looked remarkably cool in a suit and tie. He has been treating people with phobias for the last 20 years.

Even 10 years ago, we all still lived in thrall to the Big Ideas of three 19th-century European thinkers: Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Charles Darwin. Today, two of the three are in semi-disgrace, but Darwin's idea is more powerful than ever. You might call it "the survival of the fittest. " It's remarkable how fast the three Big Ideas took over. In 1897, when writer Jack London, then 23 years old, was trapped in the ice on the Yukon River during the Klondike Gold Rush, he had Darwin's Origin of Species and Marx's Das Kapital in his pack to help him through the winter.

As the tsunami hit her school in Sendai, kindergarten teacher Junko Kamada stood in the window of a second-story hallway to block the children from seeing the destruction caused by the five-foot wave. Amid dirt-caked chairs, soiled books, and damaged equipment, Kamada, 60, is preparing to bring the children back to the school, about a mile inland. The children will also need counseling to deal with the trauma they have experienced, psychologists say. "They've seen a shocking event, and we need to keep them occupied," Kamada said.

As hyperactive action pics go, Wanted goes at zooming speed, whooshing this way and that, tracking bullet trajectories with you-are-there POV shots, defying space, time and gravity as a tattooed Angelina Jolie and her mean-faced minions wreak havoc from the Chicago El to the railways of Eastern Europe. Train travel, in fact, is a big part of the movie, although Jolie and James McAvoy - Wanted's office-drone-turned-hero - prefer to ride the trains from on top. The view's better up there, even if you have to duck for tunnels.

It's a Claymation week, what with the release of A Thousand Different Ways by Chapel Hill, N.C.'s, first son, Clay Aiken and the American Idol runner-up's exclusive confessionals with Good Morning America and People mag, not to mention his natty - Martin Short crossed with John Mayer - makeover. But the message is pretty much the same from the likeable-to-loveable, genuine, earnest, heartfelt young man, except for one thing: He finally addresses questions about his sexual orientation.

The Fixer: Susan Sabo, 46, Organizers Inc., West Chester, www.organizersinc.com The problem: Although Joffe never neglected her clients, her success with them had outstripped her ability to handle routine business functions, such as billing. She lost notes scribbled on scraps of paper. Her disorganization interfered with her enjoyment of her family. The solution: Sabo advised Joffe to review her schedule for the next day at night and to make better use of technology, such as invoicing software and computerized faxing for contacting the media.

The panic attacks, the urge to race back to the security of her parents' house are part of Ada Mitchell's life now. At the same time, Mitchell, a sexual-assault victim, is learning to move on and take control. "I still have panic attacks, I'm on medicine for depression, and I have lost friends," Mitchell said matter-of-factly. "But I think it is empowering for me to go out there and say this is what happened and this is what we did to fight. " Mitchell, 23, has volunteered to speak this week to sexual-assault counselors at the Crime Victims Center of Chester County.

After months of struggling with panic attacks and increasing dependence on prescription painkillers for his chronic migraines, Wilco singer-songwriter Jeff Tweedy felt like a cliche: "I didn't want to admit to the world that I was the stereotype" of the rock-and-roll addict. "I probably could have gotten help sooner if I wasn't so appalled by the connotation," Tweedy says from his Chicago home, explaining the health crisis that delayed the release of Wilco's jarring fifth album, A Ghost Is Born (Nonesuch . . out of four stars)

A former member of two local volunteer rescue squads was sentenced yesterday to 15 years in state prison for setting the squad buildings ablaze last November. James T. Shue, 23, of Pennsauken, caused $178,000 in damage when he set fire to the Maple Shade Heavy Rescue Squad building Nov. 7. The second floor was gutted. Ten days later, he torched a car inside the Palmyra Rescue Squad building; repairs to the vehicle and to the building cost more than $53,000. "I am sorry . . . I need help," a trembling Shue said as he was sentenced by state Superior Court Judge Thomas S. Smith Jr. in Burlington County.

A former member of two local rescue squads pleaded guilty yesterday in Superior Court to setting a series of fires last fall, fires that his attorney said he could not prevent himself from starting. In entering his pleas, James T. Shue, 23, told the court that he suffered "panic attacks" that caused him to set the fires. The blazes in November damaged buildings housing the Maple Shade Heavy Rescue Squad and the Palmyra Ambulance Association. Shue, of Pennsauken, was a member of both associations.

In the short, uneventful history of the Toronto Raptors in NBA postseason play, the team has held the lead in a playoff series exactly once - and that is right now. Swept by the Knicks in the first round last season, and coming from a game down twice to get past New York this time around, the Raptors are in unfamiliar territory as they enter the First Union Center tonight with a one-game-to none advantage in the conference semifinals over the...

Maryland sure has a funny way of showing respect for the North Carolina tradition. Obinna Ekezie, saddled with foul trouble the first half, rebounded with 19 points over the final 17:41 as the visiting Terrapins, ranked fifth, defeated No. 9 North Carolina, 89-76, last night, winning at the Smith Center for the third time in the last four years. The Terps' five wins there are more than any school. "We just came in here with a good attitude," Maryland's Laron Profit said. "We love this arena, we love the excitement, we love looking at the banners, we love thinking about the history and the tradition that this place has. "We want to put on a good show when we come here, because we feel like that's being respectful for what they've done for the game of basketball.