Rare

In a span of less than two minutes of the second half against Iona on Sunday at Reitz Arena, Loyola coach Jimmy Patsos called three timeouts. Patsos was trying to get the Greyhounds to force the Gaels into taking tougher shots and coax his own team into playing a little harder. Patsos was unsuccessful on both counts. Iona played with more emotion, found plenty of open looks against the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference's second-best defensive team and surprised Loyola by staying with a stingy 2-3 zone defense for the entire game.

While the Ravens have reason to feel good about their 9-2 record - a mark good enough for what would be the No. 2 seed in the AFC if the playoffs began this week - the positive vibes are not universal among the players on offense. The offense has scored just one touchdown in its last 10 quarters, including the overtime period in Sunday's 16-13 win against the San Diego Chargers. Prior to quarterback Joe Flacco's 4-yard strike to tight end Dennis Pitta with 4:19 left in the fourth quarter, the offense's last score had occurred in the third quarter of the team's 55-20 rout of the Oakland Raiders on Nov. 11 when Flacco connected with wide receiver Torrey Smith for a 20-yard score.

Most of the 27 Navy seniors who will honored before Saturday's final home game against Texas State have contributed to the team's success on the field the past four years. But those who have made limited appearances - or even none at all - seem to share in that experience as much as those who have had starring roles. Matt Shibata, who came to Annapolis from Honolulu, has been in for a "handful of plays" at wide receiver. Offensive linemen Evan Campbell and Beau Haworth , who came from nearby high schools with the same football dreams as their fellow plebes, have not played a single down.

Bethune-Cookman @Morgan State Saturday, 1p.m. Radio: 88.9FM Frostburg finished the day with 184 yards on the ground, its second-highest total of the season. Chucky Iweh (Eastern Tech) led the way with 19 carries for 68 yards.

Horse racing Laurel Park race features rare double dead heat The seventh race at Laurel Park went down to the wire Monday afternoon as four horses arrived at the finish line together, resulting in a dead heat for first and a dead heat for third. The one-mile turf race for was for optional claiming runners. The final charge to the finish line included 21-1 shot Rockaby Bay and Masterel, who tied for the win, and Elkhorn Creek and Colonel Bill, who tied for third, a neck behind the winners.

People passing through the intersection at Charles and Centre streets recently may have noticed an intriguing banner hanging from the wall above the entrance to the Walters Art Museum . The oversize image depicts a black woman dressed in the manner of a 16 t h century Italian lady-in-waiting, who returns our gaze with an expression of ironic, amused self-awareness. Who is she? Alas, we don't know. The picture is based on a painting attributed to the Italian master Annibale Carracci, probably from the 1580s and possibly completed in Venice, where the artist is known to have traveled during those years and where objects such as the richly ornamented gilt tower clock the woman holds in one hand were common in the homes of that city's wealthy elite.

From how we live to where we can live, Marylanders have been expected to make an increasing number of personal sacrifices for the cause of cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay over the last two decades or more. Many have been small (whether laundry detergent contains phosphates or not now seems inconsequential), while others, including the cost to homeowners and businesses of greener, more advanced sewage treatment or storm water control systems, have been substantial. But are the state's most egregious polluters - those who truly thumb their noses at laws protecting the nation's largest estuary and knowingly spill noxious materials into the bay and its tributaries - held as accountable?

A person is more likely to get struck by lightening than shot while at a hospital, according to new research by Johns Hopkins. Investigators at Hopkins reviewed 11 years of data and found that 30 percent of hospital shootings occurred in emergency rooms. Nearly 50 percent of those shootings involved a security officer's gun - either stolen or used by a security. The study looked at 154 shootings at hospitals, resulting in 253 deaths or injuries. The shootings were difficult to prevent because they involved a "determined shooter," said Dr. Gabe Kelen, M.D., the lead author of the report, and the director of the Johns Hopkins Department of Emergency Medicine.

I long ago made my peace with the fact that when you call customer service, you get a machine rather than a human. It's OK, really, I've dealt with enough monosyllabic, gum-snapping staff at various service counters to welcome those polite if automated voices. But lately the machines don't seem to want to deal with me either — whenever I call a customer service line, I get a gentle but firm recorded suggestion to maybe hang up and go online for whatever help I need. No problem, but what if you're calling because your wireless connection has died?

When police accused an Edgemere man of having sex with a 13-year-old boy, most of the charges were straightforward: soliciting a minor and a related sexual offense, which together could carry up to 30 years in prison. But Baltimore County prosecutors also accused Steven Douglas Podles of knowingly attempting to transmit the HIV virus to the boy - a seldom-used, and often controversial, charge that carries an additional three years behind bars. Even as prosecutors prepare their case against Podles, the effectiveness of such laws is being debated by legislators and public health officials from Maryland to California.