Arundel Mills

Just beyond the entrance of the Maryland Live Casino, row and row of video slot machines clang and beep and flash, beckoning would-be gamblers to insert bills - or even a credit card. Sprawling across a space larger than three typical Wal-Marts, the casino at Arundel Mills Mall, scheduled to open June 6, also features gaming consoles hooked into video feeds of real-time dice rolls, roulette wheel spins and card deck deals. "We are really concentrated on turning it into a really dynamic environment," said Joe Weinberg, managing partner and president of gaming forthe Cordish Cos., the Baltimore-based development firm that built and operates the casino.

The approach to National Harbor, where three highways meet on the Maryland side of the Potomac River, is pretty much a wow, with the arched 18-story atrium of a massive convention hotel its centerpiece. National Harbor is a still-new resort town on a slope overlooking the big river, with six hotels, upscale shops, restaurants, condominiums, marinas and a busy schedule of events that attract healthy crowds on weekends. David Cordish must look at Nat Harbor and wish he'd thought of it. Or maybe he wishes the place had been available as a location for gambling four years ago, when Maryland voters approved the return of slot machines to the state.

WEATHER Today's forecast calls for cloudy skies and a high temperature near 67 degrees. Tonight is expected to be cloudy, with a low temperature around 59 degrees. TRAFFIC Check our traffic updates for this morning's issues as you plan your commute. FROM THE WEEKEND... Second woman dies after Ellicott City church shooting : The Rev. Mary-Marguerite Kohn, 62, died Saturday night at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center of injuries sustained Thursday in a double shooting at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Ellicott City, police said Sunday.

Anne Arundel County police are investigating the death of a woman found early Sunday slumped in a car parked near the Anne Arundel Community College satellite building in Hanover, not far from Arundel Mills mall. Fire Department rescue crews responding to the 5:30 a.m. call from Arundel Mills mall security officers found an African-American woman who appeared to be in her early 20s in the vehicle near 7009 Arundel Mills Circle and determined she was dead, police said. Police said they saw no obvious signs of foul play.

The developer of a casino scheduled to open next month at Arundel Mills will temporarily restrict southbound access to the mall beginning next week during road construction to prepare for an expected traffic increase. Work on the $5 million in traffic and road upgrades began Tuesday, officials from the Baltimore-based Cordish Cos. announced. The centerpiece of the plan is a new interchange at the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and Arundel Mills Boulevard in Hanover. The $500 million Maryland!

A state business group has invited members of the public to bring their sensitive documents Saturday to "Shred Day" identity theft prevention events in Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties. The events, hosted by the Better Business Bureau of Greater Maryland, will send trucks to Arundel Mills (behind hhgregg) and The Avenue in White Marsh (behind the AMC Lowes), and will accept documents until noon. Each truck is capable of shredding up to 8,000 pounds of personal information.

Absent the colorful facade yet to come, the slots casino at Arundel Mills looks from the outside like a giant parking garage, but thousands of gambling machines on the first floor will soon be lighting up the day and night. The doors are set to open in June, and this year Anne Arundel County can begin slicing up its share of the expected millions. The estimate now is $15 million for Anne Arundel during the first 12 months. That's how much County ExecutiveJohn R. Leopoldput into his proposed budget, calling the Maryland Live Casino "the largest single new source of revenue.

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.

A proposal by the Prince George's County executive to single out National Harbor as the only acceptable site for a casino in that county ran into fierce opposition on multiple fronts Wednesday in Annapolis. At a hearing before a state Senate committee, the owner of Rosecraft Raceway predicted that slots at National Harbor would lead to the demise of the harness racing track. Also objecting was the developer of the soon-to-open slots casino at Arundel Mills, who opposed the opening of any new gambling sites before the five locations already authorized have proven their viability.