Lancaster County

Sterling Financial Corp. announced yesterday that officers and employees of its equipment leasing unit ran a "sophisticated loan scheme" that cost the Pennsylvania bank as much as $165 million and may force the sale of the company. Employees of the subsidiary, Equipment Finance LLC, colluded to conceal loan losses, falsify contracts, and "subvert" internal controls over an extended period, Sterling said in a federal regulatory filing yesterday. Five employees were fired, including the subsidiary's chief operating officer and executive vice president, the bank said.

A few members of Carroll's committee studying incineration may have changed their minds about burning trash after visiting a waste-to-energy facility near Lancaster, Pa., yesterday.But both the pro- and anti-incinerator factions claimed converts after the tour."I think [the trip] changed a few minds," said Lloyd Helt, chairman of the 23-member committee. "I know of at least one member who previously had some serious questions" but now looks favorably upon waste-to-energy plants.About 18 members of the committee, appointed by the commissioners in January to study whether Carroll should build a waste-to-energy plant, toured the Lancaster County Resource Recovery Facility in Conoy Township.

The artistic and entertainment directors came from Hershey Park, and the technical director from Disneyland in California. The camels came from Connecticut, and the audience comes from all around.The destination is Sight and Sound Entertainment Centre, the "vision" of owners Glenn and Shirley Eshelman, in the Amish country of Lancaster County."This is the country's largest full-time professional Christian theater," says Gregg Halteman, 37, sales and marketing manager.Mr. Halteman says in the year since it opened, 250,000 people have seen at least one of five shows, all with nondenominational Christian themes, in a 1,400-seat theater which has a stage the same size as the one in Radio City Music Hall in New York.

RONKS, Pa. -- Just off the bustling highway that cuts through the rolling farmland and small villages of Lancaster County stretches a road that in many ways depicts the disparate faces of this region. On one side of the street sits the Mennonite Information Center - offering Amish tours, historical exhibits and tales of the Biblical Tabernacle. Across the road is the Tanger Outlet Center, where throngs of shoppers from cities like Baltimore and Philadelphia flock to find deals on designer duds from Calvin Klein and Donna Karan in new buildings styled to resemble an old barn and silos.

While many people conjure up images of quilts and Amish buggies when they think of Lancaster County, Pa., the city of Lancaster offers an alternative to those stereotypes with its eclectic shops, museums and restaurants. Both the city and county, named after Lancashire, England, have their share of historical highlights, the most prominent of which date a bit farther back than 1985, when Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis starred in the film Witness. The movie, which featured a reportedly honest portrayal of the Amish, was shot in Lancaster County.

There will be no high-profile funerals or church services for the Amish children killed yesterday in Lancaster County, Pa. The Old Order Amish have no churches. They worship, and dispatch the dead to God's care, from their homes and barns. The Amish have been in the United States for nearly 270 years but, following the tenets of their faith, they have always lived apart, eschewing the conveniences of modern America, embracing pacifism and maintaining strong ties to the land. Their homes have no electricity, their clothes no zippers.

Summer concerts What could be more romantic than enjoying music while surrounded by the natural beauty of sunsets and the ocean? This summer, free weekly concerts will be held on the beach at North Division Street in Ocean City, every Wednesday through Aug. 27. Concerts include Opposite Directions, an acoustic rock duo; Randy Lee Ashcraft and the Saltwater Cowboys' country/beach music; and Frank and Patsy doing their "Tribute to Frank Sinatra and Patsy...

The same Amish businessman who opened the farmers market at Crossroads Square Shopping Center in Westminster last year is planning to try the idea in Harford County.The Pennsylvania Dutch Farmers Market, scheduled to open early next month in a former grocery store at Jamesway Plaza on West Bel Air Avenue near Beards Hill Road in Aberdeen, will boast 60 to 70 stands on Fridays and Saturdays.Craftsmen, farmers and food servers will pay $75 for each 8-by-8 1/2 -foot stand to sell handmade furniture, crafts, baked goods, cheese, smoked meats, canned foods, hot food and produce.

FINDING WILDFLOWERS IN THE WASHINGTON-BALTIMORE AREA. By Cristol Fleming, Marion Blois Lobstein and Barbara Tufty. Johns Hopkins University Press. 312 pages. Illustrated. $15.95.WITH THE booming popularity of walking and hiking along the many trails in the Baltimore-Washington area, what is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare at the wildflowers around us. A big help is "Finding Wildflowers," a guide to what is to be seen throughout the year -- seen, but not picked.

About five minutes after Fran Mathews went to bed, she heard a boom and felt her house in northern Harford County shudder. "I was afraid enough to see if the furnace had blown up," said Mathews, 61. What rattled Mathews and others in northern Harford County yesterday was a minor earthquake at 12:04 a.m. in Lancaster County, Pa. The 3.3-magnitude quake was centered in the Salunga-Landisville area, about 40 miles north of the Pennsylvania-Maryland line,...