Prize

WASHINGTON -- Former Vice President Al Gore won a share of the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday for his work on global climate change, and he pledged to use the recognition to increase attention to what he called "the most dangerous challenge we have ever faced." With some supporters stepping up efforts to enlist Gore in the 2008 presidential contest, the former Democratic nominee avoided talk of a political comeback as he discussed the Nobel, saying he was "deeply honored" by the selection.

MTV said yesterday that tabloid fixture and sometime pop singer Britney Spears will open Sunday's Video Music Awards with a performance of her new single, "Gimme More." It will be her fourth VMA performance, following such memorable moments as her kiss with Madonna in 2003 and her entrance at the 2001 show with a python draped over her shoulders. The show airs live at 9 p.m. Mailer ailing Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer spent Labor Day weekend in a hospital with breathing difficulties and has been told not to travel for now, his editorial assistant said yesterday.

Big Brother 8 featured its classiest moment on Sunday night, when the contestants were required to strip naked for a luxury challenge. Most of the women weren't amused, but once they found out the prize -- a two-minute shopping spree for new clothes -- they all got over it, and their team won. Who needs principles when designer duds are at stake?

FISHERMEN through age 15 turned out at Walnut Pond in Manchester on June 19 for the annual Youth Fishing Derby sponsored by Manchester Parks Foundation.The Northern Maryland Bassmasters Association members measured and weighed each fish caught by the children before releasing them. Live bait and prizes were provided by Reisterstown Bait and Tackle.The first group, about 20 children up to age 9, fished for 90 minutes. Brian Snyder had the first lucky nibble, and caught the first fish and a prize.

Buddy Roogow has a tip for people who play Lotto: Don't buy a ticket in the hope of winning the jackpot."The odds of winning are lousy," he said in a recent interview. "How can you say one in 6.9 million is good odds?"Roogow should know. He runs the game.In the 14 months since he took over as director of an ailing Maryland lottery, the former aide to Gov. Parris N. Glendening has engineered significant strategic changes and markedly increased the energy level at the 25-year-old agency.Instead of touting lottery games as a road to riches, Roogow is recasting them as a form of show biz."

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. -- An 80-year-old Narrowsburg, N.Y., woman said she sent thousands of dollars to telemarketers because she had become "addicted" to the attention her new telephone friends had offered."

When Brandon E. Hopkins was named the winner yesterday of Washington College's lucrative Sophie Kerr Prize, and his friends started cheering, "I just totally blanked out," he recalled afterward. "It was sensory overload. It's a rush."Hopkins, a 21-year-old senior from Frederick, won $29,300 -- America's largest undergraduate literary prize.He was chosen in part for a novel he began writing last year about a university student who finds love, makes a literary pilgrimage to Paris, and faces a difficult reunion with his father.

CHESTERTOWN -- "It really is a room of one's own," says Kelli Youngblood as she leans across a desk strewn with her poems to look out of the garret room's only window.The Virginia Woolf reference is deft and deliberate. Youngblood is a 22-year-old poet and student of literature who will graduate from Washington College in Chestertown on Sunday. She is also one of the candidates for the Sophie Kerr Prize, an annual cash award the school gives to a graduating senior who shows literary promise.

Diana K. Sugg, a reporter for The Sun, was named winner yesterday of the 1997 A. D. Emmart Memorial Prize for "The Forever Children," a March 23 article on an aging man's struggle to care for his 43-year-old disabled son.Her article also won the 1997 Community Media Excellence Award, one of two awards given annually by The Arc of the United States, a national organization on mental retardation.The Emmart prize of $1,000 honors writing in the humanities published in a Maryland general-readership newspaper or magazine.

NEW YORK -- Tough new federal regulations aimed at telemarketing fraud took effect on the last day of 1995.DTC This vicious, multibillion-dollar business knows how to victimize anyone with needs to fill: the unemployed seeking business opportunities; the compassionate, who want to help hurricane or earthquake victims; shoppers seeking bargains; people deniedcredit cards or bank loans; investors dreaming of big hits; believers in luck, who think they might...

If there is a common theme linking the finalists for the Janet & Walker Sondheim Prize, it may be that the methods of creating art can be as important as the art itself. "This year is a very process-oriented, installation-based type of show," says Gary Kachadourian, visual arts coordinator with the Baltimore Office for Promotion in the Arts, which created the prize to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Artscape in 2006. "It is a good mix of people, representing a good mix of ideas." Those ideas include finding the artistic potential in dirt, photocopied books, recycled materials, barren parking lots, a polar bear's heart rate and even vintage cartoon character Mr. Magoo.

CHESTERTOWN - - A 21-year-old from the Philadelphia suburbs who'd already decided he wants to pursue a life of writing walked away Sunday from Washington College's commencement with a check for nearly $69,000 - the largest literary award in the country for undergraduates. William Bruce, a soft-spoken English major from Rydal, Pa., won the small liberal arts college's Sophie Kerr Prize with a portfolio of poems, essays and an excerpt from the memoir of a Rwandan genocide survivor. "When I came here, I thought I wanted to be a high school English teacher," Bruce said.

Each of the six electric guitars on display, crafted from such exotic woods as cocobolo and padauk, could easily have belonged to one of the greats. If only Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia and Chet Atkins could show up to claim them, press the sculpted wooden bodies to their torsos and let their fingers bring them to life. But wait. Are these actual musical instruments, or just for show? After all, there is an almost otherworldly quality to their glossy physical perfection. And check out the name of the manufacturer, gracefully inset in mother of pearl.

Series America's Next Top Model: : In the season premiere, 34 finalists head to Las Vegas for their first photo shoot before Tyra Banks whittles them down to the 13 finalists who will move to a loft in New York and compete for the top prize. (8 p.m., WNUV-Channel 54) American Idol: : Three more finalists are chosen. (8 p.m., WBFF-Channel 45) Criminal Minds: : The team searches for a serial killer who stages car crashes to cover up the way his victims really died. (9 p.m., WJZ-Channel 13)

on the job hanah.cho@baltsun.com Since Towson University's The Apprentice-like competition began four years ago, it has provided the winning contestant a full-time gig with a Baltimore-area employer. Executives playing the Donald Trump role have included Ed Hale, chairman and chief executive of First Mariner Bank; Frank Bramble, a director at Bank of America; Jonathan Murray, senior vice president at The Murray Group of UBS Financial; and John Tolmie, president and CEO of St. Joseph Medical Center.

'Blart: Mall Cop' retains No. 1 box office ranking Paul Blart: Mall Cop wasn't ready to turn over his box-office badge this weekend, as the film about a bumbling shopping center security guard earned $21.5 million to take the No. 1 spot for a second week in a row. The comedy, starring Kevin James, has grossed $64.8 million in its two weeks of release and appears on its way to surpass $100 million. The third installment of the Underworld series fared well in its opening weekend. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, a prequel that looks at the roots of a feud between vampires and werewolves, made $20.7 million.

Eight local artists representing a variety of disciplines will be selected to receive a total of $80,000 in prize money next year as part of a new initiative called the Baker Artist Awards. An unusual twist to the program is that it is Internet-based, with artists required to nominate themselves by uploading their portfolios and biographies on a dedicated Web site - bakerartistawards.org - and viewers or listeners encouraged to vote for the artists they want to win. Established by the William G. Baker Jr. Memorial Fund and administered by the nonprofit Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, the program was created to honor artists living in and around Baltimore, support them by showcasing their work on the Web, and encourage more artists to move to the area.

Developers for old city landfill site are named The Baltimore Development Corp. said yesterday that it has chosen developers for the former Bowleys Lane Landfill and Eastern Sanitation Yard in Northeast Baltimore. Chesapeake Real Estate Group and McCrary Development, which plan to build a $31.7 million light industrial and warehouse business park called Moravia Business Center, will enter into negotiations with the BDC on the project. The development would include five buildings totaling 423,800 square feet and would create about 140 permanent jobs.

As Fred Menage made his way to the stage at Sandy Point State Park yesterday, a finalist in the Maryland Fishing Challenge contest, he stopped and hugged one of the top prizes, a $20,000 bass boat. Minutes later, Menage, 69, grabbed his head and let out a shout. He didn't win the boat. Instead, the Edgewater fisherman won a $35,000 Toyota pickup truck, the other top prize. The boat and trailer went to Edir Sauerbronn Dos Santos, 65, a store manager from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, who, on his first charter fishing trip, hooked a 42-inch striped bass that gained him entry to the contest.

Geoff Grace has been a marine scientist on the Pacific Ocean, a museum educator in Florida, a high school teacher in Overlea and a guitarist in his own band, the Tall Grass. But now as the winner of this year's Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize, the Geoff-of-all-trades appears to have found his true calling - as a visual artist who explores ideas in a wide range of art forms, including drawing, sculpture and photography. The 33-year-old Maryland native won Saturday after competing against five other finalists for the $25,000 prize.