Gambrills

The Millersville woman who died in a two-alarm fire at a duplex in the Gambrills area Sunday night has been identified by the Anne Arundel County Fire Department as Lolita Mitchell. Mitchell, 78, was found unconscious and unresponsive by firefighters on the second floor of the house in the 1300 block of Ferrara Drive. She was treated at the scene by fire department paramedics and taken to Baltimore Washington Medical Center, where she was later pronounced dead. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined Mitchell's death to be fire-related, making this the fourth fire death in Anne Arundel County for 2012, according to a Fire Department release.  cmcampbell@baltsun.com

A woman died following a two-alarm fire at a duplex in the Gambrills area of Millersville that caused $80,000 in damages Sunday night. The woman, estimated to be in her 70s, was found unconscious and unresponsive by firefighters on the second floor of the house in the 1300 block of Ferrara Drive. She was treated at the scene by fire department paramedics and taken to Baltimore Washington Medical Center, where she was later pronounced dead. Officials are withholding the name of the woman and the cause of death pending positive identification and the results of an autopsy being conducted by the State Medical Examiner.

WEATHER The National Weather Service is calling for Friday to start cloudy and then become sunny, with a high near 102 and west winds between 6 and 9 miles per hour. A heat advisory is in effect from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday. Heat index values will be as high as 109. Friday night is expected to be partly cloudy, with a low around 79 and west winds around 5 miles per hour or less. There is a 20 percent chance of precipitation. TRAFFIC Check our traffic updates for this morning's issues as you plan your commute.

A ruptured natural gas line forced a day care and 15 homes in Gambrills to be evacuated Thursday as fire and Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. crews worked to contain the threat of explosion, according to the Anne Arundel County Fire Department. The fire department first got a call about 1:30 p.m. from a cable or fiber-optics contractor who had been working underground in the 1300 block of Riedell Road when he smelled gas, said Lt. Keith Hamilton, a fire department spokesman. Fire personnel, working with BGE crews, subsequently identified a ruptured four-inch natural gas line, which Hamilton called a "super-highway of natural gases" compared with the more common half-inch lines that bring gas into individual homes.

A single car crash in Gambrills Monday has claimed the life of an elderly female passenger and critically injured the driver. The car was traveling down the driveway to an underground parking garage at about 4:50 p.m., when it struck a wall of the building in the 2600 block of Chapel Lake Drive, police said. Both victims, who, police said, are related, were taken to University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where the woman died. The elderly driver remains in critical condition.

A Gambrills man was arrested Wednesday in connection with the distribution of child pornography, police said. Robert J. Hudson 2nd, 24, of the 1000 block of Christmas Lane has been charged with two counts of distributing pornographic images of children, according to a statement by Maryland State Police. On Tuesday, an undercover state trooper was surveilling an online file-sharing network "known for distributing child pornography," the statement said. The trooper engaged in an online chat with another person and they agreed to meet to exchange computer files containing child pornography, police said.

An email was forwarded to me announcing Wednesday night's reopening of Kaufman's Tavern in Gambrills. I gave Kaufmann's a call, and manager Daniel Carr confirmed that the sprawling restaurant would be open on Wednesday, Aug. 31, the first night since Hurricane Irene came through town and knocked Kaufmann's for a loop. Irene did a number on Kaufmann's, smashing a tree down on a car its lot and generally playing havoc with the expansive deck area that had been remodeled only this past spring.

The Baltimore Sun has seriously erred in canceling Candus Thomson 's "Outdoors Girl" column ("Headed off down a different trail after many memorable adventures," Aug. 14). I grew up on the Severn River in the '60s. Rising before dawn to fish for perch with my father and siblings is a cherished memory. We stalked the crabgrass for soft crabs and netted doublers off the Naval Academy wall. We vacationed at Herrington Manor in a state cabin and went to Gambrills for picnics. During cold winters, we'd skate to Annapolis.

As of 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, traffic was slow on the inner loop of the Baltimore Beltway at I-795, due to a disabled vehicle in the roadway. In Anne Arundel County, Defense Highway was closed at Baldwin Avenue because of an accident. There were no major delays on Baltimore area mass transit systems.

Regal Cinemas will open a theater at Waugh Chapel Towne Centre, a planned mixed-use development in Gambrills in West Anne Arundel County, project developer Greenberg Gibbons said Monday. The theater will offer digital projection and will be the first IMAX cinema in the area. The 52,000-square-foot theater will join anchors Wegmans, Target, Dick's Sporting Goods and Petco in a 1.2 million-square-foot center with 650,000 square feet of shops, 125,000 square feet of offices and 380 apartments.