Five Days

Today, Devil Rays 7:05 p.m., MASN Tomorrow, @Red Sox 7:05 p.m., MASN Saturday, @Red Sox 1:05 p.m., MASN, Ch. 13 Sunday, @Red Sox 2:05 p.m., MASN2, Ch. 13 Monday, @Blue Jays 7:07 p.m., MASN2 [Radio: All games on 105.7 FM]

It used to be that the Maryland Film Festival was just a cool neighborhood event for Courtney Knipp - a bunch of obscure movies being shown just up the street from her home in Mount Vernon. Not anymore, not with thousands of film fans massing in and around the Charles Theatre , watching movies - 127 this year - - and comparing notes with hundreds of filmmakers from all over the world. This tiny corner of the Station North Arts District becomes the center of the film universe for one weekend every May. And that is so cool by Knipp.

County Council Chairman C. Vernon Gray, D-3rd, and County Executive Charles I. Ecker agreed Monday to furlough employees on Christmas, New Year's Day and three days in between.The five furlough days -- Dec. 25, 26, 27, 31 and Jan. 1 -- were approved by the council in a straw vote, Gray said.However, the council will not vote on furlough legislation until Dec. 16.The early announcement will also enable the payroll office to pay employees on Dec. 24 instead of Dec. 27, as originally planned, Gray said.

An article in the April 12, 1913, edition of The Argus reported on the surprising culprit after a church's interior was found damaged. What was at first supposed to be the work of vandals, bent on spite-work, at the Catonsville Presbyterian Church last week, when some of the carpet was ripped up and torn, the wires of a stereopticon machine cut and the doors badly mutilated, proved to be the work of a stray dog which was imprisoned in...

Trotter Road over the Middle Patuxent River will be closed for five days, starting Dec. 27, to allow construction of a concrete culvert channeling water under the roadway.James M. Irvin, Howard County public works director, apologized for any inconvenience to motorists, but he said the work was scheduled for the week when schools are closed between Christmas and New Year's.The road will be open, at least partially, by the end of Dec. 31, the fifth day, Irvin said.A detour will reroute traffic at Route 108 to Great Star Drive to Summer Sunrise Drive.

BOONSBORO -- The congressman, rising to extend a hand of welcome, read aloud the constituent's lapel pin: "Hate is not a family value."Across a table not nearly as wide as the ideological gap thatseparated them, Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett shook hands with David Koontz, co-chairman of the Western Maryland Gay and Lesbian Justice Campaign.For Mr. Bartlett, a conservative Republican from Western Maryland, it was one of 53 individual meetings with constituents throughout Washington County on Wednesday -- and unusual in that it was one of the few with someone who disagreed with him.For Mr. Koontz, it was a chance to tell the congressman whose election he had opposed that he was offended by the word "abhorrent" in a letter by Mr. Bartlett on gays in the military, and to ask to "open a dialogue that is on a friendly basis."

NEXT FIVE DAYS Today @RED SOX 7:05 p.m., CSN Tomorrow @RED SOX 7:05 p.m., Ch. 54 Sunday @RED SOX 2:05 p.m., Ch. 54 Monday SEASON OVER

Few lawns in Baltimore get more attention than the playing field at Camden Yards. Early in the season, the grounds crew mows the ballpark grass every day, whether the team is home or on the road. Growth slows during July and August, so the grass cutters cut back to every three to five days when the team is away.

Police shot a man in Northwest Baltimore Tuesday in the third such incident since Friday, and are still searching for a potential victim they say the man may have shot earlier. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said police were checking license plates in the area near the 5000 block of Pimlico Road in the Central Park Heights neighborhood, as police had recently pinpointed the neighborhood "as an area of concern for us. " About 7 p.m., police heard gunshots and saw a man leaving an alley holding a semiautomatic handgun, Guglielmi said.

A Baltimore County judge has agreed to a five-day unpaid suspension, admitting that he was wrong to summarily find 28 people in contempt for courtroom disruptions — including two dozen fined and threatened with jail time after their cellphones sounded in his courtroom. District Judge Norman Stone III also will be on administrative probation for two years. Maryland's top court signed off late Friday on the agreement between Stone, 54, and the Commission on Judicial Disabilities.

With an increase in the number of permits given out and a record number of bears killed during last month's five-day Maryland black bear hunt came another high mark - arrests made for illegal baiting and other violations. According to the Natural Resources Police, 22 hunters were arrested. While it represented more than five times the number of hunters arrested last year (four) and double the number from 2010, it is only 2.5 percent of the number of hunters who were either issued permits or had sub-permits.

A group of 11 Baltimore women who set out Sept. 19 to ride their bicycles 365 miles across Maryland in five days arrived Sunday at Fort McHenry to the cheers of more than 100 family members and friends.. The participants are members of a group called Women Who STAND/Baltimore, formed about two years ago as part of the Baltimore-based global organization World Relief. The bicyclists raised nearly $40,000 through the event, called Ride 365, for organizations benefiting women and girls in Malawi and Cambodia.

No. 15 Fairfield's 8-3 loss to No. 20 and Eastern College Athletic Conference rival Ohio State last Saturday meant that the Stags (11-3 overall and 4-2 in the league) finished in third place in the conference, one spot behind the Buckeyes (8-6, 5-1). And that means that the two teams will meet in the semifinal round of the ECAC tournament, which takes place Wednesday night in Denver. The quick turnaround doesn't leave coach Andy Copelan and the rest of Fairfield much time to make any changes in their game plan against Ohio State.

Baltimore's Dr. Justin Sausville is picking up right where he left off at the end of last season's "Jeopardy. " The 30-year-old medical doctor from Baltimore extended his streak of victories to five days this week and $117,201 dollars by winning the match that aired Wednesday night. The Sun profiled Sausville during the summer after matches being shown this week were taped, but had not yet aired. Here's the release from the game show's producers: Justin Sausville, a 30-year-old urologist from Baltimore, Md., continues his winning streak - earning a five-day total of $117,201 on “Jeopardy!

Live horse racing is back after the Maryland Racing Commission approved racing dates for both the Timonium Fair Grounds race track and Laurel Park on Friday. Timonium will open for the Maryland State Fair meet Aug. 26, which will be the first live racing in the state since Preakness Day in May. The Laurel Park meet begins Sept. 9, with racing expanded to five days a week in October. The Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash - an elite six-furlong sprint that lost its graded status after not being run last year - will return, as will a pair of historic stakes for 2-year-olds, the Laurel Futurity and Selima Stakes.

At 9:30 p.m. Monday, three digital clocks stationed on a couple of barges in the Inner Harbor will put into motion a fireworks show that will turn Baltimore's skies into a kaleidoscopic landscape of colors and shapes, from half-moons to jellyfish. It will take just two seconds for one of the 1,400 fireworks to zoom 800 feet into the sky and explode. But what often seems like an all-too-brief show takes about 20 hours to design, and five days (and four technicians) to set up. "Just one minute of the show takes an hour to design on the computer," said Victor Weinmann, lead technician for Pyrotecnico, the company handling the effects.