Children

The story of a 24-year-old Georgia graduate student fighting a flesh-eating disease has prompted a microbiologist with the Veterans Affairs Maryland Health Care System to speak out about the infection. Aimee Copeland lost most of her left leg after the flesh-eating bacteria necrotizing faciitis is believed to have entered a cut on her leg, according to the Associated Press, which reports she may also have to have her fingers amputated. The waterborne bacteria Aeromonas hydrophila is believed to have caused the infection.

- Christopher Gearhart does not know where he would be without fly fishing. Growing up in this Frederick County town, Gearhart's father left the family when he was a small child. Donald Lewis, the town's mayor, took Gearhart and a few other kids to an annual event on the grounds of Camp Airy run by a group of men who taught boys like Gearhart how to fly fish. "Honestly, my father left us and these gentlemen kept me out of trouble," Gearhart recalled Saturday. "They knew I liked to fish, and they kept me doing it. " Now 40 years old and an insurance executive who lives in nearby Waynesboro, Pa., Gearhart has stayed involved in the organization that taught him so much.

Last week we learned that adult children of divorce will almost always revert to childish behaviors. Case in point, Briana, the daughter previously known as The Most Reasonable Person in Orange County, dissolved into a impertinent, recalcitrant, petulant brat upon meeting her mother's boyfriend. This week Briana grows up and fights like a big girl … but we'll get there soon enough. Elsewhere in the O.C., there are tiaras to be worn and bling to be bought as Alexis goes all out for her little princesses, and Slade decides to declare Gretchen his queen.

Eileen M. O'Hagan, a homemaker and advocate for children with cleft lips and cleft palates, died of cancer May 18 at her Cockeysville home. She was 73. Born Eileen Gayo in Baltimore and raised on Eierman Avenue, she attended the Shrine of the Little Flower School and was a 1956 Catholic High School graduate. She was active in the schools' alumnae groups. She worked briefly for Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. before her marriage to John P. O'Hagan, a civil engineer she met in 1957 at a square dance at the downtown YWCA.

Albert Lord doesn't like to wait - not in business or on the golf course. The colorful chairman of student loan behemoth Sallie Mae, who's embroiled in a nasty fight over the failed sale of the company, has spent 40 years in the accounting and banking industries. He said that experience should have instilled in him a measure of patience, but it hasn't. Whether in traffic, at the office or on the links, Lord said, he just doesn't like to wait. He can't do much about the first two, but he's got a sure-fire solution for the last one: He's building his own, an 18-hole golf course on land he's acquired amid shuttered tobacco farms and grazing horses in southern Anne Arundel County.

This episode begins with Emily meeting for “girl talk” with her best “gal pals.” She mentions that all her friends are the mothers of her daughter's playmates. Can't Emily form meaning relationships by herself? While she hangs out at the park these friends that are twice her age, the guys indulge in a pool party reminiscent of a Schmitts Gay commercial . Only two of the 19 bachelors have chest hair! Ryan Gets the First Date Card Sarah: Ryan “Fluff Head” spent a lot of time getting ready for the date - except he forgot to comb his hair.

The big reveal at the end of Sunday night's episode of "Game of Thrones" is that the Stark children, Bran and Rickon, are not only alive, but hiding right beneath Theon Greyjoy's nose in Winterfell. So much for Greyjoy's relentless hunt. Theon should have to duel Joffrey for the title of "World's Second Most Incompetent Leader. " Anyway, the news that the Stark children are alive was the biggest piece of plot development that happened in "The Prince of Winterfell," the eighth episode of Season 2. Other than that (and Jaime Lannister's escape, which I'll get into below)

The Rev. Marion C. Bascom, a leading Baltimore civil rights activist remembered for his lifetime quest for social justice, died of a heart attack Thursday at the University of Maryland Medical Center. He was 87 and lived in Reservoir Hill. "A giant has fallen," said former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, a close friend and a member of Douglas Memorial Community Church, where Mr. Bascom was pastor for 46 years. "He affected thousands of lives in our community and was a positive life force.

Are you and your family hitting the road for Memorial Day weekend? You won't be alone -- more than 1.8 million motorists are expected to drive throug Maryland's toll facilities for the three-day weekend, according to a story by Candy Thomson .  To get you ready for all those hours in the car -- and to avoid "Are we there yet?" syndrome -- Mid-Atlantic AAA released a list of tips for summer road travel. Here are some highlights: Plan ahead.  Pack the night before and travel on off peak-times to avoid heavy traffic.  Visit www.MD511.org for current traffic conditions and travel information for Maryland's roads.

The father-son owners of Carol's Western Wear in Glen Burnie are so attached to the legend of John Wayne that they know his boot size and preference for plain brown with a squared-off toe. They will mark the 105 t h birthday of America's well-known cowboy Saturday with a storewide sale that includes everything from alarm clocks and mugs with the Duke's image to several nearly 6-foot tall cut-outs of the actor in full-Western regalia....

Are you and your family hitting the road for Memorial Day weekend? You won't be alone -- more than 1.8 million motorists are expected to drive throug Maryland's toll facilities for the three-day weekend, according to a story by Candy Thomson .  To get you ready for all those hours in the car -- and to avoid "Are we there yet?" syndrome -- Mid-Atlantic AAA released a list of tips for summer road travel. Here are some highlights: Plan ahead.  Pack the night before and travel on off peak-times to avoid heavy traffic.  Visit www.MD511.org for current traffic conditions and travel information for Maryland's roads.

The reports that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cut its threshold for lead poisoning from 10 micrograms per deciliter to 5 micrograms were something of a simplification. What the CDC said, after years of study and discussion, was that no level of lead exposure for children is safe. The 5-microgram level was set somewhat arbitrarily as the point at which doctors and public health officials would recommend parents take action to reduce their children's risk, but there is ample evidence to show that levels of 3 or 4 micrograms - and perhaps even lower - are associated with learning and attention deficit disorders later in life.

The number of young children deemed at risk of lead poisoning in Maryland and nationwide expanded drastically Wednesday as a federal health agency declared it would effectively cut in half its threshold for diagnosing the environmental illness. Acknowledging mounting evidence that children can suffer lasting harm from ingesting even minute amounts of lead, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it would reduce the level at which it recommends that doctors, families and health authorities act to lower a child's exposure to the toxic metal.

Mothers who deliver their babies at Mercy Medical Center will soon do so with an expansive view of the Baltimore skyline. That is one of the features of the hospital's new Family Childbirth and Children's Center that will open in June. The $41.5 million project is the second phase of a new hospital building the medical center began moving into December 2010. The childbirth and children's center will occupy three floors of the The Mary Catherine Bunting Center. The new 70,000-square-foot center will focus on family-centered care with a goal of keeping mothers and babies together as much as possible.

Ella Johnson thought she was done raising kids. Then one night her daughter, asleep in bed with her 1-year-old son, died of a heart condition, and Johnson suddenly found herself mothering a grieving grandchild who clung to the picture of his dead mother. The mother of three grown children, Johnson had plenty of experience with patching skinned knees and soothing teenage mood swings, but taking on the family's youngest generation brought a new set of worries about how to make ends meet and how to provide the right environment for her grandson, DaQuan'Ta Harper, who is now 12. So she eagerly signed on to a National Institutes of Health research study started this year that provides grandparents around the country with practical advice and support for raising grandchildren.

"It is better to be cruel than weak. " - Theon Greyjoy Whoa. Did Theon Greyjoy really just kill Bran and Rickon Stark?! Moreover: Why is this show so insanely cruel to its only honorable family? The seventh episode in the second season of"Game of Thrones"ended with Greyjoy's soliders hanging the tarred bodies of two young boys, leading the people of Winterfell (and viewers) to presume that he had killed Bran and Rickon (who I believe are only 9 and 4 years old, respectively)

Editor: CASA of Harford County would like to extend a tremendous thank you to all of the individuals and companies that helped to make our second annual Bull and Oyster Roast on Feb 25, such a huge success. Thank you first to Sterling Caterers of Jarrettsville Gardens for providing such a wonderful location for our event. Thank you to all of our hardworking volunteers who worked tirelessly to make sure the event went off without a hitch. Most importantly, CASA of Harford County would like to thank the business community here in Harford County for their generosity in choosing to sponsor our event.

It is awkward to say the least for the Archdiocese of Baltimore to refuse to sell closed Catholic school buildings for use as charter schools ("Archdiocese won't sell or least to charter schools," March 17). The Archdiocese "owns" these buildings in only a technical legal sense. Many individual contributions of Catholic parents built these schools — for the education of children. When charter schools propose to use these now empty buildings for the very use for which they were constructed, the Archdiocese ought to jump at the opportunity.

BETHESDA - A mother arrives at the Red Cross office at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on a mission for her son, a 23-year-old soldier and double amputee. He needs a back scratcher. With her bright eyes and wide smile, volunteer Janice Chance gives her that and more - a reassuring rub on the arm and an offer to do anything else she can for the soldier, who is visiting the hospital for tests. In a sense, Chance is here for her own son, too. Marine Capt.

Not everything in childhood is bowls of mush and little old ladies whispering "Hush," and Maurice Sendak understood that. Our children understand that, too. Instinctively. That's what makes his books, like "Where the Wild Things Are" and "In the Night Kitchen" such a delicious experience for them. They could feel that frisson of fear and adventure without ever leaving the crook of Mommy's arm. This was especially true for our sons, who found kindred spirts in the unruly little boys of Sendak's stories.