New Center

This bombardment was led by one man — a crane operator who ripped into the brick building at Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine at dawn's early light. "He's doing what the British couldn't do," park ranger Scott Sheads said jokingly about the contractor hired to demolish the structure at the fort, which defended Baltimore's harbor against the invaders during the War of 1812 and inspired Francis Scott Key to pen the poem that would become the national anthem.

The dead won't know the difference. But the pathologists and technicians who investigate Maryland's 4,000 unexpected deaths each year are said to be "giddy" about the opening of the state's new, $54 million Forensic Medical Center in Baltimore. The state-of-the-art facility, which fills a city block at West Baltimore and Poppleton streets, will replace the 41-year-old building at Pratt and Penn streets that presently houses the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. It is designed to improve working conditions and speed the autopsy process for families and law enforcement.

The National Aquarium is set Thursday to unveil its new Conservation Center, established to focus the institution's work in marine conservation and research, and to expand its scope to a national and global stage. In cooperation with scientists at aquariums and universities here and across the country, the center's researchers are already at work tracking contaminants from the BP oil well blowout, and studying threatened eagle rays. "With what's happening to the environment today, with the pressure of human activity, [the board felt]

Beating a peppy tempo on snare and bass drums, wearing white tights, boots, glitter and pompoms, the marching team strutted up the winding road under full morning sun, heading for a big Saturday event at … Cylburn Arboretum? Cylburn Arboretum, pastoral enclave of garden clubs, bird lovers and genteel ladies in large hats — that Cylburn Arboretum? Yes, that one. The "Dream Nation" marching unit was invited from the Cylburn community across Greenspring Avenue because it was the arboretum's grand opening after an 18-month hiatus and a new day at the preserve.

Baltimore County Golf today announced a new name for Longview Golf Course: Fox Hollow Golf Course. It is part of efforts to modernize the Timonium public course. The name was one of many submitted by area golfers and then narrowed to five choices. The Fox Hollow name and logo are a nod to the famous Longview foxes that were discovered stealing golf balls from the putting greens because they thought they were bird eggs in the 1980s. "As a staff, we are excited that the new name, Fox Hollow, and the renovations mark a new beginning for our course," said Chris Hanson, head golf professional.

Imagining a very different Wilde Lake Village Center can be tough for Columbia's pioneers nostalgic for the past, but about 150 mostly older residents took a stab at it Monday night as efforts to plan the half-empty center's rebirth got rolling. The group was invited by the village board to Slayton House, the center's original community building. The board is working on concepts to present Jan. 11 to Kimco Realty, the firm that owns most of the commercial buildings at Wilde Lake, Columbia's oldest retail village hub. Under a county zoning law approved last summer, Kimco, which owns five other Columbia village centers, will incorporate residents' desires into a plan they will present to the community and county zoning authorities next year.

Howard County's first suburban shopping center would be transformed into a mixed-use center with about 200 apartments and garages in the rear and a series of modern commercial buildings closer to U.S. 40 in a proposal that some nearby residents are viewing warily. A community information meeting on the proposal is scheduled for 6:30 Monday night at the Ellicott City Senior Center to explain details of the plan to residents. The roughly 25-acre Normandy Shopping Center, built in 1959-1961 by members of the Moxley family whose developer-descendants still control the property, lost its anchor Safeway supermarket this year.

Derek Liggins can't keep himself from looking at ceilings. When out with his wife, he stares upward, checking out the ductwork - something his bride of two weeks finds bizarre. This happens, the 42-year-old says, because what he does for a living stays with him all day, an attitude that has been a long time coming. His past is littered with arrests and convictions, the last of which resulted in an eight-year prison sentence for dealing drugs that ended in the summer of 2008. After his release, he joined STRIVE, a three-week job preparation initiative of the Center for Urban Families that changed his life.

Ravens center Matt Birk is a Harvard man. There is a decent chance you already knew this. In fact, if you know anything about him beyond his abilities as a football player, it's probably that he graduated from Harvard. This is, at least in part, because people tend to bring it up when they talk about Birk, a six-time Pro Bowl selection entering his 12th NFL season, his first with the Ravens after leaving the Minnesota Vikings as a free agent. Birk's Ivy League education - he graduated in 1998 with a degree in economics - is usually mentioned with playful disbelief or mock surprise, as if it had not occurred to anyone that it was possible for NFL players to come from Harvard.