Windows

The following is compiled from police reports. The Columbia Flier includes descriptions of perpetrators only when the description makes identification possible. East Columbia Westleigh Drive , 10100 block, 4:21 a.m. May 22. Entry gained. Tamar Drive , 8800 block, 10:17 a.m. May 21. Gray 2008 Toyota Avalon stolen. Catfeet Court , 9700 block, between 3 and 4:45 p.m. May 20. Entry gained by breaking window. Nothing stolen. Coleman Thomas Road , 9200 block, between 12:19 and 1:11 p.m. May 19. Entry gained through unlocked window.

A previous version of this story included incorrect information on the cost of betting on a trifecta box. It has been corrected. At the races, there are two categories of bets -- straight bets that involve only one horse, and exotic bets that involve two or more horses. The standard bet for all wagers is $2. You can bet any amount, starting with $1, but the payoff prices shown on the infield tote board and TVs around the track are always based on a $2 wager. That means if you bet $1, you will get half the amount shown on the tote board.

The Department of Justice's antitrust case against Microsoft was one of the largest and most carefully watched in history. The courts ruled that Microsoft illegally maintained its monopoly of personal computer operating systems (OS). After years of oversight of a "behavioral remedy," the department's notoriously weak settlement with Microsoft expired Thursday. After the finding of liability and almost a decade of monitoring Microsoft's behavior, the net result has been to leave Microsoft pretty much where it started — with its Windows monopoly intact.

By now the injured red-tailed hawk should have returned to the skies over the Johns Hopkins University's Homewood campus — an airborne testament to good fortune and the determined care of an area wildlife center. But there has been a setback for the popular hawk, which smashed into a window at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library five months ago. "It has a soft-tissue injury, and it hasn't healed yet," said Kathy Woods, who has been tending to the bird at her Phoenix Wildlife Center in a wooded area of Baltimore County.

Bob Gerber, owner of the Antique Man in Fells Point, devotes part of his storefront window to a jumble of religious keepsakes: A reclining Christ, four wood-carved saints, flowers, and signs. Not the most obvious way to lure people into a shop selling antiques, but then again, Gerber sees his religious window, at 1806 Fleet St., as something of a community service. "We have so many immigrants in the neighborhood, they stop by and say their prayers, at least 100 people a day," he said.

Unless a 10-year resident or a frequent patron of the shops and night life in historic Fells Point, a visitor to Bond Street could not help but notice a group of beautifully restored, brick townhomes lined up at the edge of the cobblestones. Imagine the surprise, then, to learn they were built exclusively by Baltimore developers, Struever Bros., Eccles & Rouse less than eight years ago. The colonial-like exteriors of each of the three-story atrium-style townhouses belie the newness of construction in the meticulous architectural details they bear.

Unless you've got a thing for waking up with the sunrise or the exhibitionist in you is dying to flirt with the neighbors, covering the windows of your home might be a good idea. From a strictly functional standpoint, a cheap blanket or bedsheet nailed to the window trim would do for blocking out daylight or providing privacy. But like most aspects of a house, window treatments have been elevated above the purely practical and often are key to defining the interior decor of any home.

Along a main route in Centreville, just a few miles from Chestertown in Queen Anne's County, large and gracious homes sit back from the two-lane road. Many are framed by winter-bare branches. But 11 American boxwood bushes, trimmed into spheres, line each side of the brick walk leading to the columned front porch of the Scaggiari home. This beautiful and symmetrical home, with its shuttered windows, gently sloping hip roof and front door crowned with a Palladian-style window, catches the eye at once.

Two Naval Academy midshipmen, one of them the son of an admiral and on the academy baseball team, were detained early Wednesday in what Annapolis police said were unrelated property damage incidents. Michael Christopher Guadagnini, 22, a midshipman first class, was found laying by a tree in the woods near the 1400 block of Regent St. wearing an academy uniform and bleeding from the nose, police said. Maj. Scott Baker said that at about 1 a.m. the homeowner, reporting a burglary, said that he confronted a man who smelled of alcohol and who had kicked in his back door, entered and left.

On Good Friday, April 1945, my military unit at Kelley Field near San Antonio was hustled to the mess hall, windows covered, two armed MPs outside. Ninety-nine enlisted men, two junior commissioned officers and a captain were inside. Windows were covered. We were given plans for the invasion of Japan with a large map tacked on the wall and a two-week window for the operation date. At the end of the meeting, everyone was given a 10-day emergency furlough. If you lived in Texas, great, because not much travel time involved.