Trump Card

Donald Trump is plying his artistic talents once again. The billionaire developer, casino magnate and author of "The Art of the Deal," is trying to purchase Eastern Airlines' East Coast shuttle service. Speculation in the airline and gaming industries is that Trump would use the shuttle to help high rollers and others to fly high, right into Atlantic City. Trump yesterday confirmed the Wall Street rumors which took off earlier this week. The businessman told the New York Times that he could sign a contract within a week.

Suddenly, Mayor Rendell's new city solicitor looks like a million bucks. By intervening in bankruptcy court in a proposed riverfront land deal this week, top city lawyer Joseph Dworetzky squeezed a fast $1.2 million out of New York developer Donald Trump. It's $1,249,000 to be precise, to be wired to the city treasury this morning. On Wednesday, the city filed objections to Trump's proposed purchase of the old Jack Frost sugar refinery on the Delaware River from businessman William Thayer.

The argument has been raging for a generation: Free agency, insist the players, is a basic human right. No person, football player or otherwise, should be restricted to working for a particular employer if he can receive a larger paycheck or better conditions from another. Free agency, counter the owners, would destroy the sport. Allowing players to jump from team to team would launch salaries into the stratosphere and doom franchises in less-attractive cities. Free agency almost always is the prickly issue in NFL labor talks.

For two years, Donald Trump and Merv Griffin have competed in the casino business here. Soon, they'll be competing on television, too. The third installment of Griffin's Monopoly airs on Channel 6 tonight at 8:30. It follows Super Jeopardy!, another from Griffin's highly rated stable of game shows, which also includes the syndicated Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Monopoly and Super Jeopardy! were brought in by ABC as summer replacement series, and their positioning on the fall schedule is undecided.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who have grown increasingly frustrated by the Republican agenda, say debate in the House may turn nasty as racially charged issues such as affirmative action and welfare reform take center stage. "Most of us think the Contract is an appeal to gut racism," said Rep. Major Owens, D-N.Y., a caucus member, referring to the House Republicans' Contract With America, a 100-day agenda now at its halfway point. "There's been a degeneration of the parties' refusing to use race as a trump card in the political process," Owens said.

You're born naked; the rest is drag. That truism, widely attributed to drag icon RuPaul, applied to opera long before the Philadelphia Fringe Festival presented the cross-dressing chanteuse Shequida, whose one-person show, Opera for Dummies, opened Monday. Almost on cue, the New York City Opera began its season Tuesday with more institutionalized drag in Handel's 1735 opera, Alcina, whose primary love interest is between a woman playing a man and a woman trying to pass for a man. So you have two women dressed like men, deeply in love and pretending to be heterosexual.

AFTER A HOLE-IN-ONE, WHAT ELSE IS LEFT? Emil Kijek hit the first hole-in-one of his life. Then he dropped dead. "He was kind of happy, but he wasn't jumping with joy and all that," said one of Kijek's golfing partners, Morris Dumont. But then, at the next tee in Rehoboth, Mass., the 79-year-old Kijek approached the ball Thursday, rolled his eyes, said, "Oh, no," and collapsed. The cause of death was not immediately released. Kijek had suffered from high blood pressure.

The nasty weather that has played havoc with schedules in other sports did the same with boys' tennis last week. Maybe the most important victim among the opening matches was the Tri- County League matchup between powerhouses Woodlynde and Akiba Hebrew that was canceled Thursday and is tentatively rescheduled for the week after Easter. Some squads, however, finally did start their seasons with some nonleague matches. One of the big early matches was a nonleague contest between Episcopal Academy and The Hill School.

State Sen.-elect Bruce Marks no longer seeks to be sworn in today, but wants an office and money for a staff before the Senate reconvenes March 14. Marks' lawyer Paul Rosen said he is negotiating with Democratic leaders in Harrisburg for "all the amenities of senatorship" while the Senate is in recess. "What we want is to make sure Harrisburg is treating Bruce as a senator for all purposes except swearing-in," Rosen said, "and so people in the district will know he's there for them during this period.

NEW YORK - Reports of the New York City Opera's decline have been exaggerated, at least at the moment. Though the company has the perpetual challenge of living next door to the glittering Metropolitan Opera, it's gambling sizably with Séance on a Wet Afternoon , a stage adaptation of the 1964 film by Broadway composer Stephen Schwartz, best known for Wicked. Well-prepared and handsomely produced at Tuesday's opening, the opera had the sort of audience reception that overrides the mixed reviews likely to greet any operatic interloper.

NEW YORK - Reports of the New York City Opera's decline have been exaggerated, at least at the moment. Though the company has the perpetual challenge of living next door to the glittering Metropolitan Opera, it's gambling sizably with Séance on a Wet Afternoon , a stage adaptation of the 1964 film by Broadway composer Stephen Schwartz, best known for Wicked. Well-prepared and handsomely produced at Tuesday's opening, the opera had the sort of audience reception that overrides the mixed reviews likely to greet any operatic interloper.

Maybe it's an East Coast/West Coast thing. Actors on entertainment series in La-La Land have traditionally negotiated for salary bumps behind closed doors. With New York news anchors it's more of a blood sport, with both sides - the network and the talking head - parrying in the press. This week, Meredith Vieira showed she is a force to be reckoned with. First, it was "leaked" that she is leaning toward leaving Today when her contract expires in September. This is the standard opening ploy, orchestrated by the anchor's agent.

Prejudice isn't a word to be tossed out lightly. But no better term seems to apply to the Evesham School District's decision to close its doors to a small group of low-income students seeking a better education. Bowing to public pressure, rather than providing a teachable moment, the Evesham school board voted 7-2 Monday against participating in the state's interdistrict-choice program by enrolling up to 63 students from other districts. And why are these kids being told they're unwanted?

Having lost his once-comfortable lead in the Democratic Senate primary, Sen. Arlen Specter played his trump card Tuesday: President Obama. Specter "helped pull us back from the brink" with his decisive vote last year for the economic stimulus, Obama says in a new 30-second TV ad. "I love Arlen Specter. " The image, from a September fund-raiser, counters Rep. Joe Sestak's footage of President George W. Bush endorsing Specter as a "firm ally" in the 2004 Republican primary - a stark reminder that Specter switched parties last year.

Once you read the title, you've pretty much seen the movie. The Invention of Lying is just what it sounds like: a fable about an alternate world in which everyone tells the absolute truth. As the narrator observes, "No deceit, no flattery, no fiction. " It's hardly a utopia because no one is capable of masking unhappiness or insecurities. As a waiter approaches a table, he doesn't open with, "My name is Chad. I'll be your server tonight. " Instead he blurts out, "I'm very embarrassed I work here.

Sensible concertgoers don't expect more than a reasonably pleasant afternoon from a part-time orchestra that's between music directors, such as the Princeton Symphony Orchestra. If nothing else, there was the provocative guest pianist David Greilsammer, a young Israeli artist with a major European career - but Sunday's concert delivered far more than that, thanks partly to Philadelphia Orchestra associate conductor Rossen Milanov. Greilsammer first. His vehicle was Mozart's seldom-performed Piano Concerto No. 5 (K. 175)

Lower Merion had arguably the PIAA's most dominant boys' basketball team over the last two seasons. A season removed from finishing as Class AAAA state runners-up, the Aces defeated Schenley in last season's championship game. A third straight appearance in the final doesn't appear to be likely. "We are a work in progress," said Lower Merion coach Gregg Downer, who witnessed the graduation of five starters and six of his top eight players from last season's team. "And we are going to be very youthful.

The St. Louis Cardinals completed one of the biggest upsets in postseason history last night, shooting down the New York Mets in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series. The Cardinals won the thriller, 3-1, on the strength of Yadier Molina's two-run home run off Aaron Heilman in the top of the ninth inning. Molina's blast came three innings after Mets leftfielder Endy Chavez robbed Scott Rolen of what would have been a tiebreaking two-run homer in the sixth. Rolen, who had a frustrating series but a satisfying outcome, was on base for Molina's homer.

Glenn Robinson, working diligently on rehabilitating his surgically repaired right elbow, said yesterday that he would be back in time for the playoffs. Normally, that would sound peculiar, given that the 76ers are in desperation mode as they seek to extend their streak of postseason appearances to six. But because the Boston Celtics have been sputtering, it's not completely out of the question. Not yet, anyway. With four games to go for each team, the Celtics own a two-game lead over the Sixers in the race for the last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

You're born naked; the rest is drag. That truism, widely attributed to drag icon RuPaul, applied to opera long before the Philadelphia Fringe Festival presented the cross-dressing chanteuse Shequida, whose one-person show, Opera for Dummies, opened Monday. Almost on cue, the New York City Opera began its season Tuesday with more institutionalized drag in Handel's 1735 opera, Alcina, whose primary love interest is between a woman playing a man and a woman trying to pass for a man. So you have two women dressed like men, deeply in love and pretending to be heterosexual.