Crash

Greg Cantori plans to downsize when he retires. Really, really downsize. His retirement home is 238 square feet - one-tenth the size of the average new American house - and sits in his Anne Arundel County yard. He and wife Renee can hitch it to a truck and take it with them wherever they go. "It's so cheap - that's what's so cool about this," said Cantori, 52, who envisions a surf-and-turf future, alternating between the house and a sailboat. "We bought the house for $19,000.

An employee at a scaffolding company next to the railroad tracks in Rosedale was one of the first people to see the train leave its tracks after it rammed into a truck last month. "There's just a train wreck in front of us and it's on fire," the man said, in one of more than 40 recorded 911 calls released Friday by Baltimore County police. "There's just like a fire and it's nasty. " "Did the train derail?" the dispatcher asked. "What type of train is it?" The questions would continue in 911 calls from Bel Air to Baltimore City, dozens of them, for nearly an hour.

If you're a big fan, you already knew what was coming in the season finale. But it didn't make it any easier -- or less heartbreaking -- to watch. The majority of the Season 3 "Downton" finale, or the "Christmas special" as its called in the U.K., took place in Scotland, where the whole family (minus Branson) visits the Highlands home of the Dowager's niece, Susan, and her husband, Shrimpy. Most of the trip included bagpipes, hunting, more bagpipes and Scottish reel dancing. But more on that later (and more on O'Brien meeting her Scottish lady's maid doppelganger)

A Bel Air woman was injured in a crash after suffering from a medical emergency while driving on Tollgate Road. The accident happened around 12:30 p.m. Wednesday on Tollgate Road near Emerald Drive. Elizabeth Korah, 60, who lives on Ambridge Road, was heading west on Tollgate when police believe she suffered a medical emergency, Edward Hopkins, spokesman for the Harford County Sheriff's Office, said. Witnesses told deputies it looked like Korah was slowly trying to pull to the side of the road before she hit the tree.

A half-century after his untimely death at the age of 38, celebrated tenor and movie star Mario Lanza is receiving fresh medical attention from a Baltimore doctor who takes a dim view of one of the singer's weight-loss treatments - injections of the urine of pregnant women, a controversial therapy with new followers today. Dr. Philip A. Mackowiak, vice chairman of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and director of the Medical Care Clinical Center at the Veterans Administration Hospital downtown, teamed up with Armando Cesari, Lanza's Australia-based biographer, for an article about the singer's health issues just out in The Pharos, the journal of the medical honorary society Alpha Omega Alpha.

A Bel Air woman was injured in a crash after suffering from a medical emergency while driving on Tollgate Road. The accident happened around 12:30 p.m. Wednesday on Tollgate Road near Emerald Drive. Elizabeth Korah, 60, who lives on Ambridge Road, was heading west on Tollgate when police believe she suffered a medical emergency, Edward Hopkins, spokesman for the Harford County Sheriff's Office, said. Witnesses told deputies it looked like Korah was slowly trying to pull to the side of the road before she hit the tree.

A motorcylist was killed in a crash near the York Road exit on I-83 in Parkton late Saturday afternoon after attempting to pass two cars by driving between them, according to the Maryland State Police. Troopers investigating the incident about 4:00 p.m. determined that the driver, 19-year-old Kareem Morsi of Woodbine, had been heading north on a white 2008 Suzuki GSX-R600 motorcycle when he tried to pass the two vehicles. Just north of Exit 33, the motorcycle struck the rear of one of the vehicles, police said, spun out of control, crossed the right shoulder and struck a guardrail.

One lane and one shoulder of westbound Route 100 in Anne Arundel County are closed at WB&A Road due to a crash that happened at 8:46 a.m., according to the State Highway Administration. A four-car crash on the outer loop of the Baltimore Beltway at Providence Road closed the left shoulder and left lane at 8:13 a.m., according to the State Highway Administration. Route 7B at Maryland Avenue in Cecil County remains closed in both directions due to a utility problem. The Maryland Transit Administration reported that Train 894 (7:10 a.m. Frederick departure)

Montgomery County police say an officer was killed when his police cruiser struck a tree while he responded to an officer who needed backup. Police have yet to release the officer's name. He was a seven-year veteran of the department and worked the midnight shift. Police say the officer was en route to the scene of a fight early Sunday when his car ran off the road and hit a tree. He was taken to a local hospital, where he died. Detectives are investigating the crash. - Associated Press

Two people died when their vehicle struck a tree in Davidsonville, Anne Arundel County Police said Saturday. The driver, Carrie Lynn Desmond, 36, died at University of Maryland Shock Trauma. A 14 year-old passenger, whose name was not released, died at Prince George's Trauma Center. Both the driver and the passenger lived on Themes Drive in Davidsonville. The accident occurred about 10 p.m. Friday in the 3600 block of Patuxent River Road near West Central Avenue, Route 214 in Davidsonville.

An on-duty Howard County police officer attempting to make an illegal U-turn in a police vehicle struck another car, injuring two children Saturday, Anne Arundel County police said. Symchay Kon Bendu, a four-year veteran with the Howard County police, was attempting a U-turn onto Route 100 west, near Route 10 south, when the police vehicle struck a 2005 Honda Civic, driven by Jamie Marie Butler, 31, of Brooklyn, police said. The officer slowed down and made an illegal U-turn directly into the path of the Honda, which was traveling in the fast lane of Route 10 south at about 4:15 p.m., police said.

I have always been fascinated with shipwrecks, the granddaddy being the Titanic, followed by the Andrea Doria, and the nether world where they dwell, tragic relics frozen in time. Wrecked airplanes also do it for me. I remember looking at an issue of Life magazine around 1960 and being transfixed by the haunting color images of the Lady Be Good, a B-24 Liberator bomber that had overflown its base in Italy while returning from a 1943 mission and then crash-landed in the Libyan desert.

The National Transportation Safety Board expects to conclude by week's end its on-scene investigation of the railroad crossing derailment and explosion in Rosedale. The agency, which has been gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses since the May 28 accident, hopes to debrief John Alban Jr., the driver of the truck that slammed into the CSX train, who was hospitalized after the crash and was recently discharged. Completion of the investigation and a determination of what caused the crash will most likely take a year or more, NTSB officials said.

A 43-year-old Frederick woman was killed and her passenger critically injured after the ATV she was driving in Carroll County struck a tree on Sunday afternoon, Carroll County Sheriff's deputies said. The Sheriff's Office identified the woman as Stacey Ranee May and her critically injured passenger as Wilson Henry McCraw Jr., 52, of Mount Airy. The crash occurred in the 2800 block of Flag Marsh Road at around 3:30 p.m., and deputies said the ATV left the road and struck a utility box before hitting a tree head-on.

An Ellicott City woman died after the car she was riding in collided with another vehicle on Interstate 95 Saturday afternoon. Abida M. Iqbal was riding in a Toyota Camry on southbound I-95 near Exit 49 at about 12:15 p.m. when the driver turned left and ended up perpendicular to the roadway, according to state police. The Camry then crossed the second lane and entered another lane where it was struck on the driver side by a Ford Escape. It is unclear why the Camry made the sudden turn, state police said.

A Forest Hill gas station suffered extensive fire damage after a dirt bike crashed into the building, fire investigators and the Bel Air Volunteer Fire Company said. The fire at Forest Hill Exxon, at 2000 Rock Spring Road, was reported at 11:19 p.m., according to a notice of investigation from the Maryland State Fire Marshal's Office, which said the building was closed at the time. On its Facebook page, the Bel Air VFC posted: "A dirt bike crashed into the building, catching fire and the fire then extended inside.

A Wicomico County deputy state's attorney died Friday in a two-car collision on the Eastern Shore that left two others injured, according to the Maryland State Police. The crash happened about 12:15 p.m. on Route 50 in Pittsville, about 11 miles east of Salisbury. Sampson G. "Sam" Vincent, 52, of Salisbury was pronounced dead at Peninsula Regional Medical Center. His passenger, James L. "Lee" Britt, an assistant state's attorney for Wicomico County, was injured in the crash and is being treated at Pensinsula, state police said.

Baltimore County police identified the driver killed in a two-vehicle crash in Randallstown Wednesday night. Carrol Owens, 45, of Owings Mills was driving a 2000 Nissan Maxima at about 10:40 p.m., headed south on Scotts Level Road, when he collided with a 2004 Jeep Cherokee, driven by a 24-year-old woman who was heading west on Old Court Road, department spokeswoman Detective Cathy Batton said. Owens was taken to Northwest Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

A woman driving a motorized scooter on Business Parkway in Elkridge early Thursday morning was killed after being struck by a box truck, Howard County Police said. Police spokeswoman Sherry Llewellyn said in a prepared statement that Brandy Copeland, 26, of Elkridge, was traveling on the scooter along Business Parkway around 6:10 a.m. when she was struck by a box truck. She was pronounced dead at the scene, Llewellyn said. The preliminary investigation indicates that Copeland pulled onto Business Parkway without stopping at a stop sign, said Llewellyn.

Two incidents in Baltimore area suburbs, including a fatal crash in Howard County, forced road closures during Thursday morning's rush hour. Howard County Police said that traffic on Business Parkway is closed in both directions due to a fatal collision in Elkridge. Police spokeswoman Sherry Llewellyn said that a female driver on a scooter was struck by a box truck in the westbound lane of Business Parkway. Police were called to the scene around 6:10 a.m., and the driver was pronounced dead at the scene.