Tabs

CHAPTER 5 THE STORY SO FAR Now that agents know Temple grad student Akhil Bansal is Mr. Big - the brains behind the biggest global Internet pharmacy network DEA has ever seen - they call in reinforcements from Washington. Today's installment begins as agents try to wiretap Akhil's e-mail. It is January 2005. CENTER CITY Lead prosecutor Barbara Cohan paced her office, red-faced, ponytail flying. She yelled into the phone. "If it's not ready for prime time, why the hell are we using it?"

Oprah Winfrey's jury duty now over, the talk show giantess can go back to delighting millions with her gabfest, which this week got a sweet scoop: Gwyneth Paltrow, who tomorrow will give The Oprah Winfrey Show host her first interview since becoming a mother. No word on whether Paltrow will bring along her Apple laptop. Diddy and the first lady Did our first lady diss the reigning king of New York's hip-hop world? The New York tabs are all in a tizzy over reports that Sean "P. Diddy" Combs snubbed the dedication show Monday night at Cincinnati's National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, because Laura Bush refused to be in a photo with him. According to the New York Post, His Diddyness was supposed to join Bush, Angela Bassett, Bono, and other dignitaries for the ribbon-cutting ceremony, but Bush's office said no to the photo-op with Combs.

She's young. She's smart. She's outtahere. Yesterday was Channel 6 reporter Kristen Sze's last day on the air for WPVI. She's departing for New York City, and a spot as the sole East Coast correspondent for the syndicated show Extra, which airs locally on the competition, WCAU (Channel 10), at 7 p.m. Sze describes the show as "a People magazine on TV," covering feature stories, interesting people, medical developments and, of course, celebrities and their woes (the show was big on Diana's funeral, Versace's murder, and recent fave, the Marv Albert trial-cum-guilty plea)

Perhaps the most difficult part of Marcia Lavin's life as a fugitive was leaving her mom. They had been especially close. Marcia's father was dead. Her mother, Agnes Osborn, a nurse, and her sister were her only immediate family. Marcia's husband, Lawrence W. Lavin, had been indicted in September 1984, charged with masterminding a cocaine syndicate that FBI agents described as the largest in Philadelphia history. To avoid standing trial, Lavin fled with Marcia and their 2-year-old son, Christopher, in late October of that year.

Bob Huggins is apologizing to no one. "I don't think I'm a bad guy," he deadpanned. Several hundred people who streamed into Bramlage Coliseum for Huggins' introductory news conference yesterday laughed, then stood and applauded, bringing a wry smile to the face of Kansas State's new basketball coach. Huggins, 52, who turned the Cincinnati Bearcats into a national power during 16 sometimes-stormy years, signed a 5-year contract with the Wildcats. Although one of the winningest active coaches, Huggins was out of work for a year after Cincinnati president Nancy Zimpher refused to extend his 4-year contract rollover following his arrest and conviction for drunken driving in 2004 and other problems.

Phillies manager Jim Fregosi conducted the daily body count yesterday. Mariano Duncan, out. He's listed as day-to-day with a strained left Achilles' tendon. Darren Daulton, in. He left Sunday night's game in Montreal after being hit just above the right elbow by a pitch, but started behind the plate for the 63rd time in 70 games. Lenny Dykstra, out. He missed his third straight start with a sore right quadriceps and isn't expected to play until at least Friday, when the Phillies play the Braves at Veterans Stadium.

Students in the Southampton Township public schools have overextended their credit. The school board decided last week to end a program that allowed students to run up lunch tabs, saying that schools wasted too much time trying to get the students to pay their bills. "The system is being abused," Superintendent James D. Kerfoot said. The board voted at its meeting Sept. 24 to ban credit for lunches. Letters detailing the change will be sent this week to the parents of the 931 students at Southampton's two schools, which serve kindergarten through eighth grades.

Bill Barber, perhaps the best left winger of his era and the Flyers' all- time leading goal-scorer, yesterday was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Barber, the Flyers' director of pro scouting, scored 420 goals in his 13 seasons with the Flyers and was named to the club's own Hall of Fame in 1989. In addition to Barber, former Buffalo Sabres center Gilbert Perreault was elected in the players' category. Former Boston and Toronto defenseman Fern Flaman was elected in the veterans' category.

On election night in Gloucester County, a row of police cars idled in front of the Board of Elections office in Woodbury. The police, from municipalities around the county, were acting as chauffeurs. Their passengers: metal boxes stuffed with thousands of ballots. As the cars pulled up to the curb, four men loaded clanging boxes onto dollies and wheeled them into the elections office, past sheriff's deputies, television lights and a crowd of spectators stacked at least 10 deep against the counter awaiting election results.