Step Forward

On his way to Virginia in January, Johnathan Thomas decided to make a quick stopover at Maryland. The three-star running back from St. John's Prep in Danvers, Mass., got a tour of the campus and met with coach Randy Edsall , who offered him a scholarship “right on the spot.” “He showed great interest in me. I was their No. 1 running back prospect,” Thomas said Sunday. “That just made me want to really think about the place and see what they had to offer. And I got to see what they had to offer.” Four months after this trip to College Park, Thomas decided to accept Edsall's offer.

Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts' work this spring has been confined to the back fields of the Ed Smith Stadium complex, but on Tuesday he took a considerable step forward in his recovery from multiple concussions by participating in pre-game batting practice and fielding drills before the Orioles' Grapefruit League game against the Rays.   “I think my doctor would probably agree that getting in an environment where there's a lot going on, that's a big step because that's a part of the progression ... trying to re-acclimate into those environments,” Roberts said.

The Ravens' season ended several weeks ago, but quarterback Joe Flacco remains a hot topic of discussion. So far this offseason we have heard that Flacco was irked by the firing of quarterbacks coach Jim Zorn , that coach John Harbaugh thinks the Ravens can "win championships" with Flacco and that the three-year veteran was the "king of holding the ball too long" in 2010 . Flacco came and remained under fire after the Ravens' stomach-punch...

You could call Claire Noble the world's most beautiful person from the ankle down. The Tennessee woman's attractive arch and French-manicured toes won over judges in last year's World's Most Beautiful Feet contest, earning her a free trip to Mexico and a professionally photographed portfolio of her award-winning feet. Now it's time to crown a new king or queen of feet, and employees of the Teaneck, N.J.-based Foot.com Web site are preparing to peruse thousands of foot photographs as the contest deadline draws near.

There's evidence of limited snow-blower activity in my Baltimore neighborhood. I didn't see anyone operating a snow blower and I didn't hear a snow blower. All I'm saying is, there's evidence of snow-blower activity in my neighborhood -- and it's not at my house. The snow-blowing apparently occurred directly after our first blizzard, in the wee hours of Sunday morning, when most of us were sleeping. (The machine must have been equipped with a special snow-blower silencer, because we never heard it.)

WICHITA, Kan. -- The forgiving folks at the Internal Revenue Service are making a gentle bid to bring wayward taxpayers back into the fold.The IRS has launched a nationwide program to persuade people who have not filed returns over the past few years to rejoin the taxpaying public voluntarily."

The Francis Scott Key boys basketball team already has won as many games as it did all last season and has exceeded the number of county wins it had over the past two years.For an encore, the Eagles will try to win another county game Friday night when North Carroll visits Uniontown. The junior varsity game starts at 5:30 p.m., with the varsity game following around 7 p.m.Key was 1-21 overall a year ago and winless in county action the past two years. Yet the Eagles have a county victory over Liberty after starting the 1990-1991 season with a two-point loss to South Hagerstown, though Key took them into overtime.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Whatever the actual voter turnout in the Iraq election, the spectacle of so many Iraqis defying death and dictatorial religious leaders to cast ballots is a strong first step in affirming the Bush administration's policy to spread freedom in lands that have not known it. While rejoicing in the scene that included a 94-year-old woman being carried by her son to a polling place and fewer terrorist bombings than forecast, Secretary of...

The title of Bernard Knox's scintillating collection of essays does not allude to the Michael J. Fox movie, itself nearly a decade into the past. As the director emeritus of Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington points out, the title's source lies in the early Greek concept of the future lying behind us.In other words, the past and the present are in front of us since we can see them. The future, invisible, is behind. Therefore we walk blind, backward into the future, rather than facing the future as we advance.

"Where is the heart of the NRA? In this bewildering time, when progress flirts with uncertainty, where is the heart of the NRA?"-- Tanya K. Metaksa,NRA chief lobbyist PHOENIX, Ariz. -- Wayne Anthony Ross's children never had nightmares.And he can plainly tell you why. They were loved and made to feel safe in their hillside home in Anchorage, Alaska. As toddlers, the Ross boys and their sister, Amy, learned gun safety with toys. By age 7, they had been taught to fire a rifle. As young adults, they are accomplished and fearless, their dad says.