Waldorf

The leaders ... David Toms 34-33-67 Duffy Waldorf 35-32-67 Carl Pettersson 33-34-67 ... and selected followers Justin Rose 32-36-68 Sandy Lyle 36-32-68 Nick Price 36-32-68 Phil Mickelson 36-32-68 Mark O'Meara 38-31-69 Ernie Els 37-33-70 Tiger Woods 35-35-70 Greg Norman 34-37-71 Sergio Garcia 39-32-71 David Duval 35-37-72 Complete scores. [Page 8d]

State police said yesterday that they were looking for four armed men who burst into a Charles County tavern late Friday night, robbed four customers and shot one of them when he attempted to flee.Just before midnight, the four men, brandishing handguns, entered Toyes Inn on Route 231 in Benedict and ordered four patrons to stand against a wall, according to state police at Waldorf.After taking coats, wallets and jewelry from the patrons, the assailants told them to move to the rear of the tavern.

The emergency operator who dispatched a medevac helicopter to Waldorf on a mission that ended in a fatal crash told the pilot that ambulance crews called for the aircraft because they "never want to drive to the hospital." That, along with the revelation that the case was initially assigned an even lower medical priority than first reported, raises new questions about whether the flight was necessary - and whether Maryland and other states generally are using medical helicopters excessively.

WALDORF - The call came in just before 11 p.m. A car crash, not far from the high school. Tonya Mallard, an emergency medical technician with the Waldorf Volunteer Fire Department, was among the rescuers. And when a medevac helicopter took off to rush two injured teenagers to the hospital, Mallard was onboard. "It was her first ride," Assistant Chief James R. Hayden recalled yesterday, not long before black bunting was hung from the firehouse. "She wanted to go." Mallard, a 38-year-old wife and mother of two, was killed when the helicopter ran into bad weather and crashed in a Prince George's County park.

A 23-year-old Waldorf man pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday to conspiracy to set fire to 35 homes under construction in an upscale Charles County development, becoming the last of five men to be convicted in what authorities called the largest residential arson in state history. Roy T. McCann pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit arson in connection with the fires in the Hunters Brooke development in December 2004. He also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute the drug Ecstasy in the months leading up to the arson.

A 27-year-old Hampstead woman was killed by a hit-and-run driver late Friday, and two people were killed in Charles County early yesterday in a fiery, head-on collision after one driver had been chased at high speed by police.In Carroll County, a neighbor was a suspect in the death of Deborah Jean Hartman of the 2400 block of Fairmount Road, Hampstead, said state police.Ms. Hartman was struck and killed Friday night as she walked along a two-lane country road northeast of Hampstead, police said.

WALDORF -- When Henry Middleton used to sell the wheat crop from his farm here, the profit went to pay taxes on the family property.One year, though, the temptation was too great: Mr. Middleton, a prominent resident of Charles County, took the wheat money and plunked it coin by coin into slot machines that were once fixtures in the area."

Three Maryland highway projects rank among the 50 most wasteful in the nation, according to a report released today by a Washington-based taxpayer advocacy group.Taxpayers for Common Sense weighed cost, sprawl and damage to the environment in singling out the projects, which were nominated by community groups around the country.All of the Maryland projects are on the drawing board: Montgomery County's Inter-County Connector, the expansion of U.S. 219 in Garrett County, and the Waldorf bypass in Charles County.

A tornado shredded the vinyl siding of homes and tossed uprooted trees onto roofs, damaging at least 15 houses in the Charles County town of Waldorf yesterday evening and setting the stage for a Memorial Day weekend of picnics and parades amid thunderstorms. The traffic heading over the Bay Bridge toward Ocean City was heavier than normal last night, with rain and wind forcing officials to close one of the three eastbound lanes. Cars nudged along, bumper to bumper, backed up for miles.

Howard County police have charged a 21-year-old Waldorf man in last month's theft of a $1,600 purebred Pomeranian puppy from a pet store inside The Mall in Columbia, authorities announced yesterday. Police still are investigating whether Eric Wilson Donovan played a role in the original theft from the Today's Pet store, or only received the dog after it was stolen. According to police, Donovan gave the puppy as a gift to a 19-year-old Waldorf woman, whose father suspected that the puppy had been stolen after his sister gave him a news article about the dognapping.