Afire

A Howard County police car was destroyed yesterday after it was set ablaze while it was parked outside an officer's Columbia home in the 6400 block of Spicewind Court, police said.Police said a neighbor of the unidentified officer spotted the burning 1993 Ford Crown Victoria cruiser about 4 a.m. in the Owen Brown village neighborhood and called the Fire Department.The Police Department's violent crimes unit and the state fire marshal's office are investigating.Pub Date: 9/09/96

As a nursing mother cat continues to heal from severe burns, Baltimore police said Monday that two juveniles have been charged with animal cruelty. Police spokesman Detective Kevin Brown said that two 17-year-old boys were charged with multiple accounts of animal cruelty, accused of dousing the cat with lighter fluid and setting it on fire three weeks ago. According to police reports, officers were called the evening of Jan. 8 to the 3300 block of St. Ambrose Ave. in Central Park Heights.

An Annapolis woman pleaded guilty yesterday in Anne Arundel Circuit Court to being an accessory in the murder of a woman who was stabbed 58 times and left to die in the back seat of a car.Wanda R. Hall, 32, of the 1000 block of Bay Ridge Road drove the car while Richard E. Janey stabbed Susan McAteer. She then helped him dump the body in the woods and torch the car.Hall pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to second-degree murder, malicious burning and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.

In the most detailed account yet of the killing of a 15-year-old Woodlawn girl who was choked, beaten and set on fire last summer, a Baltimore County prosecutor told a judge yesterday that one defendant lured the girl and her foster sister from their home with an invitation to move to California while plotting to kill the girls to keep them from testifying against him in a statutory rape case. Prosecutor Lisa Dever presented the version of events as one of four men charged in the case pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in exchange for a life sentence with all but 60 years suspended.

Anne Arundel County police are searching for the vandal or vandals who shattered windows in 13 cars and set one car afire on the parking lot of Harman Elementary School.Owners of the cars had parked there while on an overnight camping trip, police said.About 12:20 a.m. Monday, a Western District patrol officer who was checking the school noticed someone running from the back of the school building. The officer investigated and found a broken window, police said.The officer next found that 13 cars had been vandalized on the parking lot of the school, which is in the 7600 block of Ridge Chapel Road.

25 Years Ago:* Samuel M. Jenness, retired superintendent of Carroll County schools, died after a short illness. He served 20 years as county superintendent, retiring in 1966. He also served as principal of Sykesville High School from 1926 to 1936 and was chairman of the first housing authority for Carroll County. Democratic Advocate, Oct. 26, 1967.50 Years Ago:* Due to an abundance of natural food, squirrels have been very plentiful and thousands of them have been killed during the open season.

25 Years Ago (Week of June 21-27, 1970)* An overflow crowd attending a concert by The Who at Merriweather Post Pavilion caused a massive traffic jam in the area. It was estimated that the crowd, which spilled over into Symphony Woods, numbered about 20,000. This was about 40 percent more than the capacity of the pavilion.* The Wilde Lake Board of Directors voted to fill a board vacancy with a teen-ager, so that the views of the younger members of the community would be represented.50 Years Ago (Week of June 24-30, 1945)

A Baltimore County woman was released on unsecured bond yesterday after a night in the Carroll County jail on charges that she allowed her 14-year-old son to live alone in a rented Westminster house for more than three months.Vicky L. Shay, 39, was arrested Thursday by Baltimore County police and charged with child abuse, desertion, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, nonsupport of a child and reckless endangerment. A court commissioner set bail at $15,000, but a Carroll circuit judge released her on unsecured bond.

Firefighters battling a three-alarm blaze that leveled a vacant Victorian-era house in Walbrook early yesterday were dousing the last embers when the sky was lighted up again by another fire two blocks away.It was another vacant Victorian-era house, and four alarms sounded, bringing firefighters from across the city to Northwest Baltimore. Both fires are being investigated as arsons.Police and fire officials said they are trying to determine whether the fires were set by the same people. Neighbors told investigators that the boarded-up properties were used by drug dealers and addicts.

For Marylanders, this will be a golden anniversary Fourth of July. Exactly 50 years ago, this state began observing Independence Day celebrations that were a lot safer and a lot saner thanks to a law passed by the 1941 General Assembly.Before the legislature banned the sale and use of fireworksmore than 300 persons suffered injuries serious enough to require medical treatment almost every Fourth of July in Maryland. The toll was so large, especially among children, that the Maryland Society for the Prevention of Blindness under the leadership of Baltimore attorney John W. Avirett II launched a six-year campaign to stop the mayhem.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - At first light this morning, about 45 minutes after the first explosions in Baghdad, the city fell silent, save for the rush-hour sounds of cars racing over the highway. Instead of heading into town, however, they were leaving to escape the U.S. attack. The silence followed the exploding bombs, the crackle of anti-aircraft fire and what sounded like machine-gun fire, mingled with a muezzin's call from one of the city's many mosques. Apparently fashioned to mark the bombing, the call consisted of a plaintive 10 minutes of "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great")

Calling the trial one of the "saddest and most emotional" he has presided over, a Baltimore Circuit Court judge yesterday sentenced a West Baltimore man to two life terms for setting his girlfriend's house on fire and killing her 61-year-old grandmother. William Leroy Spencer, 24, of the 2400 block of Presbury St. showed no emotion as Judge Thomas E. Noel read the terms of his sentence, which included an additional 55 years for lesser charges. Spencer was convicted Oct. 29 of felony murder, attempted murder and arson in a blaze that killed Sandra Jeffries on July 15 last year.

PHILADELPHIA - Largely by design, but also with a little luck thrown in, George W. Bush and his party come away from the 37th Republican National Convention impressively unified and focused on the task of regaining the White House. What the nominee called an "iron fist" control of the convention, which exorcised conflict and controversy from the platform before the opening gavel fell, assured one of the most placid and collegial Republican quadrennial gatherings ever. "This year, the delegates came into Philadelphia more united than they have been in years," said David Keene, head of the American Conservative Union.

USHUAIA, Argentina -- When Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan first caught sight of this frigid island at the tip of South America in 1519, he named it Tierra del Fuego -- Land of Fire -- for the smoky blazes rising from Indian camps on the shore. Little did he know that the Indians had their eye on him as well. Tierra del Fuego's tribes had long used fire as a signal, throwing green beechwood branches onto their campfires as a warning if an intruder was spotted. As Magellan cruised past the island in his tall-masted ship, through the straits that today carry his name, one smoky blaze after another blossomed along the shore.

Firefighters battling a three-alarm blaze that leveled a vacant Victorian-era house in Walbrook early yesterday were dousing the last embers when the sky was lighted up again by another fire two blocks away.It was another vacant Victorian-era house, and four alarms sounded, bringing firefighters from across the city to Northwest Baltimore. Both fires are being investigated as arsons.Police and fire officials said they are trying to determine whether the fires were set by the same people. Neighbors told investigators that the boarded-up properties were used by drug dealers and addicts.

Mike Stromberg of Mount Hebron made it look easy yesterday against Glenelg.The versatile senior sank four three-point shots and scored a season-high 24 points -- one under half his team's total in the Vikings' 49-35 win.Stromberg's passing, rebounding and defense were excellent, too, as was his ability to move without the ball."

Paris.--The West European problem remains, at its vital core, the German problem, and to an important extent this is the all-European problem as well. Germany still is not comfortable with itself, nor confident of its future, and this German insecurity fuels an anxiousness about Germany elsewhere, above all in countries of the East.In these circumstances, it is bizarre for the United States to put forward a proposal to make Germany a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, at a moment when the Germans are failing to deal responsibly with their most important internal problem, and when their one major independent foreign-policy initiative, promoting European Community recognition of Yugoslavia's breakup in 1991, has ended in unimaginable tragedy.

The new year's first big local book is "Aaron Sopher: Satirist of the American Condition," by Peter Hastings Falk (Sound View Press, Madison, Conn. 06443; $49). Many an author and editor have thought of publishing Sopher (1905-1972, in Baltimore; wife Antoinette, daughters Christina and Erika); Mr. Falk's work, with its art-book format and 593 reproductions, promises to be definitive."Sopher" applies an outsider's perspective to this intensely local, immensely prolific artist; the more impressive, for Mr. Falk to declare that "his fineline drawings . . . recorded every facet of daily life in America's cities."

A Howard County police car was destroyed yesterday after it was set ablaze while it was parked outside an officer's Columbia home in the 6400 block of Spicewind Court, police said.Police said a neighbor of the unidentified officer spotted the burning 1993 Ford Crown Victoria cruiser about 4 a.m. in the Owen Brown village neighborhood and called the Fire Department.The Police Department's violent crimes unit and the state fire marshal's office are investigating.Pub Date: 9/09/96

As the saying goes: "Baby, it's cold outside!"So come in from the cold this Valentine's Day and snuggle with your honey in the warm glow of a fireplace.Is there anything more romantic than sharing a good meal with a warm fire crackling in the background? Plenty of people have popped the question under such conditions.Others have rekindled the flames of their love or simply shared a laugh or two among friends. Take your pick from a number of restaurants in the area with working fireplaces that will light up a room -- and perhaps your love life.