Reutter

At the end, and this may be the very end, Apolo Anton Ohno circled the Pacific Coliseum ice with a smile, tears welling and an unprecedented eighth Winter Olympics medal secured. It just took a few minutes longer than expected. He had No. 8 in hand after the men's 500-meter race earlier Friday, but he also had that hand on the hip of a competitor on the last turn of that race. That got him disqualified, leaving only the chaotic 5,000-meter relay in which he could add to the stack of hardware he had accrued.

At the end, and this may be the very end, Apolo Anton Ohno circled the Pacific Coliseum ice with a smile, tears welling and an unprecedented eighth Winter Olympics medal secured. It just took a few minutes longer than expected. He had No. 8 in hand after the men's 500-meter race earlier Friday, but he also had that hand on the hip of a competitor on the last turn of that race. That got him disqualified, leaving only the chaotic 5,000-meter relay in which he could add to the stack of hardware he had accrued.

Katherine Reutter was upset at herself, angry and, finally sad. That is why the short-track speedskater answered, "I'll be crying," to describe how she will deal with her fourth-place finish in Saturday's Olympic 1,500 meters. Reutter, 21, didn't expect that having her parents around to console her would make it any easier. "They traveled all the way to Vancouver to see a fourth place," she said. And then the tears started dripping down her cheeks. "The whole goal was just not to make any mistakes," Reutter said.

Katherine Reutter was upset at herself, angry and, finally sad. That is why the short-track speedskater answered, "I'll be crying," to describe how she will deal with her fourth-place finish in Saturday's Olympic 1,500 meters. Reutter, 21, didn't expect that having her parents around to console her would make it any easier. "They traveled all the way to Vancouver to see a fourth place," she said. And then the tears started dripping down her cheeks. "The whole goal was just not to make any mistakes," Reutter said.

Katherine Reutter was an Olympic-record holder for all of about three minutes. The Champaign, Ill., native will have to settle for that. In the first quarterfinal of the women's 500-meter short-track speedskating event Wednesday night, Reutter blazed around the ice in 43.834 seconds to set a new mark. In the next heat, China's Wang Meng shattered that time with a 43.284 and then went on to win the gold medal. Reutter was forced to watch the finals after starting slowly in the semis, never recovering and being eliminated in her bid for her first Olympic medal.

Two teen-agers who had known each other about two months visited Walt Disney World and the Disney-MGM Studios, then left a note and leaped to their deaths from a 14th-floor balcony in their hotel, officials said today. Jerry Heitzman, 17, of Tipp City, Ohio, and Christine Reutter, 18, of Kettering, Ohio, were killed late Tuesday when they hit the roof of the first-floor restaurant at the Howard Johnson at Walt Disney Village.

An FBI agent has been accused of stealing and then trying to sell 100 pounds of uncut, high-quality heroin from the agency's evidence room. Kenneth R. Withers, 33, was arrested Friday at his office. The seven-year veteran special agent was being held in federal prison. A bail hearing was scheduled for Tuesday. "It's very difficult for us to arrest one of our own agents," said Bob Reutter, special agent in charge of the bureau's Philadelphia office.

When it comes to women's short-track speedskating, there's China's Wang Meng. And then there's everyone else. Wang has dominated short track and Wednesday night will seek to repeat the gold she won in the 500 meters in Turin, Italy, in 2006. Since that gold, Wang, 24, has continued to thrive in the 500, winning consecutive world championships and setting the world record of 42.609 seconds in 2008. During Saturday's heats at Pacific Coliseum, she set an Olympic record of 43.926 seconds to qualify for Wednesday's quarterfinals.

The debate over the allocation of funds directed by the NEA seems destined to consume us. The NEA has worked itself into this situation by way of a policy which prefers to support the artist rather than his or her particular works of art. The critics have decided, and perhaps rightly so, that the taxpayers are not obligated to support the lifestyle of an artist when that lifestyle is controversial. If someone asked me to help an artist who had left his wife, forsaken his children, abused his friends and now needed a little money to vacation in the islands, I'd say forget it. But if you showed me a painting of Gauguin's, now that would be different.

Robert Beckel ("Thanks, Jerry, for Four More Years of Hell," Opinion, March 24) has it all wrong. He thinks Jerry Brown is bedeviling the people's candidate Bill Clinton for personal rather than political reasons. There are plenty of good reasons for Brown to stay in the race. Voters from both parties support his call for change in the system. Let's start with the primary system where Clinton would probably head an otherwise empty ballot when the primaries move to California. Is that fair?

Katherine Reutter was an Olympic-record holder for all of about three minutes. The Champaign, Ill., native will have to settle for that. In the first quarterfinal of the women's 500-meter short-track speedskating event Wednesday night, Reutter blazed around the ice in 43.834 seconds to set a new mark. In the next heat, China's Wang Meng shattered that time with a 43.284 and then went on to win the gold medal. Reutter was forced to watch the finals after starting slowly in the semis, never recovering and being eliminated in her bid for her first Olympic medal.

Evidently Krauthammer understands very little about ecology. An excess of caribou indicates the system is already out of balance. Clearly the choice is not either "caribou or country," as he writes. It is caribou or oil, and in light of the current oil glut, which a raging war in the Middle East has done nothing to shorten, development of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge must be seen as purely speculative. But what is most disturbing is the way he counts the "soon" to be dead American sailors now in the Persian Gulf, and waves the flag of vulgar patriotism over their oil-drum coffins.

As backup agents waited nearby, an FBI agent trying to buy drugs in an undercover operation on the waterfront was fatally shot in his car Friday along with a suspected drug dealer. "They killed each other," FBI Director Louis J. Freeh said late Friday at the agency's Philadelphia office. Tired, with red-rimmed eyes, he stood in front of an FBI seal draped with a black ribbon. Charles L.