Ignited

The ninth arson in Prince George's County was set just after 4 a.m. at a two-story house in Capitol Heights. Someone ignited a blaze on Emily Brown's front porch as she, her son, sister and brother-in-law slept soundly inside. Brown never heard the smoke detectors. Her sister shook her awake as the fierce flames ate through the front door and kitchen ceiling. Clad in a nightgown, a barefoot Brown escaped to safety with her relatives - but she remains trapped by her fears. "I wake up every morning between 4 and 4:30 a.m. It's embedded in my mind," said Brown, 56. "The only time I feel safe is when it's raining."

George C. Wolfe, playwright, director and producer of the prestigious New York Shakespeare Festival, gravitates toward the things that scare him. "It's fun to sometimes dive off a cliff and see where you're going to land," Wolfe, 44, explained from his New York office last week.If you're Wolfe, you usually land on your feet -- and get showered with laurels."As acclaimed as a theater director can get," the Chicago Sun-Times has said. "Without question the most innovative producer and director staging work on or off Broadway," according to Essence magazine.

CLEMSON, S.C. - Rarely in basketball does one play perfectly illustrate just how far apart two teams are in talent and execution. But two minutes into the second half of Clemson's 93-64 thumping of Maryland last night at Littlejohn Coliseum, Tigers forward Trevor Booker did exactly that. Clemson was beginning to pull away from the Terps after a competitive first half and was on its way to handing Maryland its worst defeat in the series, but no one could have predicted what was about to unfold.

An employee at a scaffolding company next to the railroad tracks in Rosedale was one of the first people to see the train leave its tracks after it rammed into a truck last month. "There's just a train wreck in front of us and it's on fire," the man said, in one of more than 40 recorded 911 calls released Friday by Baltimore County police. "There's just like a fire and it's nasty. " "Did the train derail?" the dispatcher asked. "What type of train is it?" The questions would continue in 911 calls from Bel Air to Baltimore City, dozens of them, for nearly an hour.

Advocates for a crackdown on drunken driving squared off against the alcoholic beverage industry Thursday over an O'Malley administration-supported bill that would require court-determined drunken drivers to install devices that would prevent their cars from being started if they have been drinking alcohol. Proponents of the so-called ignition interlock technology went into the Senate hearing with high hopes that they can win passage of at least a compromise version of a bill that has failed in previous years.

Three generations lived in the century-old wooden house with two chimneys in Harford County. Jerome Shropshire, a retired steelworker, and his wife, Annette, a homemaker, took care of their four young grandchildren while their daughter worked at a nearby supermarket and attended college classes. "He loved [the] children more than he loved himself," Joseph Shropshire Sr. said of his elder brother's bond with the grandchildren. "Wherever he went, they went." But a fire that started yesterday morning quickly spread and engulfed the Abingdon house, killing Shropshire, 72, and four others: a woman in her 60s, two preschool-age boys, and an 8-month-old girl, fire officials said.

National cigarette companies argue that Baltimore officials don't have the legal right to require that all cigarettes sold in the city meet enhanced fire-safety standards, according to documents released by city health officials yesterday. Although a Maryland law passed in May will require that only fire-safe cigarettes be sold in the state as of July, Baltimore's proposed regulation would take effect before then. The Baltimore City Health Department released the public comments that officials solicited since the rule was proposed in October.

At a tire store the other day, I had the misfortune of coming face-to-face with the bane of modern society: the self-absorbed yakker. Let's face it, there's not a whole lot to do when they're putting new tires on your car except sit in the waiting room and drink bad coffee and read back issues of Motor Trend. Another man was waiting for his car, too. He said his name was Bill. So we started talking. No, check that. He started talking. First he talked about his job in sales and how well that was going and how he was pretty much rolling in dough.

The Yugoslavian Connection is once more with the Spirit.Mike Stankovic-to-Goran Hunjak hadn't been an item since last March, when Stankovic, the assistant coach, was activated and played in four games.Activated again Thursday, Stankovic and Hunjak accounted for 13 points. Stankovic assisted on two Hunjak goals and Hunjak was fed by Tarik Walker, Clark Brisson and Eric Dade on three others. His five goals tied Paul Wright's team record and his 11 points broke Tim Wittman's mark set last season.

When the Orioles dismissed Dave Trembley and formally introduced Juan Samuel as their interim manager on Friday, the most pressing question was about as obvious as the myriad of on-field issues that led to the decision. Is this change we can believe in, or just change for the sake of change? Orioles president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail said during an afternoon news conference that nobody is blaming Trembley for the worst win-loss record in the major leagues, and that nobody is expecting the team to make a miraculous about-face now that the former third base coach is in charge.