Nation

Two more bidders emerged Friday — one a surprise — to compete against MGM Resorts International for the right to build a casino in Prince George's County, which stands with the state to reap millions of dollars from the project. Penn National Gaming, which operates the Hollywood Casino brand, and Greenwood Racing Inc., which owns Pennsylvania's most successful casino, submitted proposals to Maryland's gaming agency by the 2 p.m. deadline. The winner is expected to be chosen by the end of the year by the Maryland Video Lottery Facility Location Commission, which will review the proposals.

In Hillary Clinton's farewell remarks in February on stepping down as President Barack Obama's secretary of state, she echoed one of her predecessors, Madeleine Albright, declaring America to be "the indispensable nation. " "We are the force for progress, prosperity and peace," Mrs. Clinton elaborated. "And because we have to get it right for ourselves. " Ms. Albright had put it this way: "If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation.

“American Idiot,” the 2010 Broadway hit musical - the first punk rock opera, really - now at the Hippodrome, paints a searing portrait of restless, reckless youth, with all the sex, drugs and violence you'd expect from a disaffected generation. That the show also manages to be entertaining and exhilarating just bumps up the cool factor, which is already considerable, given that the music is by the popular band Green Day and drawn from the 2004 album “American Idiot.” Front man Billie Joe Armstrong collaborated on the book with Maryland native Michael Mayer, who directs the production with the same dynamic touch he brought to another hit musical about young angst, “Spring Awakening.” The unfocused “kids of war and peace” in “American Idiot,” kids who are “born and raised by hypocrites,” can't stand the make-believe world of suburbia where they feel trapped.

Time was when American opera companies considered musicals as suspect artifacts from another planet, hardly worthy of serious attention -- not even on a par with the operettas those companies would occasionally stage when they needed a box office lift. Bit by bit, thinking has changed at a lot of places, and a welcome thing, too. Washington National Opera has enthusiastically embraced this broader view, offering an inspired staging of the path-breaking 1927 musical "Show Boat," a co-production with the Lyric Opera of Chicago (where it debuted last year)

As the Maryland National Guard prepares for what could be its final deployment to Afghanistan, its commander sees a "pivotal point" in the nation's history. More than a decade of deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq and other battlegrounds since Sept. 11, 2001, has produced a highly skilled and deeply experienced generation of warriors. But with the United States out of Iraq and planning to leave Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. James Adkins sees a new challenge. "Many of the soldiers that are serving now have known only war," he said Thursday from Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia, where members of the 244 t h Engineer Co. are training for a deployment starting later this year.

ESPN college football analyst Andre Ware said on “College Football Live” Wednesday that he expects Maryland to be one of the country's “bounce back” teams in 2013. Pointing to the return of quarterback C.J. Brown and the emergence of wide receiver Stefon Diggs, Ware said that “anything short of a bowl game will be a disappointment.” Calling Diggs “one of the most underrated” players in the country, Ware added Maryland to a list that includes Missouri and Miami.  Ware pointed to the fact that the Terps were 4-2 before a rash of season-ending injuries to Brown and freshmen quarterbacks Perry Hills and Caleb Rowe led to Maryland losing its last six games.

Something is killing the honey bees of Maryland. Close to 60 percent of the managed hives died last fall and over the winter - about twice the national average, according to the state bee inspector and local keepers. "I had a healthy hive that produced 50 pounds of honey last year, and we were anticipating another great year," said Stephen Christianson, a Mount Washington beekeeper of three years. "Then, they were just gone. It took my breath away. " Some blame inexperience on the part of the beekeepers, most of whom tend their hives as a hobby, coupled with a bad winter.

Joe Pekarek, 18, and Levi Pekarek, 15, of Forest Hill, from Grace Bible Quizzing represented Maryland during the Bible Quiz Fellowship's 12th annual national competition in Green Lake, Wisc., the week of April 15. Bible Quiz Fellowship (BQF) is an organization that sponsors local Bible quiz competitions around the country and the four-day national tournament every April. They use an eight-year rotation that spans the entire New Testament. This year, the teams quizzed on the Gospel of Matthew.

Now that Salisbury secured one of the few coveted at-large berths in the NCAA tournament, Jim Berkman feels secure enough to stand on a limb and proclaim that the team can win the national championship for the third consecutive year and the 11th time in the program's history. Sounds crazy? Maybe, but aside from SUNY-Cortland, the top seed in the North region, and Dickinson, the top seed in the South, no other team in the field has less than two losses. “The crazy thing about this is, I really believe that we can still win the whole tournament,” the Sea Gulls coach said Monday morning.

Table games at Maryland Live Casino generated $8.4 million in revenue in their first month at the Anne Arundel County facility, on top of $38.2 million from its slot machines, the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency reported Monday. While overall revenue at Maryland Live was up $1.95 million in April from March, revenue from slots fell about $6.45 million in April from the month before. By far the largest of Maryland's casinos, Maryland Live operates 4,217 slot machines and 122 table games.