Degree

Starting to think about your Preakness hat choices? Not sure whether to pull the trigger on tickets to join Kegasus and Maroon 5 in the infield? Fear not; it's forecast to be a beautiful day -- for now. The 137th Preakness Stakes, on May 19, has come into the window of AccuWeather.com's 25-day forecast. It calls for cloudless skies, a 74-degree high and 52-degree low. That is actually slightly below normal for that time of year, which averages 76-degree highs and 58-degree lows.

Cristal Fortino, of Manchester, earned her degree in sociology from McDaniel College, and took part in commencement ceremonies on May 19. Fortino, who was a stay-at-home mom to her two children for 15 years, enrolled at McDaniel College after her husband lost his job due to downsizing. It was around her family's dinner table that the decision was made for her to return to school, and a scholarship from McDaniel allowed her to achieve that goal. Fortino technically graduated in December, but took part in the May commencement.

"I can do anything anybody else can," Najib Amin says quietly, then, as if to prove the point, adds, "I can do a full split." With that, he begins melting into the floor of his basement recreation room, his legs forming a giant wishbone as they spread farther ... and farther ... and farther apart. Normally, the sight of a 71-year-old man attempting to do a 180-degree split -- the bread-and-butter move of every bouncy, "go-team-go" high school cheerleader -- would trigger one thought: double hernia.

On the day before graduating from Howard Community College, Jennie Wang of Columbia considered the arduous road she had traveled and her studies at the Johns Hopkins University that lie ahead. One thought came to mind: "If my Hammond High School teachers could see me now ... " "If they [discover] I'm going to Johns Hopkins, they're going to be like, 'What? Jennie Wang? Really?' In high school, I was the worst student ever," said Wang, 22, who also became pregnant shortly after graduating from high school, leaving her estranged from her parents, who immigrated to the U.S. with her from China when she was 10. Determined to dispel stigmas attached to young single mothers, Wang excelled at HCC, eventually becoming student government president and vice president of Phi Theta Kappa, the national honor society for students at two-year colleges.

LAUREL -- High Degree surged between tiring rivals and drew off to a 1 1/2 -length victory in yesterday's Laurel Race Course feature.A Fur Piece led early in the $24,000 allowance race before I'm Wild overtook him in the early stretch. Then, High Degree rallied between those two before easily finishing clear of a belated bid from Seven Salutes.The winner completed 6 1/2 furlongs in 1 minute, 17 3/5 seconds on a track that was rated fast throughout the 10-race program despite intermittent rain.

A Baltimore grand jury indicted a 29-year-old woman Monday on attempted murder and seven other charges in connection with the brutal stabbing of her 8-month-old daughter during a supervised visit at a city social services office in April. Kenisha Thomas, who is being held without bail in the incident, was scheduled for a preliminary hearing in district court Tuesday, but the indictment will move the felony case into circuit court. An arraignment on the new charges is set for July 17. According to police, Thomas smuggled a large kitchen knife into a Baltimore social services office April 24 and repeatedly stabbed the infant, named Pretty Diamond, in the head and neck as office staff fought back, with one man throwing a chair at her. The baby, who previously was removed from Thomas' care, survived.

Robert J. Harwood Jr., accused of killing a fellow Johns Hopkins University student in April, may have to spend the rest of his life in prison, but right now he's got a more academic concern -- he's upset that the university will not send him a diploma.The university recently informed Harwood, 22, that he is suspended from Hopkins -- and therefore will not receive a degree -- until the outcome of charges of first-degree murder in the killing of student Rex Chao, 19.According to police, Harwood fired two bullets from a .357-caliber Magnum into Chao outside the campus library April 10, as Chao's horrified girlfriend looked on. The two men had had a close friendship, but in the weeks before the shooting, Chao tried to cut off communication and complained to university officials that Harwood was obsessively calling him and sending electronic mail.

RAVENS inside linebacker Ray Lewis has won the Super Bowl Most Valuable Player and been honored as the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year, but his greatest achievement may come Saturday when he walks across a stage on the University of Maryland campus. Nearly eight years after he left the University of Miami as a junior to enter the NFL draft, and on the day of his 29th birthday, Lewis will earn a bachelor of arts degree from Maryland in business administration. Talk about euphoria. To Lewis, this is better than taking out Eddie George and Steve McNair in a playoff game, or earning a sixth consecutive Pro Bowl appearance.

The Johns Hopkins University yesterday expelled a senior who has acknowledged killing his friend on the university library nTC lawn, saying he had egregiously broken campus codes prohibiting students from threatening the safety of others on campus.The university rejected the pleas of former Hopkins student Robert J. Harwood to award him the college degree he believed he had earned. Harwood, now 23, completed his courses several months before shooting Hopkins sophomore Rex T. Chao, 19, dead in April 1996.

Carl Stahlman is a member of Towson University's alumni association, has an $800 class ring, his name on a memorial brick at the school and fond memories of his parents attending his commencement in 1997. But there's one thing Carl Stahlman doesn't have: a degree. Stahlman has filed suit in Baltimore County Circuit Court seeking a court order that would require Towson University to give him the bachelor's degree in law enforcement that he says he earned when he finished his course work in May 1997.

Paige Cook , of Parkton, recently participated in a Spring Break trip to Japan, as part of her "Japanese Politics and Foreign Policy" class at Washington College, Chestertown. Olivia A. Cypull , of Baldwin, a senior at Loch Raven High School is a National Merit Scholarship Finalist. Olivia has been awarded a National Merit James E. Casey Scholarship, through the UPS Foundation. The Scholars are selected from students who advance to the finalist level of the National Merit Scholarship competition and meet the criteria of a corporate sponsor.

A 43-year-old man who police say was stabbed more than 20 times last month by his stepson during an argument over money died late last week from his injuries, according to police and court records. Police say George Stevenson was able to call for help, and responding officers found him bleeding profusely in the living room of his apartment in the 1400 block of Limit Ave., suffering from stab wounds to his arm, chest and back. Stevenson said he had been stabbed with an unknown object by his stepson, 16-year-old Galen Stevenson, who then fled on foot, police said.

A Baltimore grand jury indicted a 29-year-old woman Monday on attempted murder and seven other charges in connection with the brutal stabbing of her 8-month-old daughter during a supervised visit at a city social services office in April. Kenisha Thomas, who is being held without bail in the incident, was scheduled for a preliminary hearing in district court Tuesday, but the indictment will move the felony case into circuit court. An arraignment on the new charges is set for July 17. According to police, Thomas smuggled a large kitchen knife into a Baltimore social services office April 24 and repeatedly stabbed the infant, named Pretty Diamond, in the head and neck as office staff fought back, with one man throwing a chair at her. The baby, who previously was removed from Thomas' care, survived.

"Don't assume this is a two-hankie book. It is not. You will cry, but you will also laugh. You will experience not only anger, but also gratification. And in the end, you will be uplifted. " - Eileen Rudnick, from her book, "The Glass Between Us" Eldersburg resident Eileen Rudnick is living proof that sometimes out of the worst, the best can come. The evening of Oct. 3, 2000 was just another mild Tuesday, another relatively uneventful day ... until the moment that everything changed for Rudnick, a wife, mother of two, grandmother of two and an accountant.

Many of you know I was fortunate to play high school football at Gilman and college football at Princeton. What most of you do not know is that I worked as a graduate assistant on the Wake Forest football staff to pay for my room and board during law school. These experiences instilled in me a strong sense of the appropriate role of academics and athletics in our secondary schools and colleges. So it should come as no surprise that I have a strong opinion as to the increasingly aggressive calls to pay college athletes in revenue-producing sports.

Risselle "Rikki" Fleisher, a former general counsel to the Maryland Commission on Human Relations who was a legal advocate in civil rights cases, died Tuesday of breast cancer at Stella Maris Hospice. The Bethany Beach, Del., resident was 77. "She wanted to right any wrong," said former Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. "She was a caring person who grew up at a time when things were happening that never should have. She worked to change that. " Born Risselle Rosenthal in Baltimore and raised on Mohawk Avenue, she was a 1953 graduate of Forest Park High School, where she was a three-letter athlete, her yearbook's features editor and homeroom class president.

Students taking classes at Anne Arundel Community College soon will be able to finish their degrees at University of Maryland University College with a minimum of academic, bureaucratic or financial hassle.The two institutions announced a new partnership yesterday that will allow for the seamless transfer of credits from the community college to the university adult education center, which caters to part-time students.The partnership enhances the area's most extensive and well-developed bachelor's degree programs that can be completed without much time, travel or expense, UMUC President Ben Massey boasted at yesterday's announcement.

Leslie Bailey remembers having half-formed, "wouldn't-it-be-neat" thoughts about being a teacher when she was in college.As she worked her way up to a high-powered job in a Washington, D.C., television station, she couldn't shake those thoughts: When children came to the television station to look around, she would end up giving the tour.Seven weeks ago, she entered an intensive one-year master's degree program at Towson State University, joining a small but growing number of working people who are being lured into teaching careers by innovative degree programs.

Another spell of hotter-than-average weather arrives in Maryland today, and isn't expected to leave for a while. We have been mostly below normal for the past eight days, with Sunday's 70-degree high about normal for this time of year. The last stretch of heat had temperatures near or above 80 degrees from April 14-17, including a record 90-degree day April 16. Since then, three days have failed to break 60 degrees and most have been in the 60s. But temperatures are expected to push 80 degrees from today through the weekend, according to forecasts.

Dr. Richard T. Koritzer Sr., who practiced dentistry in Glen Burnie for 50 years and whose thirst for knowledge resulted in his earning a master's degree when he was 84, died Thursday from blood clots at Baltimore Washington Medical Center. The Glen Burnie resident was 85. The son of a dental technician and a homemaker, he was born in Baltimore and raised on Eutaw Place and later in the city's Pimlico neighborhood. He was 14 when he began working for his father, who owned Southern Dental Laboratory.