Cusimano

Marion V. Cusimano's was a grotesque case of elderly abuse: crippled by multiple sclerosis, she died of neglect and starvation. Her body remained a year in the back bedroom of the Essex home she owned.National and local experts point to many other cases, ranging from the hurtful to the horrific. An elderly man left unattended in the same bed with his dead wife. A mother battered by her alcoholic son. A 71-year-old woman left in bed for so long that her bedsores became infested with maggots.

BETHLEHEM, Pa. -- Kelly Amonte savored the moment.With 15 seconds left, she took a pass and swerved past three defenders. Amonte looked up at the clock, heaved the ball up to bTC her family in the bleachers as the horn sounded and pumped her left fist in the air.A fitting ending for Amonte, who concluded her record-breaking career by tying a personal best with five goals to give Maryland a 10-5 triumph over Virginia in the NCAA Division I women's championship game...

I don't do lost-cat stories, but today I'll make an exception because Genoa Flotsam Ebbcat presents possible proof of that nine-lives business. This brown-and-gray tabby, pet of sailboat dwellers Mike Province and Anne Andrews, apparently survived a fast 12-mile trip atop the ski-racked roof of a Jeep Cherokee from Annapolis to Baltimore-Washington International Airport. It jumped Jeep near the BWI train station. Genoa's keepers believe she's alive, and they're looking for her.This happened Tuesday.

Quiet Waters Park is looking more and more like Troubled Waters Park. The ice rink at the Annapolis area park cost taxpayers nearly $1 million and now isn't worth a plugged nickel; at the ripe old age of four years, it's falling apart and will be closed for a second winter in a row. The roofs on two park buildings, a visitor and a conference center, are leaking. After spending $18 million to build Quiet Waters, taxpayers are looking at a bill of $615,000 to $775,000 to fix the rink and replace the roofs.

Rose Giammona, 93, produce business proprietorRose Giammona, who ran a Little Italy produce business, died of heart failure Monday at Stella Maris Hospice. She was 93 and lived in Little Italy.Until she retired 30 years ago, she ran a fresh fruit and vegetable business in the 1000 block of E. Lombard St.Born Rose Garofalo in Baltimore, she graduated from St. Leo parochial school and at 16 joined the produce business founded by her parents, Vincent and Cira Garofalo, in 1910.In 1920, she married Anthony Giammona, who ran the business with her. They lived above their store.

I keep getting them - stories of good deeds that stun people so much they call to break the news. This just in: "A stranger stopped to fix my flat tire. ... Two Goucher students found my purse and drove 50 miles to return it. ... My little girl lost the '' money she saved for a birthday toy, and someone returned it."Personally, I don't have a coronary when people are nice. (I'm not thoroughly jaded yet, though I'm trying to catch up.) But I understand why others find it amazing. So I guess I shouldn't keep these stories to myself.

Ching "Tim" Huang and his wife, Yvonne, worked for five long years to buy their own little luncheonette in Linthicum. Now, the Huangs aresuffering because people have confused them with the Korean operators of a massage parlor next door to their restaurant."

Union agrees to vote on labor contract Officials from the Baltimore County government and the union representing its civilian workers will allow the union's members to vote on a proposed labor contract that includes pay raises and a contentious change in retirement benefits. Negotiators for the county and the local chapter of the Federation of Public Employees missed last week's deadline for an agreement. But two County Council members asked representatives from both sides this week to allow the union's members to vote on a county proposal that union negotiators had rejected.

NEW YORK -- In one of the largest cases of insider trading on record, the government charged yesterday that 17 people used confidential information about AT&T Corp.'s plans to acquire four companies in 1988-1993 to realize $2.6 million in illegal profits.The indictments come at a time when charges of insider trading violations, the province of Wall Street deal-makers and speculators in the mid-1980s, are being brought with rising frequency against current or former corporate employees and advisers who have learned of pending mergers or acquisitions.

Not only did Christmas come in April for Elijah Galloway, it lasted three whole days.That's how long it took teams of volunteers to spruce up his Annapolis home at Jackson and President streets in Eastport.They were only supposed to stay one Saturday, but so much needed to be done to the tired, two-story home that the work crews came a few days early. Galloway couldn't have been happier."I think it's great," he said, sitting in a folding chair near his front sidewalk, smiling and listening to the sounds of workers virtually rebuilding the house he has owned for 18 years.