New Year

We embark on a new year, but will anything change? Scott Calvert 's article about Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake being left off the list of City Hall workers with smartphones is just another example of what this country has become ("Rawlings-Blake left off list of people with City Hall smartphones," Dec. 31). America is supposed to be "the land of the free and the home of the brave. " Instead, it has become the land of the sleaze and the home of the crazed. When has honesty and integrity become the exception rather than the norm?

Wedding date: Dec. 31, 2012 Her story: Tiffany Trask, 26, grew up in Columbia and is a nurse in the Navy. Her mother, Karen, is a financial analyst and her father, Tim, is a building supervisor. His story: Jason Harriman, 30, grew up in Laurel. He is a sales representative for an Anheuser-Busch distributor. His father, Guy, is retired, and his mother, Sandra, is the vice president of development at Howard County General Hospital. Their story: Tiffany and Jason met at a happy hour in Ellicott City through mutual friends.

Well, the New Year 2012 has arrived. It is true that the older one gets, the faster time flies. And this year has truly flown by! With the beginning of any New Year, the anticipation of change and betterment is on everyone's mind. The Owings Mills community is no exception as plans are under way for some major changes in the area. First is the "de-malling" of the Town Center. The anchor stores, J.C. Penney's and Macy's, are slated to stay while the rest of the mall will be torn down to make way for free-standing box stores, such as the ones at Hunt Valley or White Marsh.

Author's disclaimer: Today's piece may cause my center/right readers severe irritability, sleeplessness, and a strong desire to limit your cable television options to Fox. The antidote may not arrive until the midterm elections of 2014. Fiscal cliff negotiations: a real bummer. An empowered president intent on fulfilling his progressive inclination to raise taxes. An emboldened Harry Reid strangely silent about his inability to pass a budget through a Democratic Senate over the past three years.

The new year of 2013 has begun! The festive holidays are a memory and new events are planned for January and the Senior Center in Aberdeen began its winter session on Wednesday. On Thursday, Jan. 3, there was blood pressure screening from 10 a.m. until noon. This screening is sponsored by Upper Chesapeake Medical Center. Today (Friday, Jan. 4) the men will have a discussion group from 9:30 a.m. until 10:15 a.m., when current events and various topics will be discussed in a friendly and informative setting.

Will our traditions change once we're “the married couple”? Every year Sam and I, along with a group of friends (some single and some dating) go to Ocean City, Md., for New Years Eve. As we started planning for this year's adventure I realized this will be our last year as Mercado and MacNichol: Next year we'll be the only married couple to attend the trip. Will that be weird? Do we still go? Simple answer - Yes! It didn't take long for me to think about this one. Our friends are amazing and love us both, together and individually.

It's an unlikely setting for a religious ritual, behind a busy grocery store parking lot and nearly underneath a rumbling expressway. But this stretch of the Jones Falls — the stream rather than the highway that takes its name — provided the necessary running water on Monday for the first day of Rosh Hashana, when Jews celebrate their faith's new year by symbolically casting off the sins of the last one. "This year, I don't have much to...

Laurel city offices will be closed Monday, Dec. 31, and Tuesday, Jan. 1, for the New Year's holiday. There will be no city trash or recycling collections Monday and Tuesday, Dec. 31 and Jan. 1. Refuse collections will be made as scheduled Dec. 27 and 28, and Jan. 3 and 4. Recycling usually collected on Mondays and Tuesdays will be collected Wednesday, Jan. 2. There will be no residential special pickups or yard debris collections during the...

A 10-year-old girl is in critical condition on life support after being struck in the head on Tuesday in what Cecil County Police say appears to be from a bullet fired in the air during New Year's Eve celebrations. Cecil County Sheriff's Office Lt. Michael Holmes said on Wednesday that the girl, a resident of Manheim, Pa., was standing in the yard of a home in the unit block of Ajs Court in Elkton and watching neighbors set off fireworks when she suddenly collapsed. Holmes said that a call came in from 911 that someone had observed trauma at the top of the girl's head.

Pub Date: 1/02/99

A 50-year-old woman died early Saturday after a fire in a Glen Burnie home, the second fire-related fatality in Anne Arundel County of the new year. County Fire Department Division Chief Keith Swindle said Shari Lee DeStefano was found in the basement of a one-story house in the Marley area and transported to Baltimore Washington Medical Center, where she died of her injuries shortly after midnight. Nine adults and two children were displaced by the fire and given shelter, Swindle said, and as of Sunday afternoon, they were still unable to return home.

The family of Aaliyah Boyer plans to hold a candlelight vigil Saturday night, in honor of the 10-year-old girl who was killed by apparent celebratory gunfire as Cecil County rang in 2013 early Tuesday. Boyer was pronounced dead on Thursday at a Delaware hospital after two days on life support. She had been in the front yard at her grandfather's Elkton home just after the stroke of midnight Jan. 1 when she collapsed, struck by a falling bullet. Experts say people are injured far too often by celebratory gunfire .  Aaliyah's aunt, Ashleigh Rice, said the vigil will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. on Saturday at 65 AJS Court in Elkton.

Aaliyah Boyer had hoped to watch the New Year's ball drop on TV, but when she learned she had missed the stroke of midnight by 32 seconds, she returned to the front yard with her friends to watch her neighbors light fireworks. Nearby, someone apparently fired a gun into the air to add to the celebration. Amid the jubilation, the 10-year-old fell to the ground, the warmth and color draining from her body after she was hit by a falling bullet. Her family initially thought that she had fainted, but the wound would prove fatal.

We embark on a new year, but will anything change? Scott Calvert 's article about Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake being left off the list of City Hall workers with smartphones is just another example of what this country has become ("Rawlings-Blake left off list of people with City Hall smartphones," Dec. 31). America is supposed to be "the land of the free and the home of the brave. " Instead, it has become the land of the sleaze and the home of the crazed. When has honesty and integrity become the exception rather than the norm?

The new year of 2013 has begun! The festive holidays are a memory and new events are planned for January and the Senior Center in Aberdeen began its winter session on Wednesday. On Thursday, Jan. 3, there was blood pressure screening from 10 a.m. until noon. This screening is sponsored by Upper Chesapeake Medical Center. Today (Friday, Jan. 4) the men will have a discussion group from 9:30 a.m. until 10:15 a.m., when current events and various topics will be discussed in a friendly and informative setting.

Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Bridge has become the "world's only musical bridge." A computerized lighting system,keyed to live choral music, will be inaugurated on New Year's Eve in a free 45-minute celebration on the Great Plaza at Penn's Landing.The program,beginning at 11:30 p.m., will launches "Neighbors in the New Year," the city's yearlong program to commemoration of the Columbus Quincentenary. Seasonal music will be performed by a formed of community choirs, and at there will be a fireworks display over Delaware River and a pyrotechnic "waterfall" from jets along the bottom of the bridge.

Apologies to WQSR's Bob Worthington, who found himself transformed last week, thanks to a case of brain lock by yours truly, to Bob Montgomery.Want to ring-in the New Year via the radio? Here are someoptions: WBJC-FM (91.5): Garrison Keillor hits the airwaves at 11: 30 p.m. with "A Prairie Home Companion Late Night New Year's Party."WJHU-FM (88.1): Andy Bienstock puts together a special jazz show to run from 8: 30 p.m. to 10 p.m., followed by NPR's traveling jazz round-up from 10 p.m.-3 a.m.WOCT-FM (104.