Ian Hamilton

A soccer fan was killed in Scotland and another seriously injured in southern England Wednesday night when rocks were thrown through the windows of vehicles carrying them home from games, police said today. The dead man, Ian Hamilton, 41, was returning from a match between Glasgow Rangers and Dundee United when a rock was thrown through the window of a minibus carrying about a dozen Rangers supporters.

A federal appeals court Tuesday delayed the publication of an unauthorized biography of reclusive author J. D. Salinger until next month. The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals extended a lower court's weeklong stay against publication of "J. D. Salinger: A Writing Life," pending formal arguments before the appeals panel. Salinger, who wrote "The Catcher in the Rye" and several other popular novels and short stories before he went into seclusion in 1965, has sued to block the biography.

Author J. D. Salinger won his legal fight to block an unauthorized biography Thursday when a federal appeals court directed a lower court to issue a preliminary injunction barring publication of the book. Salinger, author of "The Catcher in the Rye," filed a civil suit last October in federal court here to block Random House from publishing "J. D. Salinger: A Writing Life."

Mary Ellen Solt, a poet and poetry critic who often arranged words on the page in a visual graphic, resulting in such works as "Forsythia," a poem that looks like a flowering shrub, has died. She was 86. Solt died June 21 at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Santa Clarita after suffering a stroke, her daughter Susan said. She was a leader in the concrete poetry movement that emerged in the 1960s.

Could it be that Robert Ward's credentials, earned working as a television producer, give some indication of why television is in such a sorry state? His categorical assertion in his review of "Writers in Hollywood" (by Ian Hamilton, Book Review, April 1) that "in movies, character is completely dictated by plot" seems to me the height of hubris and ignorance. That may well be the rule on "Miami Vice," but it is certainly not true in the best of films. Indeed, what distinguishes fine films from the mediocre is character development, with stories that are driven by the interrelation of unique and interesting people.

It isn't often a batter sets up his game-winning hit . . . particularly in the playoffs . . . particularly against a rival his school doesn't make a habit of beating. But St. Augustine's Pete Albers did just that in the bottom of the ninth inning Thursday as the Saints beat USDHS, 5-4, in the quarterfinals of the San Diego Section 2-A baseball playoffs in front of 350 at Whittaker Field.

Ruling that publication of an unauthorized biography would not invade his privacy or violate copyright laws, a federal judge here has rejected an attempt by reclusive author J. D. Salinger to block publication of Ian Hamilton's "J. D. Salinger: A Writing Life." The book's scheduled publication in August by Random House had been delayed by Salinger's contention that the use of personal letters found by Hamilton in university libraries would be an infringement of copyright laws.