Painting

A federal court in Virginia was asked Friday to determine the proper ownership of a miniature landscape painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and purchased for $7 in a box of odds and ends in a rural flea market. The complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria is essentially the first step in determining where the 1879 "Paysage Bords de Seine" will end up. Such a document is frequently filed by a third party — in this case, the U.S. government — that is holding property whose ownership is in dispute.

Christopher McKenna, an aspiring young artist, packs talent into a creative window painting of the school mascot, a ram. The 13-year-old Edgewood Middle School student, originally from Alabama, moved to Edgewood when he was 9. He lives with his mother, Colleen McKenna, and three siblings who also attend Edgewood Middle and Edgewood High. Christopher is considering becoming an artist one day. He plans to paint a larger ram image on the front window of Edgewood Middle School for all visitors to see as they enter.

The No. 10 Arundel boys basketball team knew the Class 4A East regional final at North Point was going to be a tough, physical game and it was. Both teams had a player foul out in a game that featured 68 fouls, but the one-two scoring combination of Matt Bonds (26 points) and Anthony Williams (21) was too much for the Wildcats, who fell, 89-64, Friday night. "Their pressure tired our guys out," Arundel coach Jeff Starr said. "We eventually broke the press, but our shots weren't falling.

In October 2011, the Court of Appeals, Maryland's highest court, struck down provisions of the Reduction of Lead Risk in Housing Act that gave landlords immunity from being sued in some circumstances when children were poisoned by lead based paint in their properties. The court left intact the safety provisions of the act that require landlords statewide to meet certain minimum safety standards with respect to lead based-paint hazards. The court said that the immunity provisions were unconstitutional because they denied brain-damaged children their day in court and denied them a remedy for their injuries.

We are pretty sure of our stereotypes in this country, and we hold them close. One of them is that teen pregnancy is an inner-city problem, a poor problem, a black problem. Another is that "rural" equals "farm," and life there is wholesome and God-fearing. Like so many of the things we believe to be true, these aren't. Not exactly. New research from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy reveals that the teen birth rate is a third higher in rural counties than in other areas of the country, regardless of age, race or ethnicity.

One day, the Poly girls will look back at what happened the day they won their second straight regional title and laugh. Well, maybe. Aneah Young's three-point play with 1.2 seconds remaining gave No. 8 Poly a 45-43 victory over host Paint Branch in the Class 4A North regional championship game. That capped a wild and wacky Friday that started with the Engineers arriving at the Montgomery County school shortly before the start and ended with Young making a lay-up on a play where she just wanted to draw a foul.

Why did Baltimore need to pay outside consultants half a million dollars for a report that says the city's financial future is grim? Some city residents wondered as much after Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called for a new trash collection fee, a smaller city workforce and cuts to employee benefits as a way to deal with the projected $750 million, 10-year budget shortfall the consultants projected. For a city as financially strapped as Baltimore, couldn't that work have been done in house?

A report by a consultant hired by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's administration paints a dire picture of future city finances — opening the door for Baltimore officials to propose widespread cuts, including to city employees' health and pension benefits. The report by Philadelphia-based Public Financial Management Inc. concluded that Baltimore is facing a structural deficit of nearly $750 million over the next 10 years. It pointed to pension and health care costs as the two biggest drivers of the city's projected deficit.

The painting is hung prominently in the private office of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Titled "Wide Left," it shows an oversized football, a tiny goal post and the final score of 23-20, collectively representing the end of last year's AFC championship game won by the Patriots on former Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff's botched 32-yard field goal attempt in the waning seconds. The artist who created the colorful 4-foot-by-4-foot painting laughs at some of the irony of what transpired since he gave it to Kraft last summer.

Eric Evers, a member of the Baltimore Ravens grounds crew, calls it "the dance of the paint guns," and after five playoff appearances in a row, they've got the steps down pat. The crew, headed by Don Follett, spray-painted the team's helmet logo on the grounds of the War Memorial in front of City Hall Tuesday morning - then did it again on the steep and windy side of Federal Hill overlooking the Inner Harbor - to celebrate the team's home playoff...