Vigil

Friends and relatives of Joanne Shuey Valentine, a nightclub owner slain four years ago in the driveway of her home in Arnold, have scheduled a candlelight vigil for tonight.The vigil will begin at 7: 30 p.m. at the Valentine family home, 517 Broadwater Road, said Pam Lyons, Valentine's sister.Valentine, 47, had returned from closing Rumblefish, the Pasadena nightclub she and her husband owned, about 4 a.m. Sept. 26, 1993, when she was confronted by four men. One fired two shots at her, and she died about 7 a.m. at Maryland Shock Trauma Center.

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Each day, Paul Howell stands a dozen feet away from the massive concrete tomb in the middle of town. He speaks softly to his 27-year-old daughter trapped deep inside."

A candlelight vigil for Marine Cpl. Nicholas Lee Ziolkowski of Towson, a 2001 graduate of Boys' Latin School who was killed in Iraq, is planned for this evening at Towson University. The vigil will begin at 5 p.m. on Newell Field between York Road and Stephens Hall. His mother, Tracy Miller, is an English professor at Towson. Ziolkowski, 22, was the 17th person from Maryland to die in the fighting in Iraq and among four in less than a week. The others are Marine Lance Cpl. David M. Branning, 21, of Cockeysville, Army Spc. Thomas K. Doerflinger, 20, of Silver Spring and Marine Cpl. Dale A. Burger Jr., 21, originally from Bel Air. Organizers said they hope loved ones and supporters of all the families of deceased service members will attend.

About 50 county residents, observing World AIDS Day, staged a candlelight vigil in Annapolis last night to show that the impact of the disease is being felt in the suburbs as well as in large cities."

While many children spent Christmas Eve in a warm home, decorating holiday cookies and waiting for Santa Claus, 10-year-old Atiyya Mubdi-bey and her 5-year-old sister, Aliya, stood in front of Baltimore's City Hall in the numbing cold to light candles and say a prayer for black South Africans who still live under the oppression of apartheid.Joining the girls were several other youngsters and about 70 adults in the 10th annual vigil organized by Representative Kweisi Mfume, D-Md.-7th, to protest the South African regime, ,, under which blacks are denied basic civil rights.

A 56-year-old man was fatally shot Wednesday night in Southwest Baltimore, as a candlelight vigil for a homicide victim from last week was wrapping up just a few blocks away. More than 70 people gathered in the street in front of Tomasina Degree's South Wickham Street home Wednesday night to mourn her son, Kip, 23, remembering his love of dancing and warning of the dangers of gun violence. But as the crowd dispersed, several patrol officers sent to monitor the vigil jumped into their cars to respond to a shooting less than a mile away in the 5400 block of Jamestowne Court.

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. -- More than a dozen people held a vigil outside the courthouse before going inside to cheer on three anti-war protesters who splashed blood on a submarine at Newport News Shipbuilding.In a brief appearance yesterday in General District Court on charges of trespassing and felony destruction of property, the defendants told Judge Joan B. Morris they want to represent themselves instead of hiring an attorney.Their next court date has been set for May 4, when there will be a trial on the trespassing charge and a preliminary hearing on the felony charge.

SEBOKENG, South Africa -- A funeral vigil for a local political activist turned gruesome yesterday when gunmen fired on hundreds of mourners outside the dead man's home, killing 37 of his relatives and friends.The attack ended a period of relative calm in the black townships of South Africa's industrial heartland, where more than 1,000 people were killed in political and ethnic violence last year.Witnesses said about 300 people were attending the all-night vigil for Christoffel Nangalembe, 28, a prominent activist with the African National Congress who was abducted and slain a week earlier.

The family of a woman shot to death in the driveway of her Arnold home last year is having a candlelight vigil tomorrow night to draw attention to the unsolved case and victims' rights."

THE MARBLE hallways in the Mitchell Courthouse are long and dimly lighted, the floors shiny and stark, and there are sleepy men and bored women on benches, all lumped up in winter coats, waiting to be called to trial. There's almost always an echo in the old halls, whispers on the walls. Doors lead to chambers and to courtrooms, and sometimes to truth, sometimes to justice, and sometimes to that empty feeling Ray Bennett said he felt the other day. It's what he meant when he said he felt numb -- a young man had died a violent death, and the other young man accused of killing him walked out of the courthouse Friday afternoon.