Backpack

An backpack left at a bus stop near an M&T Bank branch in Roland Park shut down streets, shops and a school Friday afternoon. The backpack, left in 700 block of Deepdene Road, was X-rayed and found to contain books, according to Sgt. Anthony Smith, a spokesman for police. Police blocked off several streets in the area during the evening rush hour and buses were re-routed. Roland Park Elementary/Middle School was put on lockdown. Businesses along Roland Avenue were evacuated.

An backpack left at a bus stop near an M&T Bank branch in Roland Park shut down streets, shops and a school Friday afternoon. The backpack, left in 700 block of Deepdene Road, was X-rayed and found to contain books, according to Sgt. Anthony Smith, a spokesman for police. Police blocked off several streets in the area during the evening rush hour and buses were re-routed. Roland Park Elementary/Middle School was put on lockdown. Businesses along Roland Avenue were evacuated.

Authorities were trying to determine Friday how an 8-year-old boy obtained a loaded handgun that was found in his backpack by school police after he made threats toward a classmate. The third-grader at Sharp-Leadenhall Elementary School, a small Baltimore City school for special-needs children, was arrested Thursday afternoon and charged as a juvenile with handgun possession. School officials said the boy was "acting suspiciously" and staff began closely monitoring his behavior, which led to a search of his backpack and the discovery of a .380-caliber handgun.

Employee volunteers from Booz Allen Hamilton's Aberdeen office recently delivered 70 backpacks filled with school supplies, in addition to several boxes of additional supplies, to support Edgewood Elementary School. For the second year, Edgewood Elementary School made its school supply list optional due to the economic environment. As nearly 70 percent of students at the school receive free or reduced-price meals, the school did not want to place more of a financial burden on families.

A woman leaving The Mall in Columbia with her two children at noon Wednesday was robbed by a teen-ager who asked her for a quarter and then demanded her purse, Howard County police said.The victim, a 45-year-old woman from Ellicott City, and the children were not injured.The woman told police that a youth approached her about 12:15 p.m. Wednesday in the parking lot of the mall in the 10300 block of Little Patuxent Parkway and asked for a quarter.The woman told him she did not have a quarter and continued walking to her car. He followed her, and as she put her children into the car, he demanded her purse.

A woods fire covering about 10 acres off the 1300 block of Bachman Valley Road between Westminster and Manchester raged out of control for several hours Friday afternoon.Engines and brush trucks from Manchester, Westminster, Lineboro, Reese, Hampstead and Pleasant Hill of York County, Pa., were dispatched to the fire, which was discovered just before 2 p.m. About 50 firefighters carrying backpack water tanks and hand tools walked up a steep hill to get to the fire.The brush trucks carried water to the firefighters, snaking their way around the trees.

One of the best ways to find out what your children are learning at school, since they can't seem to find the words when you ask, is to sort through the mess in their backpacks.The last backpack load of the school year is especially revealing, since the teachers insist that the kids empty their desks of all the forgotten permission slips and notes home before they will promote them to the next grade. Though it is a little late in the game, you finally get a look at what your children have spent an academic year learning.

Two tiny out-of-state vacationers have given wildlife biologists a "Eureka!" moment. A couple of endangered bats - chestnut brown with a Garbo-esque shyness and a Chuck Yeager need for speed - have relocated from the deep recesses of a limestone cave to leafy hickory trees in Carroll County. They're called Indiana bats, although these two winter in Pennsylvania's Canoe Creek State Park. And fewer than 400,000 of them are left in the United States. Biologists have long suspected that Indiana bats make the trek to Maryland each summer to fatten up on bugs and have their young.

IF YOU'VE watched children walking to school, you've seen that some of them look more like Himalayan Sherpas bearing supplies to classes on Mount Everest than children of middle-class families living in a modern society. Carrying overloaded backpacks is not the exception today, but the rule. What students put into their backpacks and how they carry them have produced some startling statistics. Arnold chiropractor Diane Kelly does the math: If your child carries a backpack that weighs 12 pounds and lifts that weight 10 times a day, the child will lift 120 pounds a day, or 21,600 pounds in one 180-day school year.

From adolescence to adulthood I have owned the same backpack.Together, we've survived 10 years.Several schools.A high school crush.One 25-pound bag of plaster of Paris.The Atlantic City bus terminal.I know that a professional should not carry the same book bag she has owned since age 14, but I can't seem to part with my old bag.I remember the September day I bought it. It hung on a wall lined with knapsacks of all sizes, shapes and colors. Pick out the wrong bag, I thought, and you'll feel like the kid in first grade who had the stupid-looking Brady Bunch lunch box. I decided to play it safe and get an ordinary, navy-blue Eastpak.

Ted Williams wasn't at the pool last week. Nor was he on the basketball court, polishing off an ice cream cone, sleeping in till noon or catching a movie. One gloriously sunny midsummer day found him at Target, clutching a dictionary and gazing listlessly at three-ring binders. Though it felt as if vacation had barely begun, the Towson teenager was already back-to-school shopping with his mother and younger brother. He could almost hear the institutional bell cutting into his time off. The shopping trip, he declared, was "a killjoy.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers seized last week more than 20 pounds of cocaine found in a shipping container at the Baltimore seaport, the latest case highlighting how illegal drugs make their way into the city. The drugs were discovered Wednesday, wrapped in eight bricks and placed in a blue backpack that was found in a container of steel parts. The ship had travelled from China through Panama to the United States, officials said. The cocaine was estimated to have a street value of $650,000.

A 17-year-old high school senior was not prepared for the generosity he discovered when he began collecting coats, blankets and hats for the homeless. He soon had ballooning bags full of down parkas and woolen coats that found their way onto the backs of those living on the streets of Baltimore. Bobby Weinstein, a senior at the Shoshana S. Cardin School in Northwest Baltimore, has vowed to keep up his efforts, and is now seeking donations of backpacks, duffel bags and carrying cases, as well as toiletries, for those who travel with all they own. "What I saw reminded me of what I learned in school about the Great Depression," he said.

Ray Lewis met some of his smallest but biggest fans on Tuesday. The Ravens linebacker entered the Abbottston Elementary school gym to the screams of 200 students, including sixth-graders from the nearby Stadium School, to hand out free backpacks full of supplies for the new school year. Lewis was joined by his youngest daughter, 11-year-old Raven, and his mother, Sunseria Smith, to help hand out the supplies from his charity, The Ray Lewis 52 Foundation, for the school in the Northeastern Coldstream Homestead Montebello neighborhood.

Authorities were trying to determine Friday how an 8-year-old boy obtained a loaded handgun that was found in his backpack by school police after he made threats toward a classmate. The third-grader at Sharp-Leadenhall Elementary School, a small Baltimore City school for special-needs children, was arrested Thursday afternoon and charged as a juvenile with handgun possession. School officials said the boy was "acting suspiciously" and staff began closely monitoring his behavior, which led to a search of his backpack and the discovery of a .380-caliber handgun.

Sixth-grader Josephe Tondreau washed clothes and cleaned sinks. First-grader John Nolte helped his mom clean the house. Fifth-grader Becky Shade's parents paid her $1 a bag to rake leaves from the family's lawn. Nearly 800 students at the School of the Incarnation in Gambrills completed chores for their families and neighbors to earn money for charity, this year raising more than $24,000 in their effort to help Giving Back Inc., an Annapolis-based nonprofit group that delivers food, clothing, supplies and holiday cheer each Christmas Eve to homeless shelters in Baltimore City, Anne Arundel County and Washington.

IT IS THE first day of school, and my daughter will need a new backpack. As it is for most high school girls, a backpack is a fashion purchase - as opposed to something that comes under the heading of school supplies. It is hard to imagine, I know, but there is such as thing as the "wrong" backpack. This year, however, everyone at Annapolis High School will be carrying the same backpack, or they will carry none at all. New principal Deborah Williams has ruled that only clear backpacks may be carried in the halls of the school.

My backpack's big,my backpack's blue,my backpack's very nearly new.Grandma sent it in the mail.She bought it at a garage sale.She says by now I'm big enoughto fill it with important stuff.I'll put my teddy bear inside.He'll like a little backpack ride.Here's my train.I'll take my blocks.I'll take my brother's baseball socks.I think I'll take his catcher's mitt -he keeps it soft with lots of spit.My mother hangs her keys up high,but I can reach them if I try.I'll take a cookie and a spare -one for me and one for bear.

Last week, I took my son on the value bus from Baltimore to New York to see his sister perform in a New York University show. We rode the bus because it is: 1) always an adventure; 2) an interesting introduction to other people's fragrant lunches; and 3) really cheap. You see, I have this ridiculous goal of one day spending a 24-hour period in New York City and spending less than $300 - including travel, food, lodging and sightseeing. I have yet to achieve this goal, but when I do, I plan to throw a huge gala on the little dirt patch at the O'Donnell Street cutoff where you wait for the "Double Happyness" bus. You will all be invited to celebrate this feat of ingenuity and economy: water and saltines will be served.

Name: : The Kiddyap What it is:: A backpack-style kid carrier designed for preschoolers who tire out during long walks (think amusement parks, hikes, sightseeing treks). It's designed for children 31/2 or older, up to 60 pounds. How it works: : You wear it like a backpack, with straps around your shoulders and a belt that distributes the child's weight to your hips rather than your shoulders. But unlike a backpack, the Kiddyap features a saddlelike seat for the child to straddle and no sides or back, so the child feels (and is)