Nevada

He was the teenager who wasn't embarrassed to hug his mom at Severna Park High School while other students looked on, who pitched on the Falcons' 2009 state championship baseball team, and who matured into a Marine with a swallow tattoo on his right arm. Marine Lance Cpl. William Taylor Wild IV - best known as Taylor - died Monday in a military training exercise at Hawthorne Army Depot, Nevada, according to his parents. He was 21. As of Wednesday evening, the Department of Defense had not formally identified the seven Marines who died when a mortar round detonated in its launching tube during a training exercise.

After cutting his list of potential colleges to three finalists, St. Frances small forward Dwayne Morgan has spent the past two weeks deciding between Maryland, Georgetown and Nevada-Las Vegas. On Wednesday, Morgan made his decision in front of an assortment of family, friends and classmates in a makeshift press room at St. Frances. One of the top recruits in the Class of 2014, he announced his intention to play for coach Dave Rice and the Runnin' Rebels. “When I went on my visit, I felt like I was at home.

"I REMEMBER IT as a clear and beautiful day, with scattered clouds and not much wind." Joe Taussig was looking out at a gray day from his Annapolis home on Weems Creek, a vast distance from where he was on that other day, 58 years ago tomorrow.Then-Ensign Taussig bounded topside into that lovely weather to assume command as officer of the deck of the USS Nevada. It was 7: 50 in the morning."The Nevada band was supposed to play `The Star-Spangled Banner' at 8 o'clock sharp, and I remember being worried about the size of the flag for the ceremony.

He was the teenager who wasn't embarrassed to hug his mom at Severna Park High School while other students looked on, who pitched on the Falcons' 2009 state championship baseball team, and who matured into a Marine with a swallow tattoo on his right arm. Marine Lance Cpl. William Taylor Wild IV - best known as Taylor - died Monday in a military training exercise at Hawthorne Army Depot, Nevada, according to his parents. He was 21. As of Wednesday evening, the Department of Defense had not formally identified the seven Marines who died when a mortar round detonated in its launching tube during a training exercise.

LAS VEGAS -- After hearing favorable testimony at his licensing hearing from two psychologists, Mike Tyson half-joked, For some reason I feel like Norman Bates with all these doctors here," referring to the troubled killer in "Psycho."

The first state-by-state profile of the nation's tobacco use, the huge economic penalty it exacts and the various state tobacco-control laws was released yesterday by the federal government, highlighting startling disparities.The report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed adult smoking rates varying from slightly more than 15 percent of the population in Utah to more than 30 percent in neighboring Nevada.Twenty percent of Maryland adults are smokers, compared with nearly 23 percent nationwide.

NEW ORLEANS -- With less than a second left in overtime and Nevada's two-possession lead guaranteeing victory, coach Mark Fox wrapped an arm around senior forward Nick Fazekas and whispered into his ear. "I told him I was proud of him," Fox said after the Wolf Pack's 77-71 victory over Creighton yesterday. "I told him that it would come back to him. And that he gets to play another day." Fazekas, the cornerstone of Nevada's ascension to national prominence the past four seasons, watched the final 3:06 of overtime from the bench after fouling out. As he sat, guards Kyle Shiloh, Marcelus Kemp and Ramon Sessions combined to score the No. 7 seed Wolf Pack's final 14 points.

PINE VALLEY, Nev. -- LeRoy and Sandy Sestanovich ran their eyes over the Nevada range land his family has ranched for a half-century. It looked like a charred piece of toast.There was no life, only the blackened skeletons of juniper trees and the scorched stumps of sagebrush. In a canyon lay the remains of one of their bulls, a dried-out hide draped over bones in a hauntingly stark image.In what is by far the worst fire season on record in this arid state, about 1.6 million acres of northern Nevada burned last summer, an area twice the size of Rhode Island.

I wrote today about a Johns Hopkins study that found a decline in circumcisions has cost the country $2 billion in extra medical costs in the past decade. The Hopkins scientists say they think fewer babies are getting the procedure because states aren't paying for it under Medicaid. (Maryland isn't among them.) State Medicaid plans account for two-fifths of all births. Here are the 18 states that don't cover circumcisions and the year they stopped: Colorado 2011 South Carolina 2011 Louisiana 2005 Idaho 2005 Minnesota 2005 Maine 2004 Montana 2003 Utah 2003 Florida 2003 Missouri 2002 Arizona 2002 North Carolina 2002 California before 1999 North Dakota before 1999  Oregon before 1999 Mississippi before 1999 Nevada before 1999 Washington before 1999      

SEATTLE - It figured a guy named Okafor was going to make noise in the NCAA tournament. But Okeson? Connecticut's Emeka Okafor might stick around longer, but Nevada's Todd Okeson is the gamer of a guard who helped lead Nevada to a 72-66 upset of Michigan State, with plenty of help from Kirk Snyder. Michigan State (18-12) was 0-9 against ranked teams this season, and 1-8 against teams that made the NCAA tournament. Make that 1-9, after 10th-seeded Nevada's victory over the seventh-seeded Spartans in a first-round game in front of 15,827 at Key Arena.

The only residents of the Westport waterfront last week were a gaggle of geese that commandeered a large puddle amid the brush and broken asphalt. The only structure was a battered chain-link fence, capturing wind-blown litter along the perimeter. By now the 43-acre tract, assembled and cleared over several years with millions of dollars and personal resolve, was supposed to house hundreds and bustle with office workers. There should be a towering skyscraper and a stadium. Instead, the development company that was going to make that happen is in bankruptcy and the future of the $1.4 billion Westport Waterfront project, thought of as a potential "Harbor West," is uncertain.

I wrote today about a Johns Hopkins study that found a decline in circumcisions has cost the country $2 billion in extra medical costs in the past decade. The Hopkins scientists say they think fewer babies are getting the procedure because states aren't paying for it under Medicaid. (Maryland isn't among them.) State Medicaid plans account for two-fifths of all births. Here are the 18 states that don't cover circumcisions and the year they stopped: Colorado 2011 South Carolina 2011 Louisiana 2005 Idaho 2005 Minnesota 2005 Maine 2004 Montana 2003 Utah 2003 Florida 2003 Missouri 2002 Arizona 2002 North Carolina 2002 California before 1999 North Dakota before 1999  Oregon before 1999 Mississippi before 1999 Nevada before 1999 Washington before 1999      

Human error no crime Bob Foltman Chicago Tribune An investigation is warranted only to determine if the two judges that gave Timothy Bradley the fight were under improper outside influence. The fact that there was a good amount of money coming in late on Bradley at the Vegas sports books is enough to at least lift an eyebrow. But any investigation should be limited to that. I thought Pacquiao clearly won, but he could have made his life easier by knocking Bradley out, or at least knocking him down a few times.

To those who think U.S. 50 is primarily a road that spans Maryland's bucolic Eastern Shore, Christopher Corbett begs to differ. Corbett, an award-winning journalist and author, spent countless hours traversing the dusty stretch of Old U.S. 50 that lies between Salt Lake City and Reno, Nev., while researching his two books, "The Poker Bride" and "Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of The Pony Express. " Dubbed "The Loneliest Road in America" by Life Magazine in the 1980s, this remote stretch of highway is Corbett's favorite getaway destination, a place he believes is the best representation of the authentic American West.

If you go Getting there From BWI, Southwest Airlines and Delta fly non-stop to Salt Lake City. Organize a one-way car rental with drop-off in Reno. Southwest offers non-stop flights from Reno to Baltimore. When to go Since the terrain traverses flat desert expanses to cresty, narrow mountain passes, the ideal time to visit is spring and fall, to avoid the extreme weather. Lodging Hotel Nevada and Gambling Hall, Ely, Nev., 775-289-6665, hotelnevada.com.

A recent column on the wreck of the steamer Clara Nevada, which went to the bottom in 1898 while returning from the Alaska gold fields with the loss of all hands and a cargo of gold dust worth $13.6 million today, brought interesting reader feedback. The story of the Clara Nevada was brought to life by Steven C. Levi, an Anchorage-based freelance and technical writer, in his recent book, "The Clara Nevada: Gold, Greed, Murder and Alaska's Inside Passage. " The lust for riches set off gold fever, as thousands packed suitcases and whatever they could carry on their backs and headed West for Seattle and Portland, gateway to the Klondike.

There won't be thousands cheering on Todd Okeson of Weskan, Kan., Friday as the local farm boy tries to take Nevada deeper into the NCAA tournament when the Wolf Pack meets Georgia Tech. That's because Weskan's population is 393. The enrollment at Weskan High School is 42, and folks say it might have been only 38 or 39 when Okeson was there. Is it any wonder the 6-foot, 165-pound guard didn't get a single NCAA Division I scholarship offer out of high school? "I was from too small a town.

The wreck of the Clara Nevada in Alaskan waters at the height of the Klondike gold rush in 1898 has a Baltimore connection and is the subject of a recently published book, "The Clara Nevada: Gold, Greed, Murder and Alaska's Inside Passage. " "It's a fairly well-known story in southeast Alaska," said Steven C. Levi, an Anchorage freelance and technical writer. "They tell it on the ferries, and the first time I heard about the Clara Nevada, I didn't believe it and decided to look into it," "And the more research I did, the stranger the story became," he said in a telephone interview last week.

It's debatable which defensive end or linebacker in this draft would be the best pass rusher for the Ravens. But there's no question who is the fastest. Nevada's Dontay Moch set an NFL scouting combine record for defensive linemen since 2000 with an eye-popping time of 4.44 seconds in the 40-yard dash. That beat the previous mark of 4.47 by Alabama-Birmingham's Bryan Thomas in 2002. Moch, the 2009 Western Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Year, is expected to get drafted as high as the third round.