Villages

The Village to Village Network, a national organization that helps coordinate senior villages, defines villages as "membership-driven, grass-roots organizations that, through both volunteers and paid staff, coordinate access to affordable services including transportation, health and wellness programs, home repairs, social and educational activities, and other day-to-day needs enabling individuals to remain connected to their community throughout the...

Loading his earthly belongings into a laundry cart that he rented from Campus Services, Johns Hopkins University freshman Austin Dennis made several trips from his dormitory room to his car on residential Greenway at North Charles Street, opposite the Homewood campus May 15. It was move-out week for Hopkins students as the school year ended, and Dennis, an economics major, was catching a flight that night to his hometown of Miami, Fla., where he...

PINTO -- For hundreds of years Indians returned to the broad, rich bottom lands along the Potomac River. They built their homes and planted their corn, beans and squash in the deep soil deposited by the river.With the arrival of Europeans in the 17th century, the native people traded for a time, acquiring glass beads and metal arrow points. Then they vanished, leaving only their trash and the faintest traces of their towns beneath the river silts.Hundreds of artifacts and clues to the lives of these earliest of Maryland's inhabitants came to light in 11 days of archaeology that ended this week at the old Indian village sites southwest of Cresaptown.

There is no set criterion for a great dive bar. A dingy bar can have character. An unassuming exterior could hide a spectacular interior. Sometimes, the right jukebox is all it takes. But all great dives are unified by one factor: They possess an instantly comfortable atmosphere. That can come from a warm bartender, cheap drinks or an overall lack of pretension. The really good ones have it all. Coach's Rendezvous (which was called Rendezvous Lounge before new owner Ray Harcum took over)

STARNER'S DAM. Melrose. Smallwood. Know where they are in Carroll County? If the county commissioners approve, these places would soon achieve the status of official "rural villages."The county Planning and Zoning Commission has approved listings of 35 such places -- many you've never heard of -- for designation as villages with defined geographic boundaries.With eight established municipalities, Carroll is the leader in the region in incorporated towns. Now the list would grow to nearly blanket the county with villages.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- U.N. peacekeeping forces withdrew from three villages in southern Lebanon yesterday and handed their positions over to the regular Lebanese army as tension grew in the area between Muslim fundamentalist guerrillas and Israeli troops.The U.N. flag was taken down as the Ghanaian battalion of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon pulled out from Maarakeh, Janata and Yanouh. Four hundred Lebanese soldiers backed by armored personnel carriers moved into the three villages and hoisted the Lebanese flag.

Villages, by John Updike. Knopf. 321 pages. $25. John Updike's new, elegiac yet erotic Villages is a portrait of a family man and "a life of bourgeois repose," as the wry omniscient narrator puts it, told over decades. It's the story of Owen Mackenzie, a married-with-children software programmer whose various East Coast places of residence (including Pennsylvania and Massachusetts) are typified by his years in the smallish town of Middle Falls, Conn. Everything about Owen -- from his nuclear family to his two marriages to his well-paying but nondescript job to his just-average places of residence (no "Great" Falls for this character or his creator)

MOSCOW -- Azerbaijani militias, reportedly backed by attack aircraft and scores of tanks, pushed into the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh yesterday in a strong offensive that prompted Armenia to threaten direct intervention in the 4-year-old war.The Azerbaijanis, who had lost their last foothold in Nagorno-Karabakh last month, took at least five villages in tough fighting believed to have left dozens dead, reports from the region said. But Azerbaijani officials played down the offensive, saying that the captured villages had been taken and retaken several times before, and that it was hard to tell anymore who were attackers and who defenders.

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- As America's cities get ready for the 21st century, Weiming Lu would like to see them building and perfecting ''urban villages'' that embody the best we've learned through the urban tribulations of the 20th.Mr. Lu's millennial villages would have a mix of tastefully recycled historic buildings and artfully designed new ones. People would flock to them for their varieties of age and ethnic groups, offices, homes and jobs, urban parks, street art and entertainment.The villages would be both arts districts and ''cyber-villages,'' attracting companies focused on the Internet, new media and telecommunications industries.

AT DULLES International Airport, travelers surrender cuticle scissors as if they could morph into box-cutters. One pair had been in the bearer's family for 75 years, an heirloom handed down from mother to daughter. Oh, well. On the other side of the Atlantic, the vacationer slides through train tunnels piercing the Appenines to Genoa, where the Italian government feared terrorists might try to kill President Bush and other world leaders with an airplane morphed into a missile. A day later, on a hill above the Italian Riviera, a muscular, blue construction truck roars past hikers on a hill above Portofino, an American flag hanging in the cab. At home or away, Sept.

Baltimore County police say two men have been charged in connection with a stabbing that occurred at the Charles Village Pub in Towson on Saturday. Police said Nicholas Jarrad Jones, 22, of the 700 block of Richwood Avenue, Baltimore, was charged with attempted first-degree murder and first degree assault. On Sunday he was being held without bail at the Baltimore County Detention Center. Robert Lee Blackshire II, 21, of the 6800 block of Barnett Road, in the Glendale area, was charged with second-degree assault and is currently being held at the Baltimore County Detention Center on $7,500 bail.

A man was stabbed and two other people were injured in an early-morning fight in the second floor of Charles Village Pub in Towson, Baltimore County Police said Saturday.   According to police, a man was stabbed, a second man received minor cuts to his hand, and a woman was injured when she fell.   All three were taken to area hospitals, and police said their injuries were not life threatening. Charles Village Pub Owner Melony Wagner said the bar manager, Jason Jankiewicz, reported that the fight took “less than 45 seconds.”   According to Wagner, a large man shoved a smaller man, and the smaller man allegedly pulled a knife and cut the large man in his shoulder.

The developer of a vacant lot in Charles Village owned by the Johns Hopkins University has decided not to build a grocery store there. The university supports the decision about the site, at the corner of St. Paul and E. 33rd streets, said a statement released Wednesday by Armada Hoffler, the lead developer of the 1.1-acre site. The other firms involved are Beatty Development Group LLC and Skye Hospitality LLC. The development group, 3200StPaul, has met with residents of Charles Village and the surrounding communities in recent weeks to solicit their thoughts on how the land should be used.

Absentee ballots must be received at Stonehouse by no later than 4 p.m. on Friday April 19. But here's the problem: I haven't received mine yet (as of Monday April 15), and I've heard that I am not alone. If/when they do arrive, even if we complete them and drop them in outgoing mail immediately, they may miss the deadline. Voting can be done in person this week, between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday-Friday. I just voted. So if you can't make it to the official elections on Saturday (between 9:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.)

As a member of the Wilde Lake Village Board, Nancy McCord has truly "been there" for Wilde Lake residents. She has fully earned my household's vote to represent Wilde Lake on the Columbia Council. Nancy has "been there" at a whopping 100 percent of the board's meetings, listening to her constituents, asking discerning questions, and working collegially with her fellow board members. Nancy's sterling record stands in sharp contrast to the hit-and-miss record of her opponent, who attended only 10 of the Village Board's 17 meetings this fiscal year.

A two-alarm fire burned three homes in the city's Washington Village/Pigtown neighborhood on Friday morning, according to the Baltimore Fire Department. Firefighters responded to the scene in the 1100 block of Ward St. shortly after 6 a.m. and found heavy smoke and flames, a dispatcher said. The fire extended to three homes — all of which were believed to be vacant — before being brought under control at 7:12 a.m., the dispatcher said. No injuries were reported to civilians or firefighters, he said.

Representatives from Columbia's villages again clashed with members of the Columbia Council last night in the ongoing battle over proposed changes to the way the villages do business.Speaking on behalf of all 10 village managers, Anne Dodd, manager of Kings Contrivance, criticized Columbia Association officials at a sparsely attended meeting of the council's task force on CA-village relations.Said Dodd: "The secretiveness and the disregard for a mutually agreed upon process can only further weaken, rather than enhance, the relationship between the villages and the Columbia Council."

Traveling along the Route 30 corridor between Hampstead and Reisterstown, many people fail to notice the tiny villages that dot the road. Some sit along Hanover Pike, others are tucked just out of sight from passers-by. Regardless, the villages of Woodensburg, Boring, Arcadia and Fowblesburg have remained somewhat untouched by the growing number of commuters and tractor-trailers that seem to inhabit the busy thoroughfare. Beyond Hanover Pike, bucolic roads lead to large farms and historic homes mixed in with newer homes on large lots.

Banksy's Cafe has closed in Lake Falls Village. Owners Robb Banks and Will Brown will be focusing on their catering operations, which they had been running out of the same location. The cafe, which opened in 2009, served made-to-order sandwiches and salads, roasted coffee from Baltimore Coffee & Tea, and local sweets like Naron chocolates and Mouth Party caramels. The cafe also had a presence at the Baltimore Farmers' Market and Bazaar, where it would sell prepared soups and macaroni and cheese.

The Village to Village Network, a national organization that helps coordinate senior villages, defines villages as "membership-driven, grass-roots organizations that, through both volunteers and paid staff, coordinate access to affordable services including transportation, health and wellness programs, home repairs, social and educational activities, and other day-to-day needs enabling individuals to remain connected to their community throughout the...