Arundel

Before sunrise Monday, Kevin and Shelley Taylor set out from their Millersville home to a new employment center for the Maryland Live! Casino, a slots parlor next to the Arundel Mills mall seeking workers for 1,500 jobs. Having tracked the progress of what will be the state's largest casino, the Taylors believe the facility could provide opportunity for their five-member family. Though Kevin Taylor has a job, he wants a better-paying one. And Shelley Taylor has been out of work for several months.

Services to honor military Active-duty military and veterans will be recognized in worship services at 8 a.m. and 10:45 a.m. Sunday, May 27, at Galilee Lutheran Church, 4652 Mountain Road in Pasadena. Military personnel will be invited to come forward to be recognized. Information: 410-255-8236. Summer camp Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church, 611 Baltimore-Annapolis Blvd., offers a one-week day camp from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 6-10 for children entering third through ninth grades to teach them how to express their faith through music, drama, movement and fine arts.

Maryland Live! Casino at Arundel Mills will have its grand opening at 10 p.m. June 6, casino officials announced Thursday morning. The grand opening still requires approval by the Maryland Lottery, which will oversee a trial run to take place before June 6. The announcement comes as the state slots commission on Thursday considers a bid to open a casino in Rocky Gap, in Western Maryland, by Evitts Resort LLC. The commission also has yet...

The site and time of Friday's Class 4A state championship baseball game has been changed. No. 8 Arundel and Northwest will play at the University of Maryland's Shipley Field at 2:30 p.m.

Hundreds of people lined up on sun-drenched asphalt Saturday to see if they could get regular payouts, in the form of paychecks, from the new Maryland Live! Casino, a slots casino scheduled to open at Arundel Mills mall in about three months. "I hope I get lucky enough to get a position," said Mark Ellison, who's from West Baltimore. "They want people who are willing to go the extra mile so customers come in and enjoy spending their money. " The operators of what will be the state's largest casino hosted a job fair Saturday with the Anne Arundel Workforce Development Corp.

Four trucks laden with 100 slot machines arrived early Wednesday morning at the nearly completed casino at Arundel Mills mall. For the next two hours, workers wheeled banks of the gleaming new machines, one by one, inside on hand trucks. Installation of the first set of slots moved Maryland Live! Casino, the state's largest, another step closer to its scheduled opening in three months. That's progress for Maryland's lackluster gambling program, which has yet to be fully implemented more than three years after voters approved five slots locations statewide.

Albert Lord doesn't like to wait - not in business or on the golf course. The colorful chairman of student loan behemoth Sallie Mae, who's embroiled in a nasty fight over the failed sale of the company, has spent 40 years in the accounting and banking industries. He said that experience should have instilled in him a measure of patience, but it hasn't. Whether in traffic, at the office or on the links, Lord said, he just doesn't like to wait. He can't do much about the first two, but he's got a sure-fire solution for the last one: He's building his own, an 18-hole golf course on land he's acquired amid shuttered tobacco farms and grazing horses in southern Anne Arundel County.

Elyse Smidinger, Arundel, golf The standout junior captured the individual girls title at the state golf championships in College Park last Wednesday, finishing with a two-day total of 143 to earn a six-stroke win over Atholton runner-up Bryana Nguyen. After opening the tournament with a 1-over-par 71 in the semifinal round Oct. 25, Smidinger came back with five birdies in the opening nine holes Wednesday, finishing with a 72 to become the third Arundel female to win an individual state title in the past 11 years.

What has Jeff Starr's wife, Kristi, racing out to Chick-fil-A on specific nights for dinner? It's the Wildcats' undefeated season. Starr is quick to point out he is superstitious, and this season, his game-day rituals are paying off. Heading into tonight's showdown against Annapolis, the No. 9 Wildcats are 13-0 this season and playing excellent team basketball. A 1995 Arundel grad, Starr spent two years on varsity as a guard and helped the 1994-95 team go 21-4 and reach the state tournament.

No. 13 Arundel (18-5) jumped on top-seeded Old Mill with four runs in the top of the first inning, gave up the lead, then got a two-RBI hit by Syeed Mahdi in the fourth en route to a 7-5 victory against the Patriots in a Class 4A regional semifinal on Wednesday. Arundel will play at either Severna Park or North Point on Friday in the regional championship. To defeat the Patriots, the Wildcats had to get by Old Mill pitcher Josh Hader, who one-hit Arundel the last time the teams played in a 5-0 Patriots' win. Mahdi hit a single off of Hader, which drove in the two-deciding runs in the fourth inning.

Something's rotten on the Baltimore area waterfront. Fish are washing ashore by the thousands in a mass die-off that officials say appears to be caused by a weather-driven worsening of the pollution that chronically plagues the Chesapeake Bay. State investigators expanded their probe Wednesday into what they believe are algae-related fish kills in Marley, Furnace and Curtis creeks in Glen Burnie, raising the estimated death toll there tenfold, while...

Pamela Furness Engel, an Anne Arundel County biology teacher and teaching adviser, died of pancreatic cancer May 16 at Baltimore-Washington Medical Center. She was 58 and lived in Linthicum. Born Pamela Furness in Baltimore and raised in Catonsville and Columbia, she was a 1971 Atholton High School graduate. She earned a degree in biology at what is now McDaniel College and had a second degree in education at the Notre Dame of Maryland University, as well as a master's degree in biology from Towson University.

State officials are investigating what killed thousands of fish in Marley and Furnace creeks in northern Anne Arundel County, but suspect they suffocated after an algae bloom sucked the oxygen out of the water, a Maryland Department of the Environment spokesman said Tuesday. Investigators saw an estimated 6,000 dead and apparently dying fish Monday, mostly in Marley Creek but some as well in adjoining Furnace Creek, said MDE spokesman Jay Apperson. There were at least nine different species of fish involved, including Atlantic menhaden, silversides, silvery minnows and sunfish, he said.

The Anne Arundel County Council passed a resolution Monday night commending the county police department — but not its chief — for decreasing crime in 2011. The council passed the resolution only after approving an amendment specifically removing Police Chief James E. Teare Sr.'s name from the language. The councilmanic move follows another council resolution last month expressing no confidence in Teare. The council said it is concerned with Teare's ability to lead the police department in light of certain allegations in the March indictment of County Executive John R. Leopold.

An Anne Arundel County parent whose gentle spirit is said to have built bridges between cultures at her sons' elementary school was named the Maryland Parent Involvement Matters Award winner Friday night. Ambareen Jafri, a 35-year-old Crofton mother of three boys, began her volunteer work four years ago when a Nantucket Elementary School teacher put out a request for someone who spoke Urdu to be a translator for Indian and Pakistani families. "Sometimes, you just [say], 'OK, this is my opportunity to help the community.

I am writing to comment on your recent article ("Prosecutors: Inquiry into dog park shooting may take another week," Aug. 17) because in many ways it parallels a similar incident in which I was involved on January 16, 2009. I am appalled at what happened. There are always alternatives to murdering someone's pet. Also, a police officer who is trained to deal with difficult situations should be held to a higher standard. I am concerned that the investigating police force will "whitewash" the shooter's actions.

Aanika Dobbins, Arundel SPORT Basketball GIRLS STATS -- One of three key seniors on the No. 6 Wildcats, Dobbins, a 5-foot-8 guard, had 13 points and six rebounds in a 62-53 win over No. 13 Old Mill last week in the county championship game. It was Arundel's fourth county title in a row and the ninth in 11 years, and the second in which Dobbins played a role. SIDELINES -- Dobbins, whose parents are retired from the Army, attended Meade for two years before moving into the Arundel district.