Island

Overcoming sickness, poor post position and the toughest group of fillies she has ever faced, Sanabelle Island won her 23rd straight race last night at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J.The 3-year-old Maryland-bred is now one victory from tying the record winning streak by a 3-year-old pacing filly.In 1973 and 1974, Handle With Care won 24 in a row.Trained and driven by Steve Warrington of Galena on the Eastern Shore, Sanabelle Island prevailed by a length in the first round of the Mistletoe Shallee Stakes.

More than 40 angry Crownsville residents showed up at an Anne Arundel County hearing yesterday to rail against an Annapolis businessman's plan to turn part of a secluded island in Little Round Bay into a private club for weddings and parties.The residents, and Annapolis Alderman Louise Hammond and Gregory C. Pinkard, a Baltimore businessman whose family owns a third of St. Helena Island just off the Severn River, voiced their opposition during a three-hour hearing before Stephen M. LeGendre, the county administrative hearing officer.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Residents of the remote Indonesian island of Nias pulled hundreds of bodies from the rubble yesterday in the wake of a powerful earthquake Monday off the coast of Sumatra that flattened buildings, collapsed bridges and damaged the airport runway. The earthquake death toll has risen steadily. Officials put it at 330 yesterday. But Sumatra Gov. Rizal Nurdin estimated early today that the figure had risen to 1,000. Government officials have said it could climb as high as 2,000.

ASSATEAGUE -- A week after getting a scare from Hurricane Bonnie, officials at Assateague National Seashore have begun a long-delayed beach replenishment effort. They hope the project will shore up the island's vulnerable north end before more tropical or winter storms arrive.Forced to wait more than three months to avoid disturbing a colony of piping plovers, an endangered shore bird that nests in loose sand, workers had to scramble to move pipes and earthmoving equipment off the beach when Hurricane Bonnie appeared to be headed for the Maryland coast two weeks ago.This week, a crew from New Jersey-based Weeks Marine Inc. struggled against rough seas to secure moorings on a barge about a quarter-mile offshore.

Scarlett Johansson was in danger of becoming nothing more than an art-house habitue's dream after appearing in movies like Ghost World, Lost in Translation and The Girl With a Pearl Earring. Her gifts for angst and ennui, and even her wispy blond allure, which lent itself to vagueness, allowed high-minded movie lovers to project their lonely, secret passions. She was in danger of becoming nothing more than a mood actress: an icon for the outre. So it's a relief to see her all toned-up and active in The Island, Michael Bay's latest special-effects extravaganza - just as it was a relief to see moody old Sean Penn do a Bogart-like star turn in The Interpreter.

TANGIER ISLAND, Va. -- It's three weeks to graduation and the Tangier Combined School Class of 1999 -- eight girls and one boy -- has little time for sentimentality. What with fittings for caps and gowns, senior portraits, the senior trip to New York and the prom, their final days are a blur.After 13 years together, they know full well the choices they're making now will set most of them on course for lives far from the safety of this close-knit, deeply religious community of 600-plus inhabitants who think of themselves as one big extended family.

MONHEGAN ISLAND, MAINE / / Just 10 miles off the coast, this island midway between Portland and Acadia National Park feels a world away from the beach and sailing towns that attract droves of tourists to the state each summer. There are no ice cream stands, T-shirt shops or lobster pounds offering early-bird specials. Just a handful of stores to buy coffee, wine or cheese, and more than 450 acres of undisturbed nature and people in search of a place that's peaceful and quiet. There is no traffic on this 1.7-mile-long by 0.7-mile-wide island, nor are there streetlights illuminating the night.

Unconvinced that a local nonprofit can come up with enough money to buy his island on the Magothy River, the owner has resurrected plans to build a house on it. David L. Clickner Sr., who bought Dobbins Island in 2004, last week presented preliminary information at a required public meeting on how he'd put in a septic system and road. He didn't provide details on the house, but in 2005, Clickner submitted plans to build a home in the range of more than 4,500 square feet. Clickner said that he put his plans on hold for more than a year, since spring 2006, to give the Magothy River Association time to raise money to buy the island.

John Kani and Winston Ntshona's portrayals of political prisoners in the South African drama The Island are the stuff of legend. It's not just that, in 1975, they became the only actors to share a Tony Award. In order to work as full-time actors in their native country, they once had to claim to be domestic servants. And they've been imprisoned themselves. So there was always a large degree of verisimilitude in their performance of The Island, which wasn't seen for more than two decades after its debut in South Africa.

In another case of an Anne Arundel County community's joining forces to combat what it sees as a threat to its neighborhood, Pasadena-area residents have organized opposition to the possibility of the state's dumping dredge spoil off their shores. The group, Citizens Against the Pasadena Dredge Island, is fighting the state's consideration of a site in the Patapsco River off the peninsula for a 1.5-mile-long island of dredge spoil. With about a dozen people on its steering committee, the group is circulating petitions and urging residents to discourage the Maryland Port Administration from studying the site, north of Bodkin Point in the mouth of the river.