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Howard County police began investigating yesterday a Saturday night break-in at Oakland Mills High School where they believe several students held a party that included under-age drinking and sexual activity.Police first learned of the incident after the school's principal, Marshall Peterson, reported it yesterday afternoon, saying he heard about the event from students, said Sgt. Morris Carroll, the police spokesman."There were rumors going around the school about this party," Carroll said.

A 29-year-old Dundalk man who escaped in October from the Baltimore Pre-Release Center where he was serving a 20-year sentence for murder was in custody today after a standoff with city police in which a shotgun was fired at officers.William Daniel White surrendered yesterday after police negotiator Julius Murfree "talked him into putting his weapon down," police said.White, armed with a shotgun, had barricaded himself inside a Forest Park residence where he rented a room.The incident, which lasted about 40 minutes, began when White telephoned police and offered to turn himself in.When police arrived at the house in the 4400 block of Belvieu Ave. about 3:20 p.m., White answered the door armed with a 12-gauge shotgun.

CITRUS HEIGHTS, Calif. - After a 10-day, coast-to-coast manhunt, authorities found murder suspect Nikolay Soltys hiding in his mother's back yard yesterday, capturing him moments after his breakfasting relatives fled the home in terror to call for help. Barefoot, disheveled and carrying a potato peeler and a map, Soltys was arrested without incident by undercover officers who had kept his family under surveillance since the bloody killings of his wife, son and four other relatives. Sacramento County Sheriff Lou Blanas said the unshaven Soltys may have been hiding for several days in a wooded ravine behind his mother's home.

A South Baltimore dockworker who police say made more than 3,000 obscene telephone calls in the past 24 years has been arrested by Baltimore County police.Victor Herbert Gardner Sr., 46, was arrested at his home in the 1100 block of Hull St. and charged with 39 counts of telephone misuse, stemming from obscene calls he allegedly placed during 1990.Conviction on the charges could result in a maximum sentence of 117 years in prison and a $19,500 fine.Gardner was released on his own recognizance, with the condition that he continue getting treatment at the Sexual Disorders Clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Two Baltimore-area men accused of a strong-arm robbery in Westminster early Wednesday were arrested later that day after calling Westminster police for help finding their car.Police said a 28-year-old resident of Charles Street in Westminster told them that two men in a Nissan Sentra assaulted him about 2 a.m. in the 200 block of E. Main St. One man yanked a gold chain from his neck, police said, and the other grabbed his watch after hitting him in the...

STUART, Fla. -- About the same time a woman dangled and dropped her toddler out the window of a speeding car on Interstate 95, the boy's father says he was on the phone to authorities trying to find a way to protect the child.Kris Ann Haddad, arraigned yesterday, visited the boy's father at his home Wednesday night despite the fact she had taken out a restraining order against him.The father, Peter Foley, had been growing concerned in recent weeks by what he considered Haddad's increasingly erratic behavior.

As Marc LeGoff was driving to work on U.S. 32 west just before 10 a.m. Tuesday, he noticed a couple of men wearing orange road worker vests on the right shoulder. One started walking closer to the road, and LeGoff noticed he had something in his hands. "Call me paranoid, but I'm pretty sure it was a silver camera and could have sworn that he took a picture of the back of my car as I drove by. Have you heard of anything like this before or am I imagining things?" he asked. He noted that it really seemed like the camera was directed toward him and not toward the island between westbound and eastbound lanes.

The day after Reginald "Reggie" Starks was brutally beaten by a gang of youths, the blood that had oozed out of his head and stained Old York Road had dried. Some pedestrians pointed to the gruesome reminder."That's where the boy was beat?" a woman asked yesterday, her index finger pointing to the bloodstain. "Yes," someone replied.Some residents said the beating of Starks, a special education student at Venable High School, by possibly 15 youngsters, was just the most recent ugly example of increasing violence associated with the students at Venable, and in the working-class neighborhood in general.

Breaking glass awakens you at 1 a.m.You see someone breaking into your neighbor's house. You grab thephone, dial 911 and request the police.If you live within the limits of Westminster, Sykesville, Taneytown, Manchester or Hampstead, town police will likely respond to the call. State police assist if asked.Carroll's other three towns -- Mount Airy, Union Bridge and New Windsor -- rely on the resident state trooper program.The five town police departments have their own telephones, which you can call direct.

If you see a cat stuck in a tree outside your house and you want to call the fire department to the scene, call 911.It may not be an emergency, but a new county 911 service invites any problem-related call, no matter how small."