Worcester

Maryland lawmakers gave final approval last night to a referendum on slot machine gambling, sending to voters an issue that has bitterly divided politicians in Annapolis for years. On a frenzied day of legislating three weeks into a tumultuous special session called by Gov. Martin O'Malley to close the state's projected $1.7 billion budget gap, the Senate approved the referendum as it juggled measures related to taxes, health care and the environment. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said after the vote that the only way the General Assembly could move forward with slots is through a referendum - and he faulted Republicans for "not participating" in the legislation.

Elizabeth S. Worcester, a former model and retired receptionist, died Saturday of heart failure at St. Joseph Medical Center. The former Roland Park resident was 92. Born Elizabeth Sothoron in Baltimore, she was a direct descendant of George Read, a Delaware signer of the Declaration of Independence, and Robert Oliver, the Baltimore merchant and Baltimore & Ohio Railroad executive whose 68-acre country estate became Green Mount Cemetery in 1839....

LATE ONE night two months ago, while my daughter was waiting for the brush of the tooth fairy's wings, two young men, Shayne Worcester of Maine and his friend, a neighbor of mine here in San Francisco, were ambling uphill across our street.They were walking home from dinner through a neighborhood so popular and lively and friendly that all of us who live here walk. All the time.We go on errands to Walgreens or to the movie store at midnight, to the family-owned cafes and restaurants and bars any evening.

CollegesMinnesota: Suspended F Quincy Lewis and F Kevin Clark from basketball team for one game for their parts in fight during Nov. 16 exhibition game.HockeyAvalanche: Recalled RW Scott Parker from AHL Hershey.Blues: Recalled F Terry Yake and F Lubos Bartecko from AHL Worcester.Pub Date: 11/29/98

OCEAN CITY -- Fed up with what they say are the high costs of buying booze, restaurant and bar owners in Maryland's beach resort are leading a referendum drive to scrap Worcester County's 62-year-old system of selling liquor through county-owned stores.A battle of political signs and billboards has marked "Question A" as perhaps the hottest local issue facing county voters when they go to the polls Tuesday.Critics call the county's liquor control board a throwback to Prohibition, but supporters say it's an efficient revenue source that pumps an average of $600,000 a year into Worcester's coffers and the budgets of Worcester's four municipalities.

BOSTON -- A Massachusetts teen-ager has pleaded guilty to invading a telephone company computer last winter, knocking out communications to the tower at Worcester Regional Airport, and cutting phone service to hundreds of residents in a nearby town.The youth, whose name and age are being withheld under federal law, was the first juvenile ever charged by the federal government with a computer crime, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Boston, which announced the charges and plea agreement yesterday.

State officials said yesterday that Worcester social workers acted properly in their investigations of as many as two dozen reports of suspected child abuse in the home where an 8-year-old boy was found beaten to death in March.The bloody body of Shamir Hudson was discovered in a mobile home outside Berlin -- and police have charged his adoptive mother, Catherine Marie Hudson, with killing him.Teachers and administrators at the local elementary school had repeatedly called Worcester's Department of Social Services to report signs that Shamir and his two younger, adopted siblings had been abused.

The nicest thing Worcester IceCats coach Greg Gilbert had to say about his team after yesterday's 3-3 overtime tie with the Bandits at Baltimore Arena was: "We were a disgrace, the way we played."Good thing it wasn't a loss.It wasn't so much that Worcester had a chance to capture the American Hockey League's New England Division title over Springfield with a win, but the manner in which the team blew a 3-1 lead and the way it has been playing lately."Stupid, selfish," were a couple of the words Gilbert used to describe his club's 0-3-1 slide.

WORCESTER, Mass. -- For the second time in less than a week, the Bandits got third-period heroics and stunned the Worcester IceCats in their own building. Last night, they did it by winning 4-3.They trailed by a goal heading into the final frame, but newcomer Eric Manlow tied the game at 25 seconds, followed 1: 26 later by Jamie Spencer's go-ahead score.Manlow, playing in just his third game with the Bandits, netted his third of the year after picking up a stray puck, then darting down the right wing.

This Worcester porcelain teapot comes from the exhibit "Traditions in Excellence: 100 Teapots from the Norwich Castle Museum," now showing at the Homewood House Museum.Tea has long been a ritual in Britain, and this exhibit, drawn from the museum's 3,000 examples, will show how the beauty of teapots added interest to the tea-drinking tradition and how teapots acted as status symbols for people interested in showing off their good taste. The traveling exhibit includes teapots from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Shirley Worcester had just taken down her Christmas decorations and was carrying two bags of trash when she stopped Wednesday night on the porch of her modest waterfront house in Middle River to talk with relatives who had pulled into the driveway. As the 58-year-old grandmother chatted with her sister-in-law and brother-in-law, a boy dressed in black ran past them along narrow Whitethorn Way, her sister-in-law said yesterday. The boy fell, just as two gunshots rang out, she said. The boy got up and continued running.

In a move hailed by conservation leaders, Gov. Martin O'Malley announced plans yesterday to buy five large tracts of forest, farmland and waterfront for more than $71 million to preserve them from development and enhance public access to the Chesapeake Bay. The governor disclosed the deals to acquire more than 9,200 acres in Cecil, Charles, St. Mary's and Worcester counties as he unveiled a new computerized map of Maryland's environmentally valuable lands,...

On February 22, 2008, NETTIE MILLS WAINWRIGHT. On Friday, friends may call at the VAUGHN C. GREENE FUNERAL SERVICES, 5151 Baltimore National Pike from 2-8 P.M. On Saturday, Mrs. Wainwright will lie in state at Shiloh UMC, 2655 Worcester Highway, Pocomoke City, MD, where the family will receive friends from 11:30 A.M- 12 P.M., with services to follow. Inquiries to (410) 233-2400.

Maryland lawmakers gave final approval last night to a referendum on slot machine gambling, sending to voters an issue that has bitterly divided politicians in Annapolis for years. On a frenzied day of legislating three weeks into a tumultuous special session called by Gov. Martin O'Malley to close the state's projected $1.7 billion budget gap, the Senate approved the referendum as it juggled measures related to taxes, health care and the environment. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said after the vote that the only way the General Assembly could move forward with slots is through a referendum - and he faulted Republicans for "not participating" in the legislation.

Elizabeth S. Worcester, a former model and retired receptionist, died Saturday of heart failure at St. Joseph Medical Center. The former Roland Park resident was 92. Born Elizabeth Sothoron in Baltimore, she was a direct descendant of George Read, a Delaware signer of the Declaration of Independence, and Robert Oliver, the Baltimore merchant and Baltimore & Ohio Railroad executive whose 68-acre country estate became Green Mount Cemetery in 1839....

Police arrested a Baltimore County man yesterday in the killing of a Worcester County woman whose body was found in West Ocean City on Thursday night. Gregory W. Stokes, 30, of the first block of Right Elevator Drive, Middle River, was arrested in Baltimore on a warrant charging him with first-degree murder, according to state police. Stokes is charged in the death of Pamela Balk, whose body was found with a gunshot wound in Mystic Harbor in West Ocean City. Stokes was arrested just after midnight yesterday at a home in the 6200 block of Alumore Way in Southeast Baltimore.

Margaret Noland Smith Worcester, a homemaker and former laundry manager, died of complications from Alzheimer's disease April 27 at the Fairhaven Retirement Community in Sykesville, where she had lived for the past 25 years. The former Eastport resident was 90. Born Margaret Lee Noland and raised in Warrenton, Va., she was a secretary at Fauquier Laundry -- where she met and then married an owner of the family business, Stuart Archer Smith. During his military service and after his death in 1957, she ran the laundry business in Warrenton.

LAST APRIL, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. stunned hundreds of Maryland business leaders by practically begging them to "be dangerous" politically and accusing them of displaying "Patty Hearst syndrome" by snuggling up to liberal captors. Almost as unusual as the message was the medium: a luncheon thrown by Maryland Business for Responsive Government and its president, Robert O.C. "Rocky" Worcester. For the second year in a row, Ehrlich brought gubernatorial prestige and attention to a conservative, pro-markets group long accustomed to neither.

On Tuesday, January 4, 2005, MICHAEL EMMET TAYLOR, age 68, at Atlantic General Hospital in Berlin. Born in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, he was the son of the late Nelson Moore Taylor and Norma Elizabeth Coyle Taylor. He is survived by his devoted wife of 42 years, Jean Donnelly Taylor; a son, Brian Taylor and his wife Nina of North East, MD; two daughters, Lynn Goddard and her husband Kurt of Fairfield, Connecticut and Alicia Taylor of Ocean City; five grandchildren; a brother, Timothy Taylor of St. Joseph, Michigan; a sister, Jill Buyan of Los Angeles, CA and several nieces and nephews.

On October 24, 2004 EDWARD J. RYAN, beloved husband of the late Hazel Ryan (nee Swift), devoted uncle of Ruth P. Hays and her husband George and Eileen Ryan of Worcester, MA. Also survived by many great nieces and nephews. The family will receive friends at the family owned RUCK TOWSON FUNERAL HOME, INC., 1050 York Road (beltway exit 26A) on Wednesday from 10 to 11 A.M., at which time a funeral service will be held. In addition the family will receive friends at the Fay Brother's Funeral Home, 9 Hammond Street, Worcester, MA, on Friday from 5 to 8 P.M. A Funeral Mass will be celebrated in St. Peter's Church on Saturday at 10 A.M. Interment St. John's Cemetery.