1.   Many analysts predict that clearance of the Lloyds bid would hand victory to Lloyds over the nil-premium merger with BoS.

2.   Any system that can hand victory to the popular-vote loser is perverse and indefensible.

3.   A federal appeals court handed a victory to independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr Tuesday, reinstating a tax evasion case against former Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell.

4.   A U.S. federal appeals court threw out contentious federal pricing rules designed to open local phone markets to competition, handing a victory to the regional local phone companies.

5.   But the Rockets played like they expected the victory to be handed to them.

6.   By handing victory to Chirac, Delors hoped France would stick to European integration.

7.   California regulators today lost a Supreme Court fight to put tougher rules on Caller ID displays of unpublished phone numbers, handing a victory to telephone companies and telemarketers.

8.   In a separate case today, the Supreme Court also handed a victory to Northrop Grumman in an unrelated qui tam suit against that defense contractor.

9.   The enemies of peace, the killers of Yitzhak Rabin, must not be handed that victory.

10.   The rookies literally handed victory to the second-year players.