Arundel Mills

Art Modell may have sold most of his stake in the Ravens football team, but that hasn't stopped his family from finding a new way to profit from sports in Baltimore. William Modell, Art's first cousin, plans to open four of his Modell's Sporting Goods stores in the Baltimore area by the end of the year. The first of the four, at Perring Plaza in Carney, will have its grand opening tomorrow. The company will also open stores at Security Square Mall in Woodlawn, Reisterstown Road Plaza in Baltimore and Laurel Lakes Centre in Laurel.

A 36-year-old woman was stabbed in the hand by a man who demanded her purse in the parking lot of Arundel Mills Mall Friday afternoon. Police arrested a Baltimore County man who led them on a chase that ended when he crashed the SUV he was driving into a building in West Baltimore. The suspect, Broderick Reginald Bennett, 49, of Windsor Mill, will be charged with armed robbery and assault, according to the Anne Arundel Police Department. The victim told police she was entering her vehicle outside the Neiman Marcus Last Call store when she was accosted by a man armed with a knife.

Several people were arrested at malls across Maryland as police broke up crowds of hundreds lined up to buy Nike Air Jordan Concords, part of a nationwide frenzy over the new sneakers that prompted a number of disturbances. Mobs broke down store doors in suburban Atlanta, shots were fired in Richmond, Calif., and police pepper-sprayed a crowd in Seattle. The incidents recalled violence in the 1990s when the high cost of the shoes combined with their popularity led to well-publicized violence, including a slaying of a Meade High School teen in Anne Arundel County that was the focal point of a Sports Illustrated cover story.

As of 7:15 a.m., an accident was reported in Anne Arundel County on the westbound side of Maryland Route 100, just before exit 10 to Arundel Mills Boulevard, Anne Arundel County police said. In Carroll County, Maryland Route 97, north of Maryland Route 26 was closed in both directions due to an accident. MTA reported no major delays to MARC service.

There is so much talk about not taking children to Arundel Mills Mall if slots are there. We took my 27-year-old son who is a missionary in the Ukraine to the mall. As soon as we stepped on the curb, we heard terrible yelling and swearing. It was not a customer or teen! It was the security guard who had parked his Segway between the doors in the food court and was outside using loud and extremely foul language. It bothered me, not only for our family, but those with children coming behind.

As officials prepare to break ground Thursday for the temporary slots facility at Arundel Mills mall, neighbors have filed a new complaint with the Anne Arundel County Board of Appeals. The Villages Dorchester Homeowners Association and three residents filed the appeal. Their attorney, Harry Blumenthal, said in an e-mail Thursday morning that his clients want casino developer David Cordish to show that he will adequately address traffic near the planned facility. A Cordish official said the new appeal would not affect the groundbreaking Thursday morning for the parking garage that will serve as a temporary slots facility.

The sixth annual Brian's Baseball Bash -- a fundraiser for the University of Maryland Children's Hospital, hosted by Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts -- will take place Aug. 12 at Dave & Buster's in Arundel Mills mall. The bash, which benefits the University of Maryland Children's Hospital, includes food, games, silent and live auctions and opportunities to mingle with Orioles players and get autographs. Admission is $200 for adults and $150 for children under 12. For information, call Krista Ellis at 410-328-6064 or go to officialbrianroberts.com.

Route 295 southbound was shut down at Arundel Mills Boulevard on Tuesday afternoon for an accident, police said. The crash was reported about 4 p.m., according to the State Highway Administration. All southbound traffic lanes and shoulders were closed to traffic for about an hour, with a single lane and shoulder open as of 5 p.m. Police had cleared the accident by 8 p.m., according to SHA. sdance@baltsun.com twitter.com/ssdance

Maryland's first Papaya Factory Outlet will open this spring in Arundel Mills in Hanover, mall officials said Monday. Papaya Factory Outlet, an upscale, contemporary women's apparel retailer that will offer tops, dresses, outerwear and accessories, will open in May. Mall officials also said Vans Outlet Store, which specializes in teen footwear and apparel, will expand and move to a spot near Best Buy this spring. Arundel Mills has more than 200 stores, with a mix of name-brand outlets, specialty shops, restaurants and entertainment, including tenants Kenneth Cole Company Store, Saks Fifth Avenue OFF 5TH, Ann Taylor Factory Store and Neiman Marcus Last Call.

As Election Day quickly approaches, there continues to be much confusion among Anne Arundel County residents about exactly what the proposed casino at Arundel Mills means for the area around the mall and for Anne Arundel County. Even after all this time, the question I am most asked is still: "Now, where will this casino be located?" As vice president/general manager of Arundel Mills, I believe that all Anne Arundel County residents need to know, straight form the source, why I believe Maryland Live!

Route 295 southbound was shut down at Arundel Mills Boulevard on Tuesday afternoon for an accident, police said. The crash was reported about 4 p.m., according to the State Highway Administration. All southbound traffic lanes and shoulders were closed to traffic for about an hour, with a single lane and shoulder open as of 5 p.m. Police had cleared the accident by 8 p.m., according to SHA. sdance@baltsun.com twitter.com/ssdance

A group of five men robbed a 14-year-old boy of his shopping bag outside Arundel Mills mall after he walked out of a Bed Bath & Beyond store about 2 a.m. Friday, Anne Arundel County Police said. The victim told police the men accosted him on the sidewalk just outside the store, one of them punched him and another stole a bag containing merchandise he had just purchased. The suspects, who the boy described as black men aged 17 to 21 wearing black North Face jackets and jeans, ran away toward the mall's Bass Pro Shops entrance.

Two people were injured, one critically, in a crash Friday on Route 100 in Hanover, police say. Shortly before 5:30 p.m., a 2007 Honda Accord driven by Mary Catherine Kroder, 48, of Ellicott City, was stopped for traffic in a westbound lane of Route 100 near Arundel Mills Boulevard, police said. A 2000 Volkswagen Passat driven by Ryan Abbott Scott Albright, 26, of Elkridge, was traveling in the same direction and failed to stop for traffic, striking the back of Kroder's Honda and pushing it into the left guardrail.

Two years ago, our community had a stake in ballot Question A, which decided whether or not to approve the casino at Arundel Mills. Had Question A been defeated, owners of Laurel Park would revive their failed bid to put the casino there. Now that the Live casino is up and running at Arundel Mills, however, voters are being asked to approve a sixth casino in Prince Georges County, even though not all of the original five casino sites, as mandated in slots bill from 2008, are yet operational.

All this debate over a special session for Maryland's legislature seems pointless ("A special mistake," July 26). Evidently, today I can go to the Maryland Live casino at Arundel Mills and play the exact same games that this session is supposed to "legalize. " The operators there have installed machines that provide the exact same probabilities of winning in the exact same manner as any Vegas casino. There are just no humans, and no chips. (They said so themselves in an e-mail response to me: "The payouts on our electronic table games are based upon true Vegas odds.

When a casino was proposed less than two miles from his neighborhood near Arundel Mills, David Jones spent weekends canvassing for petition signatures, chaired the No Slots at the Mall activist group and dedicated months to trying to kill the project. Last month, he again stood behind a podium at a neighborhood meeting - this time defending the Maryland Live Casino and asking for the community's revenue cut to be devoted to math and science programs. "With the threat of a sixth casino coming on line at National Harbor, we who live right next to this casino have to think about our quality of life," Jones said later, explaining his change of heart.

When Arundel Mills was proposed in the late 1990s, it was to be one of the largest malls on the East Coast. In order to win local support, the Mills Corporation shrank the proposed size of the mall and offered to reconfigure roads, add a community room, and provide land for Anne Arundel Community College. With those concessions by the Mills Corporation, the project received local support. Slot machines were never proposed or even imagined in the project. Since the mall's opening in 2000, the area has seen an explosion of residential development.

So Anne Arundel County voters are evenly divided over slots at the Arundel Mills Mall ( "Poll shows tight battle for Arundel Mills slots," Oct. 24.) I would be willing to bet that those for the slots parlor don't live anywhere near Arundel Mills and/or don't shop there. Consider this, if you live in Annapolis or areas south of there, would you like to have the slots parlor at Annapolis Mall? Or how about a slots parlor at Marley Station Mall? It's that same old thing — I don't want it in my backyard, but I will be happy to vote to put it in your backyard!

The sixth annual Brian's Baseball Bash -- a fundraiser for the University of Maryland Children's Hospital, hosted by Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts -- will take place Aug. 12 at Dave & Buster's in Arundel Mills mall. The bash, which benefits the University of Maryland Children's Hospital, includes food, games, silent and live auctions and opportunities to mingle with Orioles players and get autographs. Admission is $200 for adults and $150 for children under 12. For information, call Krista Ellis at 410-328-6064 or go to officialbrianroberts.com.

WNBA Ex-Terp Toliver ties career high with 29 Kristi Toliver (Maryland) bounced back from a rare shotless game to tie a career high with 29 points and help the host Los Angeles Sparks to a 96-90 victory over the Minnesota Lynx on Thursday. "It was completely crazy that I didn't even shoot the ball in the last game," said Toliver, who entered Thursday averaging 16.1 points. "That's not who I am and that's not who I want to be, and today I just kind of shifted that and showed everybody this is who I am and this is what I do. I'm back on track.