North America

After its first full year of operation, the Hilton Baltimore Convention Center Hotel has been named one of the two best Hiltons in North America, based on customer surveys. Hilton executives will join with Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and other public officials at the city-owned hotel Wednesday to present the 2009 "Connie Award," named for hotel chain founder Conrad Hilton. The hotel company presents the award each year to recognize two Hiltons in the U. S., Mexico and Canada based on customer surveys of service, cleanliness and other factors.

Spring stirs pollen, and also dust - high-flying dust that's blown thousands of miles to reach North America in greater amounts than scientists have known before, with potential impact on the climate and air quality. Mineral dust rises from dry expanses in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, rides upper atmospheric winds for days across the Pacific Ocean to the West Coast of the United States and beyond. More than two miles up, it can reach Maryland, where scientists at College Park, Greenbelt and Catonsville have been tracking its global travels with satellite-based instruments in a way they say is more accurate and covers a longer period of time than previous studies.

NEW YORK -- Mexicans are not even debating the issue, the Federal Reserve is totally opposed and most Canadians think it's a loony idea, but some economists believe that North America will have a common currency by the year 2000, known as the Eagle.That would be just one year after the planned monetary union in the European Union."I don't think you can go much further with trade integration without finding that using separate currencies is less and less helpful," said George M. von Furstenberg, professor of economics at Indiana University, Bloomington.

Joseph Vecchiolla of Forest Hill has been promoted from vice president of U.S. field operations to president at Williams Scotsman, a leading provider of modular space and storage solutions in North America. In this new role, Vecchiolla is responsible for all financial, strategic and operational aspects of Williams Scotsman's U.S. business. He is also part of the Algeco Scotsman leadership team, collaborating with global colleagues to further establish the company's leadership position.

Is Ford finally shifting out of reverse? The nation's No. 2 automaker yesterday reported a $750 million net profit for the second quarter, although North American operations remained in the red. It was Ford's first quarterly profit in almost two years and defied Wall Street's expectations of another steep loss. Cost cutting, increased sales of higher-profit vehicles and strong results in overseas markets contributed to the surprise profit, although Ford also reported improvement in its core North American operations.

AS OF July 1, the BBC will end its shortwave transmissions to North America, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. This is further evidence of the technological revolution that is changing our lives. Many world travelers remember fondly the shortwave broadcasts. However badly the world seemed to be doing, the announcers' well-modulated Oxford accents gave assurance that all would be OK. Technology and listeners' preferences have been changing rapidly in recent years, though.

Fall is fading, days are shorter and parts of Maryland are already seeing snow. That all means it's time to think about booking winter trips to ski country. The question, of course, is where to go. North America offers coast-to-coast regional options for vacationers yearning to slide down slopes. Each offers its own distinct advantages and disadvantages. With that in mind, here's a quick pro and con look at some of the continent's more renowned winter sports destinations. Mid-Atlantic/Southeast The region: : A surprisingly large number of ski areas dot the mountain regions of Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

WILMINGTON, Del. -- General Motors Corp. Chairman John Smith Jr. says the automaker expects its annual sales outside North America to increase 50 percent in 10 years to 4.5 million vehicles, reflecting a booming global auto market.Speaking to shareholders at GM's annual meeting yesterday, Smith also said the company wants to mend relations with the United Auto Workers.The union has resisted GM's plans to cut costs by moving work to outside suppliers.Analysts said the world's largest automaker wants to squeeze more profit per vehicle sold in North America, where sales are expected to grow 1 percent to 2 percent this decade.

The first Americans came here from Asia about 11,500 years ago. All the old textbooks said so.They were a Mongoloid people who came on foot, tracking Ice Age game. They crossed the "land bridge" that joined Siberia and Alaska when glaciation lowered sea levels and exposed the broad shelf between the continents.But now new discoveries, and new techniques for dating archaeological sites and tracing human lineages, have raised big new questions. They suggest a far more complex and intriguing story of man's arrival in the New World.

ST. PIERRE AND MIQUELON, France -- This tiny outpost of the Old World boasts that it will be the first place in the New World to officially ring in the next millennium -- a claim that rankles with its only neighbor, the Canadian province of Newfoundland.Newfoundland has staked exclusive claim to the millennial honor and is hoping to attract celebrants from across North America for a waterfront bash in the historic port city of St. John's.But denizens of St. Pierre, 12 miles off Newfoundland's Burin Peninsula, insist that the continent's new age will start on their wind-scoured remnant of the once-vast empire known as New France.

Whether it's a war-zone deployment, a cargo ship in port for 18 hours or a passenger cruise ship on its regular stop, R.S. Stern Inc. has put groceries in larders and spare parts in engine rooms since 1870. From its brick warehouse in Canton, the company's 15 employees dispense uniforms and copier supplies, mops for swabbing and pork chops for dinner to about 1,000 ships calling on Baltimore and other nearby ports each year. Need a 4-by-6 Sri Lankan flag for the mast? Stern's got you covered.

Baltimore might have missed out on hosting World Cup matches when the U.S. lost its bid for the quadrennial event in 2022, but M&T Stadium will be part of another prestigious international soccer tournament when the 2013 CONCACAF Gold Cup comes to the city in July. M&T Bank Stadium is one of 13 venues that were announced Wednesday as hosts for the regional championship event. CONCACAF is the governing body for association soccer in North America, Central America and the Caribbean.

Thanks to an upcoming UMBC student seminar focused on American decline, I've been thinking a lot about what ails our great country. So much is being written lately on this subject. In my own travels and discussions with fellow Americans, I've noticed a disconcerting unease about the nation's future. In fact, there is growing evidence that for the first time in United States history, our best days may be behind us. Some of the reasons are external and largely beyond our control, such as the rising competition from fast-developing nations.

Chemical maker W.R. Grace hosted its first earnings conference call with analysts in nine years Thursday as it prepares to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Executives described a strong performance in new markets, such as Asia and the Middle East, and a weaker showing in North America and Europe, which the company said would lead to an unspecified number of job cuts. The Columbia-based company, which filed for bankruptcy in 2001 because of asbestos-related lawsuits, has been slowly ramping up activities normal for a public company.

After its first full year of operation, the Hilton Baltimore Convention Center Hotel has been named one of the two best Hiltons in North America, based on customer surveys. Hilton executives will join with Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and other public officials at the city-owned hotel Wednesday to present the 2009 "Connie Award," named for hotel chain founder Conrad Hilton. The hotel company presents the award each year to recognize two Hiltons in the U. S., Mexico and Canada based on customer surveys of service, cleanliness and other factors.

In an acquisition that will double its size, Ciena Corp. said Monday that it will buy the optical-networking assets of Nortel Networks Corp. for $769 million. The purchase - set to close in the first quarter next year - would make Linthicum-based Ciena the largest provider of fiber-optic networking gear in North America, and the third largest in the world. "This is a transformational deal, not just for Ciena, but for the industry," said Gary Smith, Ciena's president and chief executive officer.

The glory days of the roller coaster are back.This summer, 34 new roller coasters are opening across North America, the most in a single year since the Great Depression. One in particular is grabbing attention: a classic wooden roller coaster at Adventure World in Largo.Called ROAR, the ride incorporates elements from the most popular and scary roller coasters of the 1920s, considered the golden age of coasters.More to the point, ROAR careens over Southern yellow pine trees at 50 mph, crosses over itself 20 times, plunges into a 133-degree right turn, makes six reversals and rockets through a roofed section of track, all in 50 seconds.

Ingrid Mattson, a professor of Islamic studies at the Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, was the first woman, the first North American and the first convert to be elected president of the Islamic Society of North America, an umbrella group of student and religious groups across the United States and Canada. She took office last August and has been busy since attempting to explain her faith to Americans suspicious of Islamic fundamentalism in the post-Sept. 11 era and to women who question Islam's teachings on the role of women in society.

In an acquisition that will double its size, Ciena Corp. said Monday that it will buy the optical-networking assets of Nortel Networks Corp. for $769 million. The purchase - set to close in the first quarter next year - would make Linthicum-based Ciena the largest provider of fiber-optic networking gear in North America, and the third largest in the world. "This is a transformational deal, not just for Ciena, but for the industry," said Gary Smith, Ciena's president and chief executive officer.

Fall is fading, days are shorter and parts of Maryland are already seeing snow. That all means it's time to think about booking winter trips to ski country. The question, of course, is where to go. North America offers coast-to-coast regional options for vacationers yearning to slide down slopes. Each offers its own distinct advantages and disadvantages. With that in mind, here's a quick pro and con look at some of the continent's more renowned winter sports destinations. Mid-Atlantic/Southeast The region: : A surprisingly large number of ski areas dot the mountain regions of Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.