Family Car

THE MARCH 4 editorial page contained an ironic juxtaposition.At the top was "Wrong way on mass transit" and, separated by another editorial, "Helping the working poor."The irony is that you physically split two issues that are connected in the real world but are disconnected in Maryland's political world."Wrong way" referred to the mass transit fare box recovery mandate for 50 percent of operating expenses. There's been a shortfall, and a $10 million cut is being proposed. This would result in services that are "more unreliable, less convenient and probably more costly."

Parents in heat-stroke death will not be prosecuted The parents of a 23-month-old Howard County girl who died of heat stroke after being left in the family car for several hours on June 25 will not be prosecuted, Howard County State's Attorney Dario Broccolino said Wednesday. Broccolino said that his office had recommended that the parents be charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment, but that the grand jury declined to indict the Ellicott City couple, whose names have not been made public.

CHICAGO -- Consider the pickup, a workhorse given little respect.Popular culture has long perpetuated images of the pickup as the favorite mode of transportation for the National Rifle Association member, civil rights opponent, survivalist, Ku Klux Klan supporter and stereotypes of the rural inhabitant. Good only for toting hay or wooden crates -- or shotguns.No longer. Some 2,000 miles eastward in Detroit -- not to mention in Japan -- auto executives, demographic researchers and marketers know better.

The outdoors beckons during the long, lazy days of summer.For many, that can mean sunning and swimming at the beach. But carelessness can make or break an outing."

A 6-year-old Linthicum boy was injured Monday morning after he panicked and jumped out of the family car, which had started rolling down a driveway after the emergency brake apparently failed.The boy, Travis Bruce Armstrong, was run over by the car after he fell to the ground. He was flown by Maryland State Police helicopter to Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore, where he was listed in good condition yesterday.Police say Travis and his 12-year-old brother, Michael Timothy Dougherty, were sitting in the back seat of a 1988 Isuzu waiting for their mother, Vicky Ann Dougherty, to come out of the house with another child in the unit block of Mountain Road in Linthicum Heights.

Two Cockeysville teen-agers drew 18-month jail terms yesterday for attempted murder in a baseball bat attack last year on a Cub Hill man and a neighbor who came to the victim's aid.Kirk J. Tilton, 17, of the 20400 block of Barretts Delight Drive a Dulaney High School student at the time, and Christopher B. Maxwell, 18, of the 200 block of Lord Byron Lane, who had been expelled from Loch Raven High School, were tried as adults in April.Baltimore County Circuit Judge Barbara Kerr Howe found them guilty of first-degree attempted murder of Bernard G. Banaszkiewicz, 52, and his neighbor, George John Burton, 42, of the 2900 block of North Wind Road.

An Annapolis couple and their insurers filed suit in Anne Arundel Circuit Court yesterday seeking to recoup $141,000 spent to replace the couple's car and garage, allegedly destroyed when the family's car burst into flames in their garage.Clark and Jina Robbins of the 100 block of Groh Lane allege that Ford Motor Co. and Koons Ford of Annapolis were negligent in making and selling them the Crown Victoria automobile that caught fire two months after they purchased it in 1995.State Farm Fire and Casualty Co., which insured the garage, and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., which covered the car, joined the couple as plaintiffs to recover the $141,000 paid on the claim, according to the suit.

GRESSIER, Haiti -- What to do on a hot, sunny Sunday when U.S. troops are patrolling the streets of your capital and occasional gunfire disturbs the peace? Head to the beach, of course.The grill is burning, the red snapper is just out of the net, the corn and the mangoes are ripe. The band has everyone stomping.This is a world away from the dust, the dirt and the tension of Port-au-Prince, although it is only 15 miles south of the city. Here the beachgoers sit under broad-leafed almond trees or in the shade of coconut palms and forget their woes.

It seems that hardly a month goes by that I'm not hearing of great new ideas from Annapolis on how to raise new revenue with higher taxes. Gas tax, cigarette tax, flush tax, and on and on. The citizens of this state have nothing left to give. What I never seem to hear from anyone in state government is how they are going to trim costs, for example, by eliminating individuals or departments that have long outlived their usefulness. One obvious candidate would be the Maryland Transportation Authority Police.

WESTMINSTER -- When Brian Myers dressed up in a military camouflage costume, broke into an Old Hanover Road home and terrorized the family living there at gunpoint last July, he "created a debt to society," Circuit Judge Raymond E. Beck Sr. said yesterday.In rejecting the 16-year-old's request to be let out of jail, Judge Beck told him he still owed on the tab. "You created a debt to society that I think you have not yet repaid," the judge said.Myers pleaded guilty to armed robbery in March as part of a deal with prosecutors.