Pennsylvania

Researchers hailed the Supreme Court ruling Wednesday that bans the patenting of human DNA, saying it would expand access to genetic testing for disease at lower cost to patients. In a unanimous decision, the justices said Myriad Genetics did not have exclusive rights to the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genes that are linked to significantly greater risk for breast cancer and thus should not be the only company allowed to test for it. "Myriad did not create anything," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for his fellow justices.

HERSHEY, Pa. -- If its first few minutes returning to the Big 33 Classic were any indicator, Maryland didn't belong. Returning as Pennsylvania's opponent in the annual high school football all-star game for the first time in 21 years, Maryland opened the game at Hersheypark Stadium by allowing Tyler Boyd to take back the opening kickoff 85 yards for a touchdown. The hosts scored the first 28 points in a 58-27 victory, as Maryland used the rest of the night finding its footing in the territory it had left in 1992.

While trying to assemble the best team possible to renew the Big 33 Football Classic rivalry with Pennsylvania this summer, the Maryland Big 33 coaches have run into a few more challenges than anticipated. Enough skill position players turned out, but not enough linemen, when Big 33 officials invited 139 players to a tryout combine at the Ravens' Under Armour Performance Center in Owings Mills on Feb. 9. Gilman coach Biff Poggi, who will coach Maryland in the Big 33, and his assistants hope to remedy that by having more linemen attend the final tryout on March 9 in Crofton.

One of Randy Edsall's goals in his final year at Susquehannock High School in Glen Rock, Pa., was to be named to the Pennsylvania roster for the Big 33 Football Classic. Although he wasn't selected for the 1976 game despite being an all-state quarterback, the Maryland football coach was ecstatic last October when he learned the state of Maryland would return to the high school football all-star game this year. The Maryland Football Coaches Association signed a five-year agreement with the Big 33 Scholarship Foundation, Inc., last fall to renew the state's participation in the game after a 21-year hiatus.

Led by Atholton forward Gavin Stephenson and Centennial point guard Keonte Potts, the Maryland All-Stars came away with a 102-94 win over their Pennsylvania counterparts in the Mid-State Roundball Showcase Saturday in Harrisburg, Pa. The Maryland team has won four of the past give games in the longstanding senior game. Stephenson sored 19 points and added seven assists and six rebounds, while Potts finished with 17 points, five assists and five rebounds. Maryland fell behind 15-6 early before going on a 27-5 run to take control for good.

Your editorial alleging that Pennsylvania's voter ID statute is designed to disenfranchise eligible voters ignores many basic facts ("Vote suppression in Pa.," Aug. 17). Under the statute, Pennsylvania will be giving out the requisite state IDs free of charge. In addition, multiple forms of identification are acceptable, including driver's licenses, passports, military IDs, college IDs, and government employee IDs. Furthermore, anyone who presents a Social Security card and two proofs of residence will get the requisite ID and voters who have no ID will be allowed to cast a provisional ballot pending proof of identity within six days.

A 21-year-old mentally disabled man who was reported missing from his home Saturday morning has been found in Pennsylvania. It's unclear when Adam Stewart Walter was found, but Maryland State Police from the Bel Air Barrack said in a press release Sunday Walter was found in Pennsylvania unharmed and he was being returned to his Harford home. Around 11:15 a.m. Saturday, Earlynda Anderson notified Maryland State Police troopers at the Bel Air Barrack that her son, Walter, was missing.

Perry Hills turned in a near-flawless performance Sunday in his final high school football game. The Maryland-bound quarterback completed 8 of 9 passes for 273 yards and four touchdowns , leading the West all-star team to a 45-24 win over the East in the 11th  Pennsylvania Scholastic Football Coaches Association All-Star Game . If any Maryland Terrapin fans were watching, Hills certainly gave them plenty of reason to...

Steven Scott's current show is just called "Pennsylvania," and it features scenes from our neighbor to the north in works by four artists. Robert Andriulli's hillsides are unsettling and vaguely threatening, as if something bad is about to happen. More placid and welcoming are David Hopkins' farm scenes. Joseph Sweeney contributes farm scenes as well, but also pictures of rowers on rivers that have great precedents in the works of that other Pennsylvania artist, Thomas Eakins. And Matthew Daub presents unromanticized small town scenes, as in "Willow Street" here.

YOU have a friend in Pennsylvania." It's the tourist marketing slogan of the commonwealth to the north. But if you look closely, particularly at the 253 members of the Keystone State's legislature, "You have trouble in Pennsylvania" is more accurate. From a lot of different angles, Maryland is the friendlier.Maryland's economy is hardly the picture of robust health, but the Free State is slowly emerging from recession. Pennsylvania, for so long a manufacturing powerhouse, continues in depression.

With three days until Maryland's return to the Big 33 Football Classic for the first time since 1992, five replacement players for the team's roster were announced Wednesday. Three Gilman defensive standouts -- lineman Henry Poggi, and linebackers Micah Kiser and Miles Norris -- won't play in the game. Neither will Severna Park's Mike Minter and Potomac's Marcus Pickens, according to a news release from the Big 33 Scholarship Foundation, Inc. Poggi and Kiser were selected as co-All-Metro Defensive Players of the Year last fall after leading the Greyhounds to the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference championship, while Norris made the All-Metro first team.

Delta, in Southern York County, Pennsylvania, will soon be the place to be for Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad fans when the Old Line Museum continues its tradition of bringing this famous and well-loved rail line back to life and all of its former glory each Sunday in June by photographs, memorabilia and tales of years gone bye. This will be the 38th year the museum has so honored this famous short line. Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad Month, as it is known to its many loyal followers, began in the Peach Bottom Rail Way Station on Bond Street in Delta, Pa., in 1976, the year that the Old Line Museum was founded.

Exelon Corp. said Tuesday that it has promoted the head of its Baltimore-based Constellation arm and named a new chief executive for the local operation. Kenneth W. Cornew, who had been Constellation's chief executive, is now CEO of Exelon Generation in Kennett Square, Pa. Exelon said Joseph Nigro, Constellation's former senior vice president of portfolio management and strategy, has stepped into the CEO job at the Baltimore business unit. Before working at Constellation, Nigro was a senior vice president for Exelon Power Team.

Tryouts for the Maryland team in the second annual Big 26 Baseball Classic against Pennsylvania will be held at two locations in the state later this month. The first tryout is scheduled for May 18 at the Northern Worcester Athletic Complex in Berlin for players on the Eastern Shore, while the second tryout is set for May 19 at Joe Cannon Stadium in Hanover for local players. The top 26 players from Maryland will be selected to take on the Pennsylvania team in a three-game series at Metro Bank Park in Harrisburg, Pa., from July 26 to 28. Maryland won the first Big 26 Baseball Classic last year.

Charles T. Mahan Jr., who spent 75 years painstakingly documenting the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad — better known as the Ma & Pa — that zig-zagged across Maryland from Baltimore to York, Pa., died Friday of kidney failure at Oak Crest Village. He was 88. "Every fan of the Ma & Pa will be eternally indebted to Charlie. He was a treasure," said Rudy Fischer, archivist of the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad Historical Society. "He documented its rolling stock, narrow- and later standard-gauge days.

A woman in her 70s was badly injured when she fell out of a moving antique pickup truck in Baltimore County Sunday morning near the Pennsylvania border, police said. Details of how the woman fell out of the 1949 black Chevrolet pickup were not available, and Baltimore County police were investigating the matter but it has not been determined whether charges will be filed, Lt. Rob McCullough, a police spokesman, said. The woman was flown to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center as a precaution, but her condition was stable and she was able to answer questions from detectives, McCullough said.

TC Harris Wofford, who was thought to be a Democratic sacrificial lamb when he was appointed to a vacant Senate seat in Pennsylvania last spring, is now given a good chance to defeat his Republican opponent, former two-term governor and former U.S. attorney general Dick Thornburgh, in Tuesday's special election. It would be the upset of the era. He was down 40 points in polls this summer. Mr. Wofford would become the first Pennsylvania Democrat elected to the Senate in 19 years -- and only the second in 50 years.

Interesting article on Baltimore transplants to York, Pa. ("Md. Transplants drive growth in Pa. county," March 22) Now you can do part two on the exodus to Delaware by those of us south of the city. Jay Esterson, Annapolis (but moving to Delaware this summer)

(Reuters) - A bus carrying a university women's lacrosse team crashed on the Pennsylvania Turnpike on Saturday, killing the driver and one of the passengers, turnpike and hospital officials said. In addition to the driver, the bus was carrying 23 students and three coaches from Seton Hill University, a Catholic school in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, turnpike spokesman Bill Capone said. Head Coach Kristie Quigley and Assistant Coach Cristen Sanfilippoi, are both from Baltimore, according to the team's website.

A college lacrosse coach from Baltimore County died after the team's bus crashed on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, also killing the driver and injuring 20 others Saturday morning, authorities said. Kristina Quigley, 30, the head coach for the Seton Hill University women's lacrosse team, died in the crash near Carlisle, Pa. Quigley, now of Greensburg, Pa., was six months pregnant. She died after being flown by helicopter to Penn State Hershey Medical Center, said turnpike spokesman Bill Capone.