Backpack

A "disorderly person" was arrested Friday after acting strangely and abandoning a backpack in the area of the Towson University Media Center, said school spokeswoman Gay Pinder. The man, whose name was not immediately available, was not affiliated with the university, Pinder said. A university tweet, sent late Friday morning, warned students to stay away from the center and two other buildings while school police investigated. A follow-up tweet, apparently sent a few minutes later, said operations were clear.

On the third Saturday in May, generations of Baltimoreans marched onto the infield at Pimlico Race Course with their coolers in tow, an image that helped define the Preakness Stakes. No longer. The Maryland Jockey Club has unveiled enhanced security plans for the 138th Preakness Stakes in the wake of recent deadly bombings at the Boston Marathon. And coolers are among the casualties. Fans will be subject to electronic wand searches at all gates for the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes on May 17 and the Preakness on May 18. They will not be allowed to carry backpacks or duffel bags into the races and only smaller, see-through-plastic containers will be permitted.

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.

A "disorderly person" was arrested Friday after acting strangely and abandoning a backpack in the area of the Towson University Media Center, said school spokeswoman Gay Pinder. The man, whose name was not immediately available, was not affiliated with the university, Pinder said. A university tweet, sent late Friday morning, warned students to stay away from the center and two other buildings while school police investigated. A follow-up tweet, apparently sent a few minutes later, said operations were clear.

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.

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.

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.

Baltimore County police are searching for a backpack that they hope will help them determine how a city woman who worked in Cockeysville ended up dead in the Woodmoor area of the county. Tiona Katrice Smith, 23, of the 3900 block of Mountwood Road in Southwest Baltimore, worked at a McDonald's in Cockeysville and regularly took mass transit home, police said. She left work Sunday wearing her blue McDonald's uniform and carrying a gray backpack with dark patches, police said. Smith's body was discovered Sunday in the backyard of a home on the 6800 block of Fox Meadow Road, which is near Liberty Road, by children who told their parents that they had found a woman sleeping nearby, police said.

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.

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.

Backpacks are bad for a child's health if not used correctly. When worn appropriately, backpacks are better than shoulder bags or purses. The stomach and back muscles support the weight of the backpack and allow for even distribution across a child's body, said physical therapist Chris Wood of MedStar Good Samaritan Hospital. Badly worn backpacks can result in numbness, tingling and pain, Wood said. Here are some tips Wood and The American Academy of Pediatrics offer for kids who wear backpacks.

Earlier this summer, Dan and Heather Simons started adding up the cost of school supplies for their son, who is entering first grade. Glue stick, binder, crayons, lunch box — plus a backpack to carry everything — could easily run $20 to $30. "As my wife and I reviewed the list, we got into a conversation of how expensive it can be for families that have multiple children and don't have the money to buy" supplies, said Dan Simons, 40. ...

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.