Radius

WESTMINSTER - Growing populations in the 21157 ZIP code radius have prompted postal officials to begin planning for the addition of a new ZIP code.The code now serves a 149-square-foot radius encompassing the city, Uniontown, Silver Run and the Wakefield Valley area.Although the new boundaries have not been drawn yet, citizens changing to the new code will be notified well before it comes into effect next July, said Bob Novak, communications specialist for the Postal Service in Baltimore.

It was one of those slightly disorienting, out-of-context scenes, a business breakfast held in a failed nightclub. Developers, lawyers and other be-suited downtown execs helped themselves to coffee and pastries at a bar still lined with top-shelf vodkas and whiskeys, then hovered around the dance floor waiting not for the DJ but the mayor. Sheila Dixon's talk at the Downtown Partnership breakfast on Thursday seemed a mismatch of message and setting. Not that it didn't feature the expected bizspeak - the word "maximize" figured prominently - or applause lines about focusing on road repairs and public transit that were tailored to a crowd dominated by commuting 9-to-5'ers.

WASHINGTON - Sunbathers perched atop military firing targets in the Chesapeake Bay have prompted the Navy to push for tougher restrictions at the firing range, Pentagon officials said.The Hannibal Target area, 600 feet in radius off the St. Mary's County shoreline between Cedar Point and Point Lookout State Park, has been used since World War II by the Patuxent River Naval Air Warfare Center for testing with nonexplosive bombs.But trespassers have used the target - a buoy shaped like a billboard on its side and raised to a 30-degree angle - for climbing and sunbathing, said Steve Elinsky, a biologist for the Army Corps of Engineers.

A development boom that revitalized huge swaths of downtown Baltimore this decade slowed last year, with plans scaled back or delayed amid the recession and tightened credit markets. Vacancies increased 2 percent in downtown offices, and about 1,000 jobs were lost, the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore says in a report to be unveiled Thursday. Job losses are expected to continue mounting this year as layoffs continue in the financial services sector. But even as 2009 promises to be a tougher year, the State of Downtown Baltimore report makes the case that downtown is better positioned now than it was in the early 1990s to weather a recession and likely to fare better than some harder hit parts of the country.

There is a fuzzy dividing line between personal computers and a class of computers known as workstations, and the boundary is constantly drifting upward as PCs become more powerful.In general, though, a workstation can be defined as a single-user computer that is more powerful than the fastest PC, but not as powerful as the minicomputers used by businesses to run entire departments.Workstations are typically used for such specialized tasks as computer-aided design and engineering, scientific modeling, financial analysis and the manipulation of complex graphics in advanced desktop publishing.

25 Years Ago (Week of June 21-27, 1970)* An overflow crowd attending a concert by The Who at Merriweather Post Pavilion caused a massive traffic jam in the area. It was estimated that the crowd, which spilled over into Symphony Woods, numbered about 20,000. This was about 40 percent more than the capacity of the pavilion.* The Wilde Lake Board of Directors voted to fill a board vacancy with a teen-ager, so that the views of the younger members of the community would be represented.50 Years Ago (Week of June 24-30, 1945)

Prospective homebuyers and renters who have questions about the area they are thinking of moving into may find the answers in Neighborhood I.D. from Advicon LLC in White Plains, in Charles County.Neighborhood I.D. reports contains demographic information for a one-mile radius surrounding the address customers are considering moving to. Reports can also be ordered by street intersection, ZIP code, town or city, census tract or county.The National Association of Realtors says, "It is unlawful for real estate professionals to encourage or discourage the purchase or rental of a home because of the racial, ethnic or religious dTC composition of a neighborhood.

The hunt for the dangerous gasoline additive MTBE, which is contaminating wells in the Upper Crossroads area of Fallston, is expanding in geographical extent, in testing techniques and in sources suspected as a cause of the problem. Some residents of the area are not satisfied with the progress of the state testing program and have hired private contractors to examine their wells. When Darrin Ryan of Fallston had his well tested privately for methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, he was alarmed by the findings.

The hunt for the dangerous gasoline additive MTBE, which is contaminating wells in the Upper Crossroads area of Fallston, is expanding in geographical extent, in testing techniques and in sources suspected as a cause of the problem. Some residents of the area are not satisfied with the progress of the state testing program and have hired private contractors to examine their wells. When Darrin Ryan of Fallston had his well tested privately for methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, he was alarmed by the findings.

A development boom that revitalized huge swaths of downtown Baltimore this decade slowed last year, with plans scaled back or delayed amid the recession and tightened credit markets. Vacancies increased 2 percent in downtown offices, and about 1,000 jobs were lost, the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore says in a report to be unveiled Thursday. Job losses are expected to continue mounting this year as layoffs continue in the financial services sector. But even as 2009 promises to be a tougher year, the State of Downtown Baltimore report makes the case that downtown is better positioned now than it was in the early 1990s to weather a recession and likely to fare better than some harder hit parts of the country.

Contracts Training Services On Demand Inc., based in Myersville, Frederick County, was awarded a General Services Administration schedule contract to provide federal agencies with training programs on a one-stop, no-compete basis. Openings Gay Street Food Emporium opened at 239 N. Gay St. with four franchises, Chix's Chicken, Hot Stuff Grill, Hot Stuff Pizza and Nap's Barbeque. The project involved restoration of three early 1850s units, including one with a cast-iron fa?ade, and was developed in conjunction with the Maryland Historic Trust.

IN THE WAKE of yesterday's diatribe about Washington's ridiculously generous ballpark financing deal, several readers were quick to point out that people who live near a certain glass house known as M&T Bank Stadium should think twice before throwing self-righteous stones. Maryland gave away the farm long before Washington even thought about its controversial Cropp subsidy plan, handing Art Modell and the transplanted Cleveland Browns such a sweet deal that Modell was eventually shamed into trading back millions in PSL revenues to calm public outrage.

The hunt for the dangerous gasoline additive MTBE, which is contaminating wells in the Upper Crossroads area of Fallston, is expanding in geographical extent, in testing techniques and in sources suspected as a cause of the problem. Some residents of the area are not satisfied with the progress of the state testing program and have hired private contractors to examine their wells. When Darrin Ryan of Fallston had his well tested privately for methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, he was alarmed by the findings.

The hunt for the dangerous gasoline additive MTBE, which is contaminating wells in the Upper Crossroads area of Fallston, is expanding in geographical extent, in testing techniques and in sources suspected as a cause of the problem. Some residents of the area are not satisfied with the progress of the state testing program and have hired private contractors to examine their wells. When Darrin Ryan of Fallston had his well tested privately for methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, he was alarmed by the findings.

PORTSMOUTH, Va. -- Possibly the Hampton Roads area hasn't heard there's a bad economy going on, that we need to be thrifty and not squander our resources. Instead, this happily cluttered corner of Virginia luxuriantly overflows with fascinating places, vistas and events to visit. There is history and natural beauty and industry and agriculture and big urban centers and beautiful rural scenes. There's culture and entertainment and sports and footprints from every era of the nation's past.

Sharon Kirin was trying to have her son's bus stop moved closer to their Eldersburg home when she found out that her 5-year-old would not be allowed on the bus at all for much longer. With the roads of their new housing development nearly complete and their quiet cul-de-sac just eight-tenths of a mile from Freedom Elementary School, Kirin's son and 31 other neighborhood children were soon to be designated by the school system as walkers. "That really surprised me because I had not realized that anybody walked to Freedom.

The identity of Baltimore's competition for an NFL expansion franchise came into sharp focus yesterday. Sacramento, Honolulu and Oakland swelled the ranks, but not the odds.Although formal applications were filed by 11 cities, the short list of front-runners did not change appreciably.The big three fighting for two teams in 1994 still appear to be Charlotte, St. Louis and Baltimore.The list of applicants was fairly representative of the group of cities that have talked up expansion in recent years.

Comedian Dennis Miller was kidding when he said they were about to open a Starbucks inside another Starbucks, but in Towson, it looks like the joke won't be far from the truth. For the past few years, Towson residents and shoppers have had the choice of getting their super-strong Seattle brew in the Barnes & Noble in the old Hutzler's building downtown or in Towson Town Center just across Joppa Road. A few months ago, another Starbucks opened in the Dulaney Plaza shopping center, across the street from the mall.