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Julia A. Duley, a homemaker and childcare provider, died Sunday of pneumonia at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. She was 96. She was born Julia Atta Roberts in Baltimore and was raised in East Baltimore. She was a 1924 graduate of St. Paul's Commercial School and married John W. Duley in 1928. The couple lived in East Baltimore and later moved to Crossland Avenue in 1951. Mr. Duley, a Pennsylvania Railroad engineer, died in 1963. After the death of her husband, Mrs. Duley moved to Northeast Baltimore, where she lived with a sister.

TripAdvisor has named Admiral Fell Inn , a lovely historic hotel in Fells Point, one of the Top 10 Haunted Hotels in America . Admiral Fell Inn was the only Maryland hotel to make the list of "rooms with a Boo!" TripAdvisor came up with the list by seeing which hotels had the greatest number of traveler comments referencing "ghosts" or "haunted" on TripAdvisor.com. That makes sense. Admiral Fell Inn is a Historic Hotel of America and dates to the 1700s. Plus, it's in Fells Point, which certainly has more than a few ghosts - enough for a cottage industry of sorts.

For the second time in about a week, a man brandishing a large stick has robbed a motel along U.S. 50 in Arnold.County police said Suzanne McKee, 33, was at the front desk of the Howard Johnson Motel in the first block of Old Mill Bottom Road, when a man came in about 10:40 p.m. Wednesday night and asked for a single room.Ms. McKee gave him a desk card to sign in. As the man filled out the card, he told Ms. McKee, "Now give me your money," and pulled out a large stick and held it to her neck, police said.

A Frederick County man plunged three stories to the atrium floor of an Annapolis hotel early yesterday, city police said.Warren Edward Haug, 46, of Walkersville was listed in critical condition yesterday at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore.Dennis W. Fox, a night auditor for the Governor Calvert House on State Circle, told police he was at the front desk shortly before 3 a.m. when he heard a loud thump and then heavy breathing coming from the atrium. He found Haug on the floor and noticed that the window to the man's room was open.

Runners are invited to take part in a Central County Thanksgiving tradition and win some of their holiday supper at the eighth annual 5K Turkey Trot Nov. 26.The race will be at 11: 30 a.m. at Anne Arundel Community College's Siegert Field.First-place winners in six categories win turkeys. Runners-up take home apple pies. The first 70 entrants receive free T-shirts.Last year, about 70 runners and walkers competed. Broadneck High School soccer player Gretchen Oaksmith won the women's trial in 20 minutes, 26 seconds.

The Harford County Sheriff's Office is investigating the attempted abduction of a 2-year-old boy from a motel in Joppa on Tuesday morning. April S. Craig, 21, of Middletown was registering at the front desk of the Super 8 Motel about 8:30 a.m. when a man began talking to her son. Within minutes, the boy had disappeared from the lobby. Craig quickly located the child holding the man's hand walking down a hallway toward a room. She grabbed her child as the man was unlocking the door to a room.

Joseph Charles Shaney, a retired computer operator, died of a stroke June 11 at his Towson home. He was 64. Born in Baltimore and raised on Bradford Street in Highlandtown, he was a 1961 graduate of Patterson High School and then joined the Navy, serving as a cryptologist in the Pacific. After his military service, Mr. Shaney became a computer operator and worked at the old Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, American Smelting, Mrs. Filbert's foods and the Coast Guard Yard at Curtis Bay, from which he retired seven years ago. In retirement, Mr. Shaney worked two days a week at the front desk of the Penthouse Condominium in Towson, and at his death he was a member of the Walkable Towson Committee.

In 1990, New York artist and architectural historian Jeremy Nadel began painting a series of synagogues in the New York area which had been abandoned, neglected or converted to use by other religious denominations. On Tuesday, a show of the paintings, "The Synagogues of Nadel," will go on exhibit at the Jewish Community Center. Aside from the New York synagogues, the exhibit will include a Nadel painting of a former Baltimore synagogue, Shaarei Zion, at 3459 Park Heights Ave. ++ On Monday, the evening before the show opens, Nadel will give a slide show and talk, "Synagogues: More than Monuments of Culture?"

SEATTLE -- A visitor in this city, hearing story after story about the Nordstrom department store chain's service beyond the call of duty, decided to put it to the test.On a recent Saturday, he wandered through the downtown Nordstrom store, making small purchases in several departments on different floors.After making each purchase, he asked the salesperson to hold the merchandise behind the counter until he returned to pick it up Tuesday, telling them he preferred not to carry it around.

A 29-year-old Columbia man was convicted by a Howard County jury yesterday for his role in the April armed robbery of the Columbia Hilton Inn on Twins Knolls Road. Charles Cephas Williams of the 5300 block of Harpers Farm Road was convicted of armed robbery, second-degree assault and theft in the robbery of the hotel's night manager April 12. Howard County police and prosecutors said that two masked gunmen jumped over the front desk of the Hilton Inn about 2:25 a.m. and demanded money.