Jam

The jam scene is full of long shows, special guests and perpetually touring bands. But few players have been in as many bands and stayed on the road as much as Warren Haynes. Often seen as the hardest-working man in one of the most musically and physically demanding genres, Haynes always seems to be on the road with one group or the next. "The past 10 years have been really busy," Haynes said. That's one way to put it. Haynes is everywhere — a member of the Southern rock staples the Allman Brothers Band and legendary jammers the Dead, and the front man of blues rock group Gov't Mule, which headlines Artscape Saturday.

— Juan Samuel reserved his first critical words Saturday night for home plate umpire Mike Everitt as the Orioles' interim manager sprinted from the dugout in the eighth inning and engaged in a heated chest-to-chest conversation after his first career ejection. Then, as his team returned to the visiting clubhouse and joined him after the completion of a 9-3 loss to the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, Samuel let his players know how he felt, admonishing them for their sloppy play.

The band responsible for the quickest sell-out in Merriweather Post Pavilion's history is back again this weekend — this time for two days instead of one. Seminal jam band Phish, after reuniting last year, sold out the 17,500-capacity amphitheater in mere minutes. This time around, advance tickets were still available midweek, but both shows were expected to sell out the day of — if not before, according to spokeswoman Audrey Schaefer. Last year's show was one of the less notable stops on Phish's reunion tour.

Kevin Millwood figured as much. His first 2 1/2 months in an Orioles uniform have been dominated by defensive gaffes, poor run support, some recent bad pitching and, of course, a lot of regrettable losses. So as he sat in the visiting clubhouse at Petco Park on Saturday night to watch the ninth inning and resisted the urge to join his teammates in the dugout, Millwood had one prevailing thought. "I definitely didn't think it was going to be easy, by any means," he said. Boy, was he right.

In 2007, a federal witness in Baltimore, Carl Lackl of Rosedale, was murdered after a Maryland inmate put out a "hit" on him using a cell phone. Largely because of that tragedy, in October 2009 the U.S. Senate finally passed the Safe Prisons Communications Act. The purpose of the act is to allow "surgical" jamming of cell phones inside of prisons. Seemingly every week, published reports depict new crimes committed by inmates with cell phones. Just last month, authorities in Indiana announced arrests in a methamphetamine ring that was operated by an inmate using cell phones.

Pimlico racecourse chose cheap-and-dirty over environmentally-responsible when it came time to "clean up" after the Preakness ("Preakness crowd big, but cleanup goes fast," May 17). I would bet at least 50 percent of the 100 tons of refuse carted off to the incinerator was recyclable. They wanted to get their hourly workers out of there as quickly as possible rather than do the right thing for the environment. As the worker interviewed in the piece said, she wished it had been possible to separate out recyclables.

A hotshot quintet called Classical Jam — Jennifer Choi, violin; Cyrus Beroukhim, viola; Wendy Law, cello; Marco Granados, flute; Justin Hines, percussion — was formed recently "to reach out to diverse audiences" and promote classical music "to people who feel that they cannot relate to it, or for one reason or another, are not exposed to it." One way Classical Jam fulfills that mission is through collaborative projects and the creation of new music. The ensemble is heading to Maryland for a residency next week at the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda and a side trip to Baltimore that promises interesting sounds for veteran and novice classical music listeners alike.

Transferring to Lake Clifton from DeMatha for his senior basketball season, guard Josh Selby kept Baltimore basketball fans on the edge of their seats with rim-rattling dunks, helping him earn All-Metro Player of the Year honors. On Tuesday night, Selby won the 2010 Powerade Jam Fest in Columbus, Ohio. The dunk contest, which featured eight top high school players, was part of the McDonald's All-American Game festivities and was broadcast on ESPN. Selby was one of four to advance to the championship round.

T here's a growing sense among the nation's correctional institutions that the most dangerous contraband being smuggled into prisons isn't drugs, and it's not weapons. It's cell phones. They're turning up by the thousands in prison cells in Maryland and across the nation, and they're being used to coordinate criminal activity behind bars and on the outside. One of the most famous cases was the 2007 murder of Rosedale man Carl Lackl, who was a witness to another killing. A week before Mr. Lackl was to testify, the defendant in that case, Steven Byers, arranged his murder from behind bars, using a contraband cell phone.

A break in a 12-inch water main flooded three lanes of the Beltway's Outer Loop near Wilkens Avenue on Tuesday and affected traffic throughout the evening rush hour, according to the State Highway Administration and city Department of Public Works. The break happened about 1:25 p.m. on Shelbourne Road, according to public works spokesman Kurt Kocher, and the lanes on that street were closed down. Public works officials set up a temporary command center. Kocher said water was shut off at the site.