Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, October 29, 1994                   TAG: 9410310048
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: VIRGINIA   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IN VIRGINIA

RICHMOND - Gov. George Allen is offering tentative support for a proposed major-league baseball franchise in Northern Virginia, but says any state aid for the project would depend on its economic benefit to the state.

An Allen spokeswoman, however, is denying reports in The Washington Post, quoting an unidentified Allen aide, that the governor plans to travel to Chicago next week to pitch Northern Virginia as a possible site for a team.

Two competing Northern Virginia groups have been invited to the Tuesday meeting of the Major League expansion committee, along with groups from Phoenix, Orlando, Fla., and Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla.

- Associated Press

Couple bolts store with pricey bracelet

TYSONS CORNER - A woman and her male companion walked into the Saks Fifth Avenue store at the Tysons II Galleria, asked to see a diamond bracelet and then bolted with the bracelet, worth nearly $200,000, police said.

Fairfax County police said the couple asked a clerk if they could examine the bracelet. The clerk removed it from a display case, and the man placed it on the woman's wrist. The couple then ran out the door and were last seen driving away in a light-colored car.

- Associated Press

Professor wary of education plan

NEWPORT NEWS - Virginia should be wary of the federal Goals 2000 education reform plan, a former Bush administration official said.

Dianne Ravitch, an education professor at New York University who served as assistant U.S. secretary of education from 1991 to 1993, told the state Board of Education Thursday that she feared the federal program could saddle the state with more bureaucracy.

``Where the money is,'' she said, ``the regulations usually follow.''

- Associated Press