Hamer

Some youngsters need an extra boost to master academic basics that serve as the foundation for other learning. So Hilltop Elementary School teacher Edith McDougald invites their parents to take them to her home for tutoring and "of course, a little snack," or she drops by their homes or meets them at the library for extra help. There's no charge. McDougald said her incentive is to help the children grow and learn. "I want them to see that they are special, and they can do it, too," said McDougald, a second-grade teacher.

Dressed in a purple-and-neon-green tie-dyed dress, Lori Ann Bradford sits on a bench across from Lake Waterford. Her thick black hair is pulled up in a white scarf detailed with red and purple flowers, showcasing big, silver hoop earrings that sway when she looks down at her Yorkshire terrier, Sasa Badu. Her dog wags her tail at Bradford's feet, which are slipped into Kenyan thong sandals decorated with shells. The lake brings Bradford peace. Families walk together, young boys fish with their fathers and children toss bread to eager ducks.

From her home in Highland Beach, Elizabeth Jean West Langston often walks next door to the Frederick Douglass Museum and Cultural Center to give tours of his former summer home. She unlocks the door, then begins telling stories about artifacts from Douglass' life - the trunk he took to Europe, the game table where he played checkers with his grandchildren, the chair in which he rocked. "I've gone through it so often that sometimes I go through it too fast," said Langston, 63, who helped lead the effort to get the legendary abolitionist's home turned into a museum in 1996.

In its two-part "Brit noir" miniseries, the Charles' weekly revival showcase veers from an evil Catholic thug in "Brighton Rock" to Jewish and Protestant East Enders in "It Always Rains on Sunday." Set in the bustling neighborhood of Bethnal Green, it mixes a keenly observed day in the life of a working-class family with a startling prison-break melodrama. The strikingly intelligent and vivid Googie Withers plays a former barmaid comfortably married to a man who's given her two grown stepdaughters and a feisty young stepson.

Dressed in a purple-and-neon-green tie-dyed dress, Lori Ann Bradford sits on a bench across from Lake Waterford. Her thick black hair is pulled up in a white scarf detailed with red and purple flowers, showcasing big, silver hoop earrings that sway when she looks down at her Yorkshire terrier, Sasa Badu. Her dog wags her tail at Bradford's feet, which are slipped into Kenyan thong sandals decorated with shells. The lake brings Bradford peace. Families walk together, young boys fish with their fathers and children toss bread to eager ducks.

A loud, clear voice breaks the quiet in Courtroom 2. Lawyer Janet LaBella, longtime advocate for Anne Arundel County's poor, lobs her first legal volley of the afternoon. As it turns out, there's plenty more where that came from. Short and intense, with piercing dark eyes, LaBella goes to work. This time she's defending a public housing resident who faces eviction for missing four rent payments in a year, a violation of the Annapolis Housing Authority's "four strikes and you're out" policy.

Howard County prosecutors dropped all charges against a 21-year-old man accused of murder in the heroin overdose death of a friend yesterday, one month after they failed to persuade a judge and jury to convict another defendant in the same case. The decision not to prosecute the second-degree murder, manslaughter and reckless endangerment charges against Wesley Tyson Hamerly came out of talks that followed the acquittal of Scott Milner Sheldon, 22, on the same charges Sept. 1, prosecutors said.

Jay North was supposed to stay 7 years old forever. As television's Dennis the Menace, he would remain frozen in time: a happy-go-lucky extrovert in striped overalls, his wispy blond locks flopping around as he made a mess of every situation.But while the TV series "Dennis the Menace" has aged into an antiquated and innocent piece of Americana -- canceled 30 years ago by CBS -- its star has evolved into someone quite different than we remember.Even during the four years he reigned as the adorable Dennis Mitchell, the image was an illusion.

6 Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference championship game appearances made by Archbishop Spalding in the past seven seasons. The Cavaliers have won three titles in that span. 10 Starters returning for C. Milton Wright this season. The Mustangs, who finished with a 14-5 mark last year, have reached the state semifinals the past two years. 39 Combined points by River Hill forwards Sheridan Street and Alex Hamer last season. Street, a junior, finished with 17 goals and four assists, while Hamer, a sophomore, had six goals and 12 assists.

On Thursday, April 20, 2006, GRACE ELIZABETH (nee Oswald); beloved wife of the late Harold Le Roy Van Laningham; devoted mother of Marjorie E. Wenzel, Carole June Streett, Robert E. Van Laningham and Richard Glen Van Laningham; loving grandmother of John R. Frazier, E. Suzan Miller, David Streett, Steven Streett, Diane L. Croson, Donna Schaefer, Michael Streett, Kim Meyers and Gayle A. Schreiber; loving great-grandmother of Rob Frazier, Betsy Hamer, Rachel...