Ordeal

Mayor Sheila Dixon said on Thursday that she felt deep regret for the "ordeal" her just-concluded criminal trial inflicted on Baltimore, but did not apologize for embezzling gift cards intended for the needy. Reading a 64-second prepared statement, Dixon spoke publicly about the case for the first time since leaving Baltimore Circuit Court, where she was convicted this week of a misdemeanor related to spending gift cards she solicited from a developer. She took no questions, and did not indicate whether she intends to appeal her conviction or is considering stepping down, saying her lawyers advised her to "limit my comments.

A tarpaulin system that caught too much wind forced an extended shutdown Tuesday of the westbound span of the Bay Bridge, officials said, turning the morning commute into an hours-long ordeal for thousands of Marylanders. Workers doing overnight maintenance on the westbound bridge felt what was described as unusual vertical movement about 3 a.m., according to the Maryland Transportation Authority. Authority Executive Secretary Harold Bartlett said the MdTA decided to keep the three-lane westbound bridge closed and to wait for daylight for a visual inspection.

At long last, the ordeal of the Cruzan family of Missouri has ended; Nancy Cruzan is legally dead.In her family's view, Nancy has been dead since 1983, when an automobile accident left a vibrant young woman of 25 in an irreversibly comatose state. Her case came to national attention because Missouri had one of the nation's most stringent standards for determining what an incompetent patient's decision would be in regard to life-prolonging medical care.She left no written indication of her wishes, and the testimony of close associates was not deemed "clear and convincing" evidence of what she would want done.

Christopher Tkacik, lost in the dark in a state park on Catoctin Mountain, had his dog, iPhone and a slowly draining battery. He could talk to the police trying to find him, but neither they nor the GPS on his smart phone could guide him out. So the 43-year-old attorney from Mount Airy turned on the device's flashlight and held it in the air. A trooper in a Maryland State Police helicopter, using night vision equipment, saw the "faint glow" from...

In the middle of Children of Beslan, an emotionally powerful HBO documentary about the 2004 terrorist attack on a Russian school, one of the young hostages tells of her fantasy during the 57-hour ordeal. "I was hoping that Harry Potter would come," she says. "I was thinking he had a cloak that made him invisible, and he would come and wrap me in it, and we'd be invisible and we'd escape." Russian soldiers did come, but in the battle with Chechen extremists holding more than 1,100 children and adults in the gymnasium of Middle School No. 1, some 200 adults and 171 children died.

It was to have been the last leg of their Guatemalan journey, an immersion in the remnants of an ancient culture. The locals would greet them with a simple dinner of beans and rice. Then they would witness a ceremony conducted by a Mayan priest.But the 16 students and faculty of St. Mary's College never made their destination, colliding instead with the remnants of 20th-century warfare. Seven men with automatic weapons forced their bus from the highway and marched them into a field of sugar cane.

* Ashley A. Boone Jr., one of the first blacks to hold a major marketing position with a top movie studio, died of cancer Sunday in Santa Monica, Calif. He was a marketing consultant for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, United Artists and other firms. He helped market James Bond films, "Star Wars," "West Side Story" and "Chariots of Fire."* Karl Hettinger, 59, the Los Angeles police officer who survived the "Onion Field" ordeal in which his partner was slain, died Wednesday in Bakersfield, Calif., after a long illness.

We are not supposed to blame Bill. It's Leon Panetta wh canceled Bill's campaign promises.Ross Perot is back in the game. What game, he will, presumably, eventually make clear.Karadzic and Milosevic have perfected a good-Serb, bad-Serb routine that works every time.Cheer up, Little Rock, your ordeal is nearly over.

The senator, a Democrat, was speaking after the death of the former president. Levin called his fellow Michigander "a healer" who unified the nation after the ordeal of Watergate. ?We will honor his memory in many ways, but one immediate way is to return the Gerald Ford quality of civility to the nation?s capital.? Sen. Carl Levin

100 years agoThe supply of oysters in Annapolis is limited. With the thermometer at 12 degrees above zero, it was not expected that oystermen could work, and the few who attempted to visit the grounds returned without throwing their rakes overboard. -- The Sun, Jan. 6, 1896.Next Monday, the semi-annual examination of cadets will begin at the Naval Academy. Of the 60 posted as being behind in their studies, it is likely about 25 will be unable to pass "through the ordeal." -- The Sun, Jan. 23, 1896.

Louis Sachwald, who spent 42 months as a prisoner of war during World War II after the fall of Bataan and Corregidor in the Philippines and managed to survive slave labor camps, enforced marches and "hell" ships, died Feb. 28 of dementia at the Charlotte Hall Veterans Home in Southern Maryland. The former Pikesville resident was 92. Mr. Sachwald was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and moved in 1934 with his family to Lancaster, Pa. After graduating from McCaskey High School in 1937, he earned a bachelor's degree in education in 1940 from Millersville State Teachers College.

One by one, citizens of Baltimore who had failed to show up for jury duty stood before the judge. Some pleaded they were sick or busy, and showed letters from doctors. Most simply agreed to pick a date and sign a summons, and the judge kindly dismissed charges that could have sent some to jail for a year. Eric King brought a lawyer and requested a hearing. In the courtroom Wednesday, Robert L. Pierson of Pierson & Pierson of Towson turned to his client and asked: "Did anything happen on February 8 that caused you not to appear?"

Mayor Sheila Dixon said on Thursday that she felt deep regret for the "ordeal" her just-concluded criminal trial inflicted on Baltimore, but did not apologize for embezzling gift cards intended for the needy. Reading a 64-second prepared statement, Dixon spoke publicly about the case for the first time since leaving Baltimore Circuit Court, where she was convicted this week of a misdemeanor related to spending gift cards she solicited from a developer. She took no questions, and did not indicate whether she intends to appeal her conviction or is considering stepping down, saying her lawyers advised her to "limit my comments.

For three hours, it was like any other football game he had ever played in, a blip on the big-screen picture that is Matt Stover's illustrious NFL kicking career. Only when it was over, when his new team, the Indianapolis Colts, beat his old team, the Ravens, did Stover let down his guard and hint at what this meant. "I am emotionally exhausted," he said in the Colts' locker room. "I'm toast. I may not show it, but I'm toast. That's hard, especially against friends and a team you love so much.

When Rhonda Bautista Grenier learned she had breast cancer at age 42, she not only faced a terrifying diagnosis, but the daunting logistics of treatment. How could she tackle a grueling schedule of chemotherapy and radiation, full of painful side effects and hours spent away from three demanding teenagers and a full-time job? Grenier learned of a new clinical trial at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center that promised to shorten treatment from more than seven months to as a little as seven weeks for women like her who had been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer.

A 23-year-old bulldozer driver was sentenced Friday to spend the rest of his life in prison for the armed kidnapping and robbery of two teenagers last October at a light-rail station in Timonium and the subsequent rape of one of the victims. Kiheem Malik Taylor subjected the young couple to "torture" and "an absolute living hell" for two hours, during which they were "in fear of death," Baltimore County Circuit Judge Robert N. Dugan said before ordering the defendant imprisoned to the maximum term allowed under law -- two consecutive life sentences plus 100 years.

SHE WENT TO WAR. By Rhonda Cornum, as told to Peter Copeland. Presidio. 203 pages. $19.95.IF THE enraged opponents of women in combat would read "She Went to War," their fears and prejudices should be dispelled. Maj. Rhonda Cornum may be remembered as one of two women prisoners of war during the Persian Gulf conflict who, though wounded, returned home alive.This amazing woman is a flight surgeon on active duty with the Army, a medical doctor, pilot, paratrooper and Ph.D. in biochemistry, the wife of an Air Force flight surgeon and, last but not least, the (attractive)