New Year S Eve

In Baltimore City Day care center in home raided after drug sting is closed A day care center in a home raided by police after a drug-sting operation last weekend in Northeast Baltimore has been ordered closed by the Maryland Child Care Administration, state officials said yesterday. Monica's Honey Bears Daycare in the 2800 block of Kentucky Ave. was ordered closed Monday after the agency was notified by police that detectives had seized heroin and cocaine in the living quarters of the home.

Every Lunar New Year for most of the past 4,698 years, costume dragons have danced through China's cities and villages. They weave through smoky streets, past balconies dangling strings of firecrackers, noisily popping to drive evil spirits away. For far longer than just two millenniums, the Chinese have tried, through good times and bad, to thoroughly clean house, pay off all debts, gather with family members -- no matter how scattered -- and usher in the New Year at tables groaning with a feast of symbolic dishes.

Thousands of people cheered last night at the Inner Harbor as the first blasts of fireworks exploded over the World Trade Center at midnight, marking the beginning of the New Year.There was a crescendo of blaring paper horns as the countdown toward midnight began. The crowd grew wilder by the second and greeted the fireworks with overwhelming enthusiasm."It's awesome; it's cool," yelled Mary Ellen San Juan of Towson."That's the extent of her vocabulary," noted her friend, Jovie Soriano, also of Towson.

For countless Americans, the word champagne will always call to mind two things: New Year's Eve parties and New Year's Day hangovers.In the more innocent days of the 1950s, 1960s and into the 1970s, before this country began to take such matters as alcoholism and drunk driving seriously, it was virtually a social duty to get pig-kissing drunk on New Year's Eve. And champagne -- or at least the fizzy stuff we called champagne -- became the poison of choice...

So you want to party like it's 1999? There will be plenty of opportunities in and around the Baltimore area tonight.Here is a roundup of some happenings.First Night Annapolis is celebrating with its ninth year of turning the city into a mega party zone with activities for children and adults. For the younger set, there will be afternoon activities, including Professor Horne's Punch and Judy puppet show. Jack Julius will present a magic act, and there will be storytelling by Tom McCabe and Maria Broom.

Within the first 15 minutes of the new year, Baltimore police shot and wounded three men who they say pointed guns at them during an effort to arrest people celebrating the new year by firing their weapons. The 150 Baltimore police officers - most in plain clothes - assigned to the initiative seized 113 weapons and arrested 99 people, many of whom were charged with handgun violations, police said. "People have made this an unspoken tradition in Baltimore," said police spokeswoman Ragina C. Averella.

A 40-year-old Maryland Transportation Authority Police officer was killed on New Year's Eve by a hit-and-run driver in Baltimore, his superior officers said yesterday. The officer, Courtney G. Brooks, a 13-year veteran of the force, was part of a traffic detail near the interchange of Interstates 95 and 395 when he was struck about 11:20 p.m. Monday, said Marcus Brown, chief of the Transportation Authority Police. A city Fire Department ambulance took Brooks to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead at 12:29 a.m. yesterday.

Just before the fireworks set ablaze the night sky, the bandleader bellowed into the microphone the words to the hit James Brown song, "I Feel Good," and the crowd ushering in the New Year at Baltimore's Inner Harbor late last night erupted into applause. It was the perfect song, perhaps, to pay tribute to the legendary singer who died last week, celebrate the Ravens late-afternoon win against the Buffalo Bills and begin 2007 with a sense of optimism.

Thousands of people streamed into Baltimore's Inner Harbor on New Year's Eve night to welcome 2013 with a bang of fireworks expected at midnight — a tradition for some and a new experience for others — as police scanned the crowds for threats. Steve and Lori Foster, along with their twin 12-year-old sons, Luke and Dylan, traveled from Newark, Del., for their first New Year's Eve in the city. "Somebody told us they have a really nice event down here, so we decided to come check it out," Steve said.

Before the kids slide into the post-Christmas blues, check out some activities they can do.Children in kindergarten through eighth grade can exercise away some of that holiday energy at the Longwell Municipal Center, where the Westminster Recreation Department has a Holiday Open Gym.Chose any session from noon to 2 p.m. or 2 to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Friday. Cost is $1 per child per session.The center is on Longwell Avenue. Information: 848-6962.*Pre-teens can skate through holidays at the Carroll County Middle School Recreation Council's Christmas skating party.