Fort Worth

The long-running battle for Texas racing, being waged in courtrooms and boardrooms by the warring owners of Pimlico and Laurel, tentatively has been lost by both of them.A hearing officer recommended the Texas Racing Commission award a lucrative thoroughbred-track operating license to a group now running a small track near Fort Worth.The final decision rests with the commission, which is set to rule next month, and the local investor groups say they still could win.But the surprise recommendation is a setback for groups affiliated with both Joseph De Francis and Robert Manfuso, part-owners of Pimlico and Laurel, Maryland's major thoroughbred tracks.

Maryland State Police have arrested a tractor-trailer driver for pointing a fake gun at a dump truck driver Friday on the Baltimore Beltway. Troopers arrested the driver, Johnathan Maniah Adams, of Fort Worth, Texas. Adams was being held at the Baltimore County jail. - Associated Press

DISTRAUGHT and red-eyed, Chris Hightower, 15, emerged from Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth. Eight people were dead or dying inside the church, including the man who opened fire."

Acquisitions Phillips Edison & Co., a Baltimore-based owner and manager of community shopping centers, purchased the 83,438-square-foot Orchard Plaza in Altoona, Pa. Financial terms were not disclosed. Williams Scotsman acquired 330 mobile units from Fort Worth, Texas-based General Modular Corp. The newly acquired units will be added to the Baltimore firm's Dallas/Fort Worth branch operation. Awards Blind Industries and Services of Maryland received an Employment Retention/Growth/Upward Mobility Award from the National Industries for the Blind.

Here, water is everything - the heart of the city's revival, the point of its main tourist attraction, the flavor of the hometown dish. There, the wettest things are the decorative fountains outside the convention center. It's dust, it's prairie, it's cows - it's Texas. Despite having nothing visibly in common, Baltimore and Fort Worth have become the nation's newest clique - business partners and instant mutual admiration society. Tourism boosters in each city are reaching across the country to join hands, hoping that together they can grab visitors' dollars that traditionally end up in other cities.

FORT WORTH, Texas -- At 6: 30 a.m., tiny voices begin to resonate inside the Presbyterian Night Shelter. Thirty-nine children have slept there overnight, and more than a dozen are getting ready for school.There is no smell of brewing coffee or sizzling bacon. Instead, the odor of sweat, stale cigarettes and dirty mop water lingers in the shelter hidden on a side street east of downtown Fort Worth.For reasons as varied as their appearance, more and more children and teen-agers are being raised in homeless shelters once occupied mostly by men on skid row. Educators in Fort Worth and nationwide are reaching into the shelters and pulling those children into classrooms.

You probably don't give much thought to Fort Worth when you fly into Dallas / Fort Worth International Airport. If you think about it at all, you may associate the town with cowboys, livestock and rodeos. And with good reason: Fort Worth residents are proud of their Western heritage. They even call their city Cowtown. But you may not know that Fort Worth is a culture capital, with 14 museums, including a huge new contemporary art museum, which opened recently. In a city where oil money and phi-lanthropy go hand in hand, its museums can and do buy some of the biggest and best art in the world.

HEREFORD, TEXAS -- Willa Cather's books are on display, as are the platinum records of Patsy Cline. There is a display on Wilma Mankiller, the former head of the Cherokee Nation, and a bronze statuette of Sacajawea, the Shoshone interpreter for the Lewis and Clark expedition.And 125 other honorees have their due: There are the pink and turquoise cowgirl hats of Gertrude Maxwell, an Idaho rancher and historian, and a photo exhibit on Mamie (Mae) Francis Hafley, the daredevil rider, and her Arabian mount, Babe, who performed their act 628 times from 1908 to 1914.

HAROLD E. WILLIAMS, 74, a retired construction worker, died Sunday, July 29, 2007, at a Fort Worth nursing center. Harold was born November 1, 1932, in Fort Worth. Survivors include son Darnell H. Williams, brothers Joe Williams Jr. and Vonda Lee Lewis (Margarite); sisters, Katherine Bowens and Estherlene Newton; five nephews, three nieces and a host of other relatives. Funeral at 11 a.m. Friday, August 3, 2007 at the Baker Funeral Home Chapel. Burial at Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.-- --The seven-letter word keeps resurfacing in the life and baseball times of Aubrey Huff. Without. Huff, the Orioles' new middle-of-the-lineup slugger, graduated from a Texas high school without being drafted and without getting any serious looks from Division I colleges. In his first seven seasons in the majors, Huff hit 141 homers without fanfare because he played primarily in the obscurity of Tampa Bay, a place without baseball tradition, without a consistent fan base.

Prosecutors drop 2 remaining abuse cases against teacher Nearly three months after a Baltimore private school teacher was acquitted of sexually abusing a student, city prosecutors dropped the remaining two cases against him yesterday. But prosecutors say they plan to use the evidence from those abandoned cases to try to keep Charles Carroll, 30, behind bars. A convicted murderer, Carroll could be sentenced to 15 years if found guilty of violating his parole. A hearing is scheduled for tomorrow.

I needed a hug. This was two years ago, outside the village of Tykocin, Poland. I was on assignment, traveling with a Holocaust memorial group, most of whom were Jewish. After days spent touring murder camps, viewing the artifacts of the dead, grappling with the incomprehensible, our group found itself in a forest clearing. There, in 1941, we were told, 1,400 Jews - all the Jews of Tykocin - were made to dig three mass graves. And then they were shot. I swear you could feel their presence, see them ambling the path down which we had come, hear mothers soothing anxious children with soft lies.

HAROLD E. WILLIAMS, 74, a retired construction worker, died Sunday, July 29, 2007, at a Fort Worth nursing center. Harold was born November 1, 1932, in Fort Worth. Survivors include son Darnell H. Williams, brothers Joe Williams Jr. and Vonda Lee Lewis (Margarite); sisters, Katherine Bowens and Estherlene Newton; five nephews, three nieces and a host of other relatives. Funeral at 11 a.m. Friday, August 3, 2007 at the Baker Funeral Home Chapel. Burial at Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery.

Here, water is everything - the heart of the city's revival, the point of its main tourist attraction, the flavor of the hometown dish. There, the wettest things are the decorative fountains outside the convention center. It's dust, it's prairie, it's cows - it's Texas. Despite having nothing visibly in common, Baltimore and Fort Worth have become the nation's newest clique - business partners and instant mutual admiration society. Tourism boosters in each city are reaching across the country to join hands, hoping that together they can grab visitors' dollars that traditionally end up in other cities.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.-- --The seven-letter word keeps resurfacing in the life and baseball times of Aubrey Huff. Without. Huff, the Orioles' new middle-of-the-lineup slugger, graduated from a Texas high school without being drafted and without getting any serious looks from Division I colleges. In his first seven seasons in the majors, Huff hit 141 homers without fanfare because he played primarily in the obscurity of Tampa Bay, a place without baseball tradition, without a consistent fan base.

The Supreme Court has rightly refused to block the trial of seven Los Angeles residents accused of contributing funds to an Iranian opposition movement that the State Department has branded a terrorist group. The high court let stand a ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that prosecuting the defendants - who are innocent until proved guilty - posed no First Amendment problem. As Judge Andrew J. Kleinfeld pithily put it: "Sometimes money serves as a proxy for speech, and sometimes it buys goods and services that are not speech.

* Rildia Bee O'Bryan Cliburn, the mother of Van Cliburn and his only piano teacher until he was 17, died Wednesday in Fort Worth, Texas, after suffering a stroke. She was 97 and lived in Fort Worth.* Artie Glenn, 79, whose song "Crying in the Chapel" became a hit for Elvis Presley in 1965, died of a heart attack July 25 in a Dallas hospital.

THERESA MARGARET ADAMS, 77, of Salisbury, Maryland and Fort Worth , Texas, died Saturday, March 22, 2003 in Fort Worth. Born March 15, 1926 in Glen Burnie, she was the daughter of the late John and Theresa Noll Marshall. Her husband Raymond L. Adams preceded her in death. She is survived by her son Douglas E. Adams; nephew Allen F. Filesi; great nephew John A. Filesi; great-niece Michelle L. Filesi of Fort Worth, Texas; and many other nieces and nephews. A Graveside Service will be held Monday, March 31, 2003 at 12 PM at Cedar Hill Cemetery in Brooklyn, MD. The Rev. Daniel H. Thompson will officiate.

FORT WORTH, Texas --Tony Stewart says he's racing in a different league from NASCAR's playoff contenders. Checker Auto Parts 500 Sunday, 3 p.m., Phoenix International Raceway, chs. 11, 4