Camilla

The owners of Doughoregan Manor, the historic estate in Howard County that was once home to Declaration of Independence signatory Charles Carroll, have reached an agreement to sell part of the land to a company planning to build a retirement community. The agreement would enable owners Camilla and Phillip D. Carroll to restore and preserve the estate's 280-year-old manor house and keep it in the family. It would also ensure that at least 665 of the estate's 892 available acres are preserved.

uffing on a cigar in a fancy hotel room, Robert Towne says, "It's not politically correct to say so, but people in this country didn't alM-W ways feel victimized by racial slurs," even though his new movie, Ask the Dust, decries racism against Mexicans in 1930s Los Angeles. "They'd turn around and say 'I'm just as American as you are.' "I love the feeling of that. The minute that sentence is spoken it means there's something we're all aspiring to, which is to be American. It means no matter how diM-W verse we are, no matter how different our backgrounds, we have the dream of being one people.

The idea of extending public water and sewer service into western Howard County to allow construction of up to 2,000 senior housing units on farmland would normally spark a political battle royal. But not, apparently, when the location is historic Doughoregan Manor. Erickson Retirement Communities wants to use up to 188 acres of the historic 892-acre Carroll family estate, and there is no sign of criticism. Doughoregan is between Route 108 on the south and Frederick Road on the north, just northwest of Columbia.

"Welcome to my office," Capt. Paul Wright said as he opened the security door to the bridge of the Queen Victoria. Through the expanse of windows, the ocean seemed endless, glimmering in the sun. It was, as it turned out, the calm before the storm. The captain, a genial chap from Cornwall, England, was soon laughing about the rumors aboard Cunard's newest ocean liner. No, he assured me, no one had been lost overboard. And had I seen the reports in the British tabloids blaming every glitch on this, the ship's second voyage, on the "Curse of Camilla," Prince Charles' wife, the first nonmonarch to christen a Cunard Queen in nearly 75 years?

CAMILLA M. SPIVEY (nee Rosewag) 64 of Dover, DE., formerly of College Pk. MD., died April 9, 2006 Dover, wife of Charles W. Spivey, Jr. Mother of Sara Roseman, Lauren Jaren and Heather Gubelli. Memorial Services Thursday 2 P.M. at 12609 Kembridge Rd., Bowie, MD. Burial will be private.

London -- Divorce British-style can be such a mess, especially when you are linked with the heir to the throne.Yesterday, the acknowledged love of Prince Charles' life, Camilla Parker-Bowles, 47, and her husband, Brigadier Andrew Parker-Bowles, 55, announced they are getting a divorce.The tabloids have brought out the screaming headlines. The television networks provided wall-to-wall coverage. The royal mess spews on.The announcement came less than a week after the former secretary to the queen, Lord Charteris, predicted Prince Charles and Princess Diana would divorce "sooner rather than later."

The O'Malley administration has settled a class action lawsuit brought by critics who accused the state of failing low-income and disabled Marylanders by regularly taking nearly a year to approve medical assistance applications as part of a severe backlog. The settlement means the Maryland Department of Human Resources will process claims faster and work to eliminate a backlog of more than 9,000 delayed cases, according to the Public Justice Center, the Homeless Persons Representation Project and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, the organizations that filed suit.

Kwame Kwei-Armah is turning up the floodlights on Center Stage . It's been not quite two years since the British-born playwright became artistic director of Maryland's largest regional theater. With his production of two button-pushing dramas nicknamed "The Raisin Cycle," the beams emanating from 700 N. Calvert St. are strong enough to be spotted in distant places, from the Big Apple to the Badger State. Articles about the cycle, in which both plays run in repertoire and have the same casts, have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

At the Zang Toi show Sunday evening, "Real Housewife of New York" Romona Singer tweeted that she was front row with Alex McCord, Avery Singer and Sonja Morgan. She tweeted that the three of them were her "three favorite blonds. " Baltimore's Stacy Keibler was front row and center Tuesday at Vera Wang's show. A very chic Keibler, her hair pulled back, was sporting dangling earrings, a black and white patterned sleeveless dress and pointed-toe black pumps. She was joined by other notables including Rachel Zoe and Kirsten Dunst.

In Part Three of a five-part excerpt from "Behind Palace Doors: Marriage and Divorce in the House of Windsor" by Nigel Dempster and Peter Evans, Prince Charles didn't want to marry Lady Diana Spencer, but even his mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles, was certain that "the mouse" was absolutely right for England's future king.Charles Philip Arthur George, prince of Wales, heir to the British throne and the world's most eligible bachelor, had a problem. He was not in love with the girl he was going to marry.