Monitor

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - First, divers brought back the giant propeller that made the Monitor go.Now, they've got the revolutionary toilet where the historic vessel's officers went - whenever nature called.Scholars say only one other ship might have boasted a below-the-waterline "water closet" before the Civil War ironclad, and it, too, was designed by ingenious Swedish-American inventor John Ericsson.That makes the flush toilet recovered from the North Carolina wreck a historical rarity and a major milestone in naval warfare.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. announced yesterday that he will keep intact an office that monitors conditions inside the state's troubled juvenile justice facilities, retaining a director who has earned praise by making public reports of violence, abuse and understaffing in Maryland's youth detention centers. Ehrlich also announced a new Governor's Office for Children to replace the Office of Children, Youth and Families, an agency that was abolished by the legislature this spring after years of complaints that it was ineffective.

NORFOLK, Va. - It was pleasant, "clear and pleasant," as the Monitor prepared to leave Hampton Roads on Dec. 29, 1862, light winds out of the southwest. The sailors were excited. After months of patrol duty that held none of the thrill of the great Battle of Hampton Roads, Va., they'd received orders to sail to Beaufort, N.C., then on to Charleston, S.C., for possible engagement with Confederate forces. But this time they were being towed. An almost disastrous trip from New York 10 months ago convinced the Navy that while the Monitor might have been a scrappy fighter, it was plain unseaworthy in rough conditions.

The Charles H. Hickey Jr. School continues to be beset by violence, some of it perpetrated by staff, and conditions have not improved since a scathing report in May detailed 20 cases of child abuse and neglect at the juvenile detention facility, according to the state independent monitor. With the number of assaults and other violent incidents showing no signs of abating, the Office of the Independent Juvenile Justice Monitor recommended in September that the state consider firing the private contractor that operates Hickey, according to documents obtained by The Sun under a public records request.

The Loch Rannoch oil tanker isn't exactly the place you'd expect to find cutting-edge computer technology. But the 850,000-ton ship owned by British Petroleum is home to an experiment in preventing critical breakdowns before they happen. A swarm of little sensors have been deployed near heavy-duty machinery on the ship. If a motor starts vibrating out of control, the sensor captures the unusual motion and the information is passed along wirelessly from sensor to sensor until it reaches a computer link.

Mayor Martin O'Malley's plan for court watchdogs to monitor gun cases has a seat-of-the-pants quality you'd expect from a brash, young politician: unorthodox and aggressive, announced to a throng of media just two hours after the chance placement of newspaper articles put the idea in his head. But in some ways, O'Malley has been slowly laying the foundation for this kind of move throughout his 2 1/2 years in office, as he has tried to build community coalitions to help put his ideas into action.

Three Baltimore teens have been charged as adults in separate killings this year after breaking away from electronic monitoring devices that were supposed to keep them detained at home for juvenile offenses, law enforcement officials said yesterday. In one case, Eugene Edwards, 14, cut off his monitor and roamed the streets for several months before being arrested again and sent to live with his grandmother without the monitor in January. He is charged with first-degree murder in the shooting of an 18-year-old man the next day. In another, the mother of Armad Cloude, 14, told detectives in May that her son had removed his monitor and walked away, saying he "wasn't staying at home anymore," police reports show.

After 140 years at the bottom of the sea, the 160-ton gun turret of the USS Monitor is to be lifted into daylight soon off Cape Hatteras, N.C., in the culmination of a five-year, $14 million effort to save the famous ironclad. The federal-private project will then enter a new phase, to bring much of what remains of the Monitor, a revolutionary warship and a Civil War relic, back to life. Experts are treating more than 400 Monitor artifacts to try to reverse the corrosive effects of time and seawater.

Navy divers excavating the sunken turret of the USS Monitor off Cape Hatteras found bone fragments yesterday that could be remains of crewmen who went down with the famed warship 140 years ago. Officials working at the site, 20 miles off the North Carolina coast, said military scientists will analyze the fragments to determine whether they are the remains of Civil War sailors deserving of a naval burial more than a century after their death. `An effect on all of us' The discovery was a sobering reminder that the ironclad shipwreck, with its prized 150-ton turret made of Baltimore iron, served for decades as a gravesite for four U.S. Navy officers and 12 crewmen who failed to escape when the Monitor sank during a storm off the cape on Dec. 31, 1862.

A new 3-D computer monitor is coming this spring, and the images have so much true, lifelike depth that objects look as if you could reach inside the display and pull them out. The liquid crystal display doesn't need any specific software to create a 3-D desktop. Users don't have to wear special glasses. And the monitor works with different operating systems and computer hardware, including Windows, Apple and Linux equipment. And although many uses are planned for the ActualDepth 3-D screen -- such as medical, industrial and military applications -- its developers also think people at home would like to see their virtual work and play space in three dimensions.