Unidentified Woman

The body of an unidentified woman was found along a rural road in Harford County yesterday morning, and police were treating her death as an apparent homicide. A motorist looking for deer spotted the body in the 1400 block of Stepney Road near Aberdeen about 7:05 a.m., said Edward Hopkins, a spokesman for the Harford County Sheriff's Department. He said he had no description of the woman, and no identification was found. Hopkins said police could not be sure of a cause of death until after an autopsy, which was not expected to be performed until today.

A 68-year-old Westview woman has become the first Baltimore County resident this year to test positive for the West Nile virus. The unidentified woman was admitted Saturday to an area hospital and remains there under treatment, according to the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. There was no word on her condition. It was one of four new West Nile cases reported yesterday. Two were in Prince George's County, and a fourth in Washington County. The cases bring the statewide total this year to 16. One death in Maryland has been attributed to the mosquito-borne illness, health officials said.

In Baltimore City Va. woman dies in motorcycle crash on the JFX A Leesburg, Va., woman died yesterday evening after she lost control of her motorcycle and tumbled over an embankment on the Jones Falls Expressway near Chase Street, Baltimore police said. Sharon Van Brokern, 39, was riding northbound in the left lane about 6 p.m. when a witness saw her 2001 Honda motorcycle start to wobble, said Officer Richard J. McCarthy of Baltimore police accident investigation unit. It was unclear whether she hit the jersey divider separating traffic, but Van Brokern was thrown across three lanes of traffic and over a wall onto an embankment on the east side of the expressway.

The woman who abandoned her newborn daughter under a restroom sink at Northwest Hospital Center in Randallstown last week has been found, Baltimore County police said yesterday. The identity of the woman, who was located Monday morning in Baltimore, was not released at her request. "There will be no charges from Baltimore County in regards to child abandonment," said Cpl. Ron Brooks, a county police spokesman. He added that the mother did not require medical care. The 6-pound, 9 1/2 -ounce African-American girl, nicknamed "Rosie" by Northwest staff, was discovered May 1 by a security guard who was making evening rounds on the hospital's first floor.

In Baltimore City Broken main feared as reservoir level, water pressure drop City public works crews were searching late last night for an apparent break in a major water main after a "very rapid drop" in the water level at Montebello Reservoir and calls reporting a drop in water pressure in Southeast Baltimore, Dundalk and Sparrows Point, a spokesman said. "We had a very rapid drop in the water level at our reservoir at Montebello," said Kurt Kocher, spokesman for the Department of Public Works.

An unidentified woman was killed last night when the car she was driving north on Interstate 83 slammed into a tractor-trailer and overturned about a mile south of Ruxton Road.Maryland State Police said the woman lost control of her vehicle about 9: 30 p.m. Police said no passengers were in the car.It was not known whether anyone in the tractor-trailer was injured. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene.The accident closed northbound I-83 between Northern Parkway and Ruxton Road for several hours and backed up traffic for about two miles.

An unidentified woman whose body was found covered with leaves and snow alongside a road in Southwest Baltimore was shot to death, police said yesterday.Detective Kirk Hastings said an autopsy at the state medical examiner's office yesterday showed the woman, who was in her 40s and fully clothed, was shot several times in the upper body and dumped in a woods in Leakin Park about 10 feet off the 4500 block of Hutton Ave. near Wetheredsville Road.Hastings said the woman was killed before Wednesday's snowfall.

Two people were killed in separate traffic accidents over the weekend and a woman was fatally struck by a train in Frederick County, authorities reported.In Prince George's County, an unidentified woman was struck and killed by a Chevrolet Blazer about 4: 38 a.m. yesterday while walking in the northbound lane of Branch Avenue just south of Allentown Road in Camp Springs, according to state police at Forestville.Police are investigating the incident.In Cecil County, Charles Gifford, 17, was driving a Mazda pickup truck north on Route 213, south of Basil Avenue in Chesapeake City about 10: 14 p.m. Saturday when his truck crossed the center line and collided with a Chevrolet Suburban, said Sgt. Charles Pertain of the state police barracks at North East.

WASHINGTON -- A woman who was a friend of Monica Lewinsky's has testified before a federal grand jury that Lewinsky told her that she had engaged in sexual activity with President Clinton, the Los Angeles Times has learned.The witness offered the first sworn testimony known to echo remarks that Lewinsky made in secretly tape-recorded conversations with another friend, Linda R. Tripp, that she was having an affair with Clinton.The new testimony represents a potentially significant step for independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr's inquiry into whether Clinton was sexually involved with Lewinsky and urged her to lie under oath about it. Clinton has denied having had sexual relations with Lewinsky, a 24-year-old former White House intern, and has said he did not ask anyone to lie.In the conversations taped by Tripp, Lewinsky talked about being sexually involved with the president and described what she said were efforts by Clinton to conceal the affair from lawyers in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual misconduct case against Clinton.

An undetermined amount of cash is missing and at least one city employee is facing disciplinary action as a result of a continuing investigation at the municipal vehicle impoundment lot on Pulaski Highway, Kurt Kocher, a spokesman for the Department of Public Works, said yesterday.Kocher, who said that the investigation was being conducted by the agency and Police Department, declined to say how much money was missing but sources put the amount at more than $1,300.Earlier this year, a municipal employee pleaded guilty to charges of stealing $21,000 from impoundment lot receipts.