Children

WJZ meteorologist Bernadette Woods is leaving the CBS-owned station to join a non-profit firm in New Jersey focused on climate change, she said Wednesday night. Woods, who has been with WJZ for seven years, said she will remain at the station helping with the transition for the next month. After that, she, her husband and their two children will be moving to Princeton, N.J., where she will join Climate Central as staff meteorologist. "I'm very excited about the opportunity in Princeton," she said.

Registration is open for The Children's Center of North Harford's 2013 Summer Adventures Program. Open to children ages 4 to 11, Summer Adventures is set to begin Monday, June 17 and offers 10 theme-based weeks of fun and learning. Weekly themes include The Rainforest, Prehistoric Times and Down on the Farm as well as many others. The program runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Before and after care are optional and run from 6:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. The Summer Adventures Program will be held in the newly renovated school-age classroom.

Maryland could become one of a handful of states that grant special driver's licenses to illegal immigrants under legislation garnering strong support in Annapolis. The bill, passed by the Senate on Monday, would expand and make permanent an existing two-tiered driver's license system to include more than 100,000 people whose immigration status currently prevents them from applying for a license. Gov. Martin O'Malley backs the plan, which now moves to the House of Delegates. "It's a safety issue," said Del. Jolene Ivey, a Prince George's County Democrat who introduced the House version.

Lisa and Eric Grevin's southern Anne Arundel County home bustles with activity, with six children playing, doing homework and getting ready for dinner. With three adopted children and three foster children, it's not exactly what the Grevins pictured when they decided to start a family — but now they say they couldn't imagine life any other way. "It changed our lives," said Eric Grevin, 41, of the couple's decision to serve as foster parents. "It made our lives richer and fuller, and I'm so glad we did it. " The Grevins recently were named Foster Parents of the Year for Anne Arundel County and will be honored at a reception with Maryland first lady Katie O'Malley at Government House in Annapolis in June.

Rocking horses have been made for children for hundreds of years. A rocking horse made before 1900 is worth hundreds or thousands of dollars today. Collectors can find less expensive toy horses, however.Children of the 1950s remember the most popular horse from their childhood: the Wonder Horse. The all-wood painted horse was supported on a wooden frame by metal springs. The child rider could bounce up and down.The Wonder Horse was made by Wonder Products, now located in Bossier City, La. The company made its first horses in 1949.

HAMPTONVILLE, N.C. -- Junior Johnson sits on his cherry red couch, his wife, Lisa, beside him and their two small children climbing all over him. Johnson, 66, wears a beatific smile.The stock cars and racetracks are behind him. These days, his job description is as follows: loving husband, doting father and master of a country chateau."This is when you should have children," Johnson says. "Most people work all their lives and can't spend as much time as they want with their kids. Then, when they're at the age to retire, the kids are grown and gone.

MANILA, Philippines -- Pepsi's advertisements, splashed for weeks all over Philippine newspapers, radio and TV, were hardly subtle: "Today, you could be a millionaire!"From her tin-roofed shack in one of Manila's more squalid slums, Victoria Angelo couldn't resist. The unemployed mother of five and her husband, Juanito, who pedals people in a three-wheeled cab for about $4 a day, began drinking Pepsi with every meal and snack. Each morning, the family prayed for a specially marked bottle cap.And then, a miracle!

Dolores of Baltimore wants a second opinion. The 70-year-old owns a house, but wonders if she should put the names of her four children on the deed to avoid estate taxes when she dies. She says a lawyer told her years ago that it doesn't matter as long as she named the children as beneficiaries in her will. "But will they have to pay more taxes that way, or will it be a legal hassle for them without their having been named on the house deed?" she asks in an email. I ran Dolores' question by two Maryland estate planning lawyers.

He saw his first Blue Angels show in Detroit at age 6, and Thomas Frosch says the experience inspired him to want to become a pilot. He saw four more performances while attending the Naval Academy, including one the "Blues" put on before his graduation in 1992. Now commander and flight leader of the Blue Angels, Frosch, a Navy commander, was looking forward to returning to Annapolis this week, where he would have led his team through its traditional jaw-dropping show as part of the Academy's graduation week.

America's children seem to be shortchanged on almost every issue we face as a society. Not only are we failing to protect our children from deranged people wielding semi-automatic guns, we're not protecting them from poverty. The rate of child poverty keeps rising -- even faster than the rate of adult poverty. We now have the highest rate of child poverty in the developed world. And we're not protecting their health. Rates of child diabetes and asthma continue to climb. America has the third-worst rate of infant mortality among 30 industrialized nations and the second-highest rate of teenage pregnancy, after Mexico.

Unimpressed with the elementary school in her Baltimore neighborhood, Bobbi Macdonald set out to create her own. She founded the City Neighborhoods Foundation in 2003, the year her oldest daughter started kindergarten and the state of Maryland began allowing charter schools. Ten years later, the nonprofit is running three schools: City Neighbors Charter School, City Neighbors Hamilton and City Neighbors High School. All are known for student engagement and attendance rates that top 90 percent.

A driver of a suspicious vehicle in the Cedarday neighborhood in Bel Air last month turned out to be a grandmother dropping off her children from school, not someone trying to lure children into her car, according to police. When doing a patrol check of the community around 3 p.m. Friday, deputies saw the vehicle described by witnesses - a gold Honda van. Deputies spoke to the driver, who told police she picks up her grandchildren a few days out of the week and drops them off at a home in Cedarday, according to a press release Wednesday afternoon from the Harford County Sheriff's Office.

Harford Gymnastics Level 3 Team culminated its competition season by winning the Maryland State Championships in Williamsport on April 6. Team members included Greta Basil, Maranda Howell, Rachel Kelley, Sara Kate King, Madison Koors, Gianna Piccirilli, Madison Shaffery, Savannah Tamberino and Karlee Tuohy. The team is coached by Katy Dobson, Megan Blackburn and Sara Miller. Harford Gymnastics winning score of 112.075 was almost three points ahead of the second-place team, Cumberland's East-West Stars who scored 109.225.

What does it require to get members of Congress to take action quickly and decisively on an issue of federal spending? Now we know. The possibility that they will be delayed in an airport terminal somewhere waiting for a flight out of town is apparently so abhorrent that the usual gridlock and party politics just don't apply. That's the take-away from last week's lightning-fast, lopsided bipartisan votes that transferred more than a quarter-billion dollars to the Federal Aviation Administration budget so that the agency would no longer have to furlough air traffic controllers.

A Baltimore judge sentenced Policarpio Espinoza Perez to life in prison Monday for conspiring to murder his brother's two children and their young cousin nearly a decade ago in a killing described as the "most horrific" to ever come before the court. The parents of Ricardo and Lucero Espinoza, 8 and 9 years old, came home to their Fallstaff apartment in May 2004 to find the boys and their 10-year-old cousin, Alexis Espejo Quezada, beaten and mutilated, their throats cut and bleeding.

Malaria is an enormous and tragic problem - that can be beat. It takes the life of a child every minute in Sub-Saharan Africa, and a million people die from malaria each year. It also stifles economic development, as malaria prevents children from attending school and adults from working. Today is World Malaria Day, and I am pleased to celebrate the lives saved and enriched by recent attention and investments. Not that many years ago, this would be an occasion for hand-wringing and lamenting the many victims of this disease and wishing we could get the world to do more.

One of the most interesting accessories at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week has been children. From celebrity stylist June Ambrose taking her daughter to the hottest shows throughout the city to random women hoisting infants on their hips like a Birken bag, children have been in full force. "Women have been celebrating motherhood," said Alice Ntam, a D.C.- based image consultant. "When was the last time you saw stylists have children? Now it's like a celebration of that. " My favorite was a woman leading around her 4-year-old.

While delighted to learn from Michael Hawthorne's article ("Pediatricians Seek Change in Lax Toxic Chemicals Law," April 25) that the American Academy of Pediatrics has joined a national campaign to revise the 1976 Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA), such reform is long overdue. The current TSCA regulatory system especially fails to protect our children, who face higher risks of exposure to toxic chemicals. Because of TSCA, the "innocent until proven guilty" status quo of assessing chemical safety implies that some level of bodily damage, if not an outright tragedy, must occur before chemicals are declared unsafe.

The Roosevelt Park Recreation Center reopened Wednesday after being closed for about a month because of a broke water pipe. "I missed it," said Gabrielle Barnes, 10, a third grader from Hampden Elementary/Middle School. She was one of 14 children who returned to the center for after-school enrichment activities. Usually, that number is about 25, but some families might not have gotten the message yet that the center was reopen, director Joshua Fissel said. The pipe was repaired at a cost of $10,000, said Kia McLeod, a spokeswoman for the Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks.

This past weekend my mom and I went to New York for my first dress fitting at Kleinfeld Bridal (which was amazing!) and then spent the day doing touristy things. In the afternoon we walked the Brooklyn Bridge, which I would recommend as a definite must-do. While on the Brooklyn side we were admiring the carousel right on the water and all of the people below when we noticed people lining up with gold balloon letters. Once they were all organized we saw “Will you marry us?” spelled out in the balloons!