Abingdon

The leasing agent at the Boulevard at Box Hill retail center in Abingdon formally announced Thursday that JC Penney will become the second anchor at the shopping center, joining Wegmans which opened last fall. MacKenzie Retail LLC said Penney will occupy an 85,775-square-foot building that is expected to be ready for occupancy this fall. The building has been fast tracked through the Harford County permitting process. The Aegis reported in early January that it was highly likely Penney would be coming to Boulevard at Box Hill, which is off of Route 924. "We look forward to welcoming JC Penney to our growing community," MacKenzie Retail LLC Senior Vice President/Principal Thomas L. Fidler Jr. said in a news release.

A Towson priest has been removed from duty at the Church of the Immaculate Conception after being arrested last week on indecent exposure charges. According to a police report of the incident, Mark Stewart Bullock, 47, was at Bush River Books & Movies, an Abingdon adult store on the 3900 block of Pulaski Highway, the night of Jan. 16, when two deputies, investigating complaints of indecent exposure, discovered him nude from the waist down in...

The Harford County Sheriff's Office's town hall meeting for the Bel Air South area scheduled for Saturday morning, Jan. 21, at the Abingdon Branch of the Harford County Public Library has been canceled. The potential for hazardous road conditions was cited as the reason for the cancellation. "Our Citizens' safety is of the utmost importance to us, so due to the potential for icy roads in the morning, we have canceled our town hall meeting," the sheriff's office said in a news release.

Property records show that an Abingdon home that was the site of a fatal fire Saturday belonged to a man named John Youngblood. Officials have not released the identity of the victim or the cause of the fire. Neighbors told WBAL-TV that Youngblood had been found inside. Firefighters responded at about 5 p.m. to the two-story home on the 700 block of Lombard Court off Long Bar Harbor Road. They found the body in a rear second-floor bedroom, authorities said. Alison.knezevich@baltsun.com

One person died in a fire in an Abingdon home Saturday evening. Volunteer companies from Abingdon, Bel Air, Joppa-Magnolia and Level volunteer fire companies and Aberdeen Proving Ground Fire Department responded to the 700 block of Lombard Court after 5 p.m. off Long Bar Harbor Road after a passerby reported a fire, according to Harford County Volunteer Fire and EMS Association Spokesman Dave Williams. Once on scene, firefighters found heavy smoke and fire coming from a single-family, two-story dwelling, according to Williams.

When Joe's Crab Shack opens its third Md. location Monday in Abingdon, the first 100 patrons served will get a voucher for free Snow Crab Bucket every month for a year. Joe's Crab Shack, which specializes in steam pots, seafood entrees and crab dishes, is owned by the Houston-based Ignite Restaurant Group. Wait, a Texas-based crab chain spreading across the Chesapeake. Coals to Newcastle, right?  Not really. Joe's Crab Shack does have blue crab on the menu but is better known for its Dungeness crabs and especially the cold-water crustaceans known variously as snow, king and queen crabs.

Doctors in America told Chris Lyles a cancerous tumor on his windpipe was inoperable, but he and his family wouldn't take no for an answer. They wrote surgeons all over the world, pleading for someone to take his case. Then during an Internet search, Lyles' brother-in-law stumbled upon a doctor in Sweden who recently implanted a synthetic trachea in a man in Eritrea. They sent an email to Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, who replied with words they had been waiting months to hear: "I can help you. " Macchiarini performed the surgery, making 30-year-old Lyles of Abingdon the second person in the world, and the first American, to have a synthetic trachea implanted.

Editor: I just finished reading the letter to the editor entitled "Be prepared to tax others in Bel Air" and I think that Ms. Stritch may not see the big picture. First and foremost the "Festival at Bel Air" lies within the 21015 ZIP code which is one of two ZIP codes listed as Bel Air. So I would say that the Festival at Bel Air is an accurate title. Let's remember that not just the incorporated town of Bel Air makes up the Bel Air ZIP codes. So with that being said, The Regal Cinemas are not at Bel Air, nor is Lowes located in Bel Air South, as per their web site, and Wegmans certainly is not in Bel Air either.

A fire damaged an Abingdon townhouse Friday evening. The fire in the home in the 200 block of Maple Wreath Court was called in to 9-1-1 at 7:30 p.m. Firefighters from the Abingdon and Bel Air Volunteer fire companies responded to the scene and brought the fire under control. There were no immediate reports of injuries. Photographs from the scene showed the home and its contents appeared to suffer extensive fire, smoke and water damage; however, it did not appear that the fire spread to adjoining dwellings in the row. Further details were not immediately available.

Members of the Abingdon Community Council appear resigned to the political reality that, while the Abingdon-Emmorton area is a population center for Harford County, it will continue to be divided so other long-established county council districts can remain in place. While there was a move to consolidate the Havre de Grace and Aberdeen districts into a single entity and establish a new district that reflects the relatively new neighborhoods of the Route 24 corridor, this notion appears to have been rejected in favor of ensuring that Aberdeen and Havre de Grace each have their own districts.