Seven

A Maryland Army National Guard training exercise apparentl went awry last night as seven Special Forces paratroopers missed the drop site -- with one left in a tree and one hitting the water at the Lauderick Creek weekend training site, near the Edgewood Area of the Aberdeen Proving Ground, a spokesman said.Lt. Col. Howard O. Freedlander, the Guard spokesman, said that an evening parachute training exercise "encountered a problem. . . . All of our people are OK."The seven paratroopers jumped from a Chinook helicopter during a routine training mission, Colonel Freedlander said.

Now in its seventh season, Jack's Bistro has settled into a fine groove. The small Canton restaurant is essentially doing today what it was doing from the start - exactly what it wants to do. If that makes Jack's sound arrogant, you don't know Jack's. You won't find a more down-to-earth set of proprietors than the husband-and-wife team behind Jack's Bistro, Ted Stelzenmuller and Christie Smertycha - he's the owner and executive chef; she's the general manager. They're inveterate travelers, lifelong learners and constitutionally nice people.

Faced with federal cutbacks and the demand for smaller government, Gov. Parris N. Glendening yesterday laid off seven members of his own staff, the first wave of cuts that could claim the jobs of up to 1,000 state workers a year in each of the next few years.Although many of the targeted jobs may be vacant, "you can't reduce 800 to 1,000 positions without having many layoffs of state workers," said Major F. Riddick Jr., the governor's chief of staff.Even as members of his State House staff were being given pink slips yesterday, the governor announced that he has hired an $82,712-a-year communications director to improve his image with the public.

The new Pratt Street Farmers Market debuts on Thursday Pratt and Light streets, outside of the Transamerica building. The market will meet every Thursday from 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. with a vendor line-up including One Straw Farm and Atwater's. The Gathering, Balimore's traveling  night food-truck gallery, moves back to the Baltimore Museum of Industry Friday for a special Star Spangled Gathering featuring music from the Crawdaddies and a view of the fireworks at Fort McHenry. The new market from Woodberry Kitchen, Union Graze , kicks off Friday at 4:30 p.m. The main produce vendor will be Five Seed Farms & Apiary, a family-owned farm with properties in Baltimore and Sparks.

READING, Pa. -- The Reading Phillies scored seven runs in the opening inning and went on to defeat the Hagerstown Suns, 7-5, in a Double-A Eastern League game last night.The first seven batters for the Phillies (31-33) reached safely in the first. Overall, they sent 12 batters to the plate in the first inning, getting the seven runs on nine hits. The nine hits represented the most allowed in an inning by Hagerstown.

The debut of Pick-Seven wagering, which was scheduled to start at Laurel Race Course on Thursday, has been delayed until Pimlico Race Course opens March 26.Until then, Laurel will continue to offer the Double Triple each day on the third and fifth races.Because a new phase of the Laurel meet technically begins Thursday, there will be a special distribution of the Double Triple at Laurel today. The carry-over totals $71,571. But if no one hits the Double Triple on today's card, the pool will be carried over to Thursday.

Surely one of the most ambitious, provocative and strangely poignant projects in all of documentary filmmaking is the "7 Up" series, begun in 1964 by Britain's Grenada TV and continued every seven years since then. The new installment, "35 Up," opens today at the Charles, and it is by far the most compelling.For those unfamiliar with the concept, the "Up" series is an examination of class, heredity and destiny, played out in real time. It began in 1964, when the British commercial network Grenada did a soporific profile on 14 "typical" British TC schoolchildren, then all 7 years old. The kids were drawn from all classes, meant to provide a "cross-section" of the future of society, as the narrator grandly put it.Somewhere along the line, somebody got the bright idea of revisiting the children every seven years to gauge their progress: "35 Up" is the fifth such enterprise, using footage from the four previous visits.

IN "The Sound of Music," nun-in-training Maria incredulously exclaims, "Seven children!" when she learns the number of charges she will look after as governess. This week, thousands of Americans echoed those words in amazement after the birth of septuplets in Carlisle, Iowa.Parents who have struggled through arduous weeks with one newborn could only imagine multiplying by seven the sleepless nights, feedings, diaper changes, crying and cost of baby clothes, supplies and college 18 years hence.

CARLISLE, Iowa -- This is what you say one day after your wife has given birth to seven healthy babies: "Wow."Looking like a man who may never stop smiling, Kenny McCaughey stood at the altar in his small-town church and described the joy of fathering septuplets -- the four boys and three girls who were born Wednesday in a Des Moines hospital."

Ryan Kohlmeier blushes when he says he never saw any of this coming, certainly not this quickly. Not a jump into a Camden Yards summer and definitely not seven saves in as many opportunities. The best the 23-year-old can do is offer a tight-lipped smile when he thinks about the series of events that has promoted him from an almost undetected Kansas schoolboy to a secondary pitching prospect to the centerpiece for the Orioles' in-season makeover. One of three children, one of fewer than 1,000 residents of Cottonwood Fall, Kan., and now the best-known of a 30-member high school class, Kohlmeier has not only used the past month to step from Triple-A Rochester to the Orioles' bullpen, but to offer himself as the team's future closer.

Seven Maryland service members who have been killed since last May will be honored Monday in a Memorial Day ceremony at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens in Timonium. Cyndi Ryan of the American Red Cross said that even though this is the first Memorial Day since the seven died, the emotions of family members are "not different from the grieving process they go through every day. " The holiday, however, gives the families a sense of pride that is vital so they know their family members have not been forgotten, said Ryan, a manager who works with the families of fallen service members.

The University of Maryland says it alerted the state attorney general nearly 25 years ago that the school's head swimming coach had acknowledged sexually abusing a girl at his private club, but he was not charged until last year. Rick Curl, founder of Washington's pre-eminent Curl-Burke Swim Club, resigned his position at College Park in August 1988 after the parents of the teenage victim gave the university a letter signed by Curl that acknowledged the abuse. Curl and the parents entered into a legal settlement around that time.

North Carolina is headed to the NCAA women's lacrosse national championship game for the second time in program history after a dominant defensive performance sparked an 11-4 victory over two-time defending champion Northwestern in Friday night's semifinals. It was the second win this season for the Tar Heels (17-3) over the two-time defending national champions. Third-seeded North Carolina will meet the winner of Friday's late semifinal between No. 1 seed Maryland and fourth-seeded Syracuse.

Between 1983 and 2004, Syracuse advanced to the NCAA tournament semifinals every year, a remarkable accomplishment that may never be matched again. What makes Duke's seven consecutive appearances in the Final Four nearly as impressive is that the Blue Devils have achieved that in a four-round tournament, which was expanded from 12 to 16 teams for the 2003 season. But seventh-seeded Duke (14-5), which will tangle with Cornell (14-3) in the first of two national semifinals this Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, is just 2-4 in the Final Four, advancing to the title game in 2007 (losing to Johns Hopkins)

A shooting that killed a man and a triple shooting that injured three people Wednesday night followed another recent stretch of violence in Baltimore. Detective Angela Carter-Watson, a police spokeswoman, said homicide detectives were investigating the first incident, in which a man was found on the ground, shot multiple times in the upper torso, about 9:50 p.m. in the 2800 block of Ashland Avenue, in the Madison-Eastend neighborhood near Bocek Park. The man was still alive shortly after midnight but police said on Thursday morning that he had succumbed to his injuries.

Seven people were shot — at least one fatally — in Baltimore between Tuesday afternoon and early Wednesday morning, with the violence stretching from Brooklyn in the south to Gwynn Oak in the northwest and Darley Park in the east. A man was also stabbed multiple times and robbed of cash, his shoes and his car on Tuesday night near Patterson Park, police said. One man died in a shooting that occurred at about 3 a.m. in the Darley Park neighborhood, said Detective Angela Carter-Watson, a police spokeswoman.

The Charleston Alley Cats scored seven runs in the bottom of the eighth inning to come from behind and beat the Delmarva Shorebirds, 9-3, in a Single-A South Atlantic League game in West Virginia last night.Trailing 3-2, the Alley Cats sent 11 batters to the plate in the eighth. Dave Guthrie had two singles in the inning, including a bases-loaded hit that scored three runs.Delmarva starter Brian Falkenborg allowed two runs and four hits through seven innings but failed to retire the first two batters in the eighth and took the loss.

Carlin's not a one-dimensional guy, so in honor of his landmark 1978 Supreme Court case -- in which justices ruled, 5-4, that the Federal Communications Commission could ban seven words from television and radio during hours when children might hear them -- here are seven Carlin observations that have nothing to do with war: Civilization began its downhill path the day some guy first uttered the words, "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do." Guys don't seem to be called Lefty anymore.

The boys rosters for the 2013 Under Armour All-America Lacrosse Classic have been announced, with seven players from area teams representing the South team. The Classic is set for 8 p.m. July 6 at Towson University's Johnny Unitas Stadium, capping the three-day event. Earning spots on the 22-player South team are: Max Greene, Gilman; Colin Heacock, Boys' Latin; Stephen Kelly, Calvert Hall; Mac Pons, Boys' Latin; Ben Pridemore, Boys' Latin; Danny Sweeney, McDonogh with Calvert Hall's Garrett Epple not participating due to injury.

Seven local girls basketball players will try out for the U16 national team this weekend at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. First-team All Metro players Stephanie Jones, Aberdeen; Danielle Edwards, McDonogh; Taylor Murray, Annapolis Area Christian; and Dionna White, Milford Mill, as well as second-team selections Qalea Ismail, Patterson Mill; and Dajah Logan, McDonogh, will head to Colorado for the tryouts that begin Thursday. McDonogh's Jameira Johnson also will try out. Jones, a freshman forward-guard who led the Eagles to the state Class 3A championship, was among an original pool of 33 players invited to the tryouts while the others earned their spots via open application.