York

Orb's path to the finish line in the second leg of the Triple Crown remains uncrowded. Normandy Invasion, the fourth-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby, dropped from contention for Saturday's 138th running of the Preakness on Sunday. Trainer Chad Brown and owner Rick Porter decided to stick with their original plan and point the horse toward prestigous races for 3-year-olds later in the summer. That leaves Orb, the colt co-owned by Baltimore County resident Stuart Janney III and Ogden Mills "Dinny" Pipps' stable, with only seven confirmed challengers at this point.

From its start, Infinity Theatre Company has had a mission to bring New York City productions to Anne Arundel County. It was a goal fulfilled in the troupe's first full season in 2011 with the show, "My Way," that played in Annapolis after it had previewed in Manhattan two months before. Now, Infinity has come full circle - with the troupe serving as a co-producer of a Tony-nominated Broadway revival of "Pippin," and also with efforts under way to bring last season's Annapolis hit, "Dames at Sea," to Broadway as well by spring 2014.

FURMAN YORK was just out of high school and about to start his freshman year at Mercer College in Macon, Ga., when he decided to invite his friend, Richard Scott, an African-American, to a cookout at the summer house Furman rented with his older brother, Cliff York. Silly Furman. The year was 1954. The date was June 22. Just one month and six days earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court had handed down one of its most famous decisions when it declared separate schools for blacks and whites illegal.

A pair of racing aficionados from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., spent Saturday watching the early races at Pimlico, then they put their observations to use to score a massive payday in the Preakness. Joe Cavallo, 26, and Stephanie Rafferty, 21, hit the Pick 4 with Preakness winner Oxbow, Itsmyluckyday, Mylute, and Orb. One of their 72 50-cent Pick 4 bets netted $4,883.05, and Rafferty fought back tears as she saw the payout. “What am I going to do with $5,000?” Rafferty said. “It hasn't set in yet.” While the couple spends countless summer days at the track in Saratoga, Rafferty, who works in construction, said she only gambles on the big race days.

One of the colts entered in Saturday's 138th running of the Preakness Stakes can lay claim to a distinction not shared by seven others:  He's actually finished ahead of the expected favorite Orb in a race. Titletown Five, one of three Preakness entries trained by Hall of Famer D. Wayne Lukas, and Orb were both entered in a seven-furlong, maiden special weight race for 2-year-olds at Saratoga last Aug. 18. Maiden special weights are for horses that have never won a race in their career.

86, an 18 year resident of Severna Park died peacefully surrounded by her loving family on Sunday, April 29, at the home of her daughter and son-in-law in Pasadena. Mrs. York grew up in Maine and relocated to Maryland from Connecticut with her husband in 1989 to be close to her children. She was very active in the Senior Center and was chosen to represent Connecticut Seniors and testify on Capital Hill for the Select Committee on Aging in 1982. She remained active in may roles for the Senior Center, taking computer classes, swimming, yoga and serving Meals on Wheels.

Anthony T. York, who had been band director and a music teacher at Fallston High School since 1988, died of cancer Monday at his home on Whiteworth Road in Jacksonville. He was 29.He is survived by his wife, the former Victoria Heggie; a daughter, Heather, and a son, Michael, both of Jacksonville; his mother, Janice York of Virginia Beach, Va.; a brother, Durward York of Virginia Beach; two sisters, Dawn Rodrigeuz of Midway City, Okla., and Christina York of Virginia Beach; and his grandmothers, Iva York of Grand Rapids, Mich.

YORK, Pa. -- In other cities, the mayor gets arrested, and it's for putting his imbecile brother-in-law on the city payroll or extorting a kickback on the garbage contract or, the worst-case scenario until now, smoking crack with hookers in a hotel room wired for sound and video by the FBI. In York, our mayor gets arrested, and it's in connection with murder. Well, Mayor Charlie Robertson always wanted to put York on the map, to attract attention to our fair city, to put York in the spotlight.

Maryland lost a five-state battle for a key economic-development plum yesterday, as fast-growing Seattle coffee chain Starbucks Corp. said it would open a coffee roasting and distribution plant in York, Pa. The plant could produce 500 jobs.The decision to move to York came at the end of a nine-month search that eventually narrowed itself to a choice between York and the Riverside Business Park in the Belcamp section of Harford County."The reason it was attractive was that, at a minimum, in the first phase they were talking 275 jobs.

NEW YORK -- The other night in one of the city's most popular midtown steakhouses, every table on two floors was filled and there was standing room only at the restaurant's three bars. It was a balmy, shirtsleeves night uncommon for October, and New York was back. Or so it seemed at this one prominent feeding and watering hole, and on the busy midtown streets, about a month after the two terrorist attacks that had turned lower Manhattan's financial district into a war zone. As debris movers, firefighters and police continued to toil there, much of the rest of New York seemed to be heeding President Bush's advice to "get back to normal."

Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice will be the first player featured during the upcoming season in USA's "NFL Characters Unite" campaign, the cable channel will announce later today. Rice will also announce an expanded relationship between the NFL and USA at the upfront TV presentations in New York City later today. Here's the release from USA: NEW YORK - May 16, 2012 - USA Network announced today that it is expanding its Characters Unite collaboration with the National Football League.

When Dr. Charles Brown first looked into taking the athletic director job at UMBC in 1989, the Brooklyn, N.Y., native wasn't real savvy about the school. "I thought it was a military base when I showed up," he said with a chuckle. "It said UMBC. I didn't know what it was. I lived near USMA, the U.S. Military Academy [at West Point] when I lived in New York. " Now, after 24 years at the school, he's retiring as the longest-tenured Division I athletic director in Maryland history and the driving force behind UMBC's greatly enhanced profile in both intercollegiate and club sports.

Kentucky Derby winner Orb continues training toward Preakness from the track at Belmont Park. He galloped a mile and a quarter Friday morning for trainer Shug McGaughey, who was happy with what he saw. Orb should arrive in Baltimore by Monday afternoon. The Malibu Moon colt can become the 13thhorse to win both the Derby and Preakness since Affirmed completed the Triple Crown in 1978. Co-owned by Baltimore County resident Stuart Janney III, Orb won the Derby by two-and-a-half lengths, and appears likely to be a heavy favorite in the 138th Preakness.

A motorcade of police vehicles escorting wounded military service members from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to New York City will cause roving lane closures on multiple area highways Wednesday morning, according to Baltimore Police. The motorcade will begin at Walter Reed in Bethesda at 7 a.m. and is expected to impact morning commutes in the Washington and Baltimore metropolitan area, police said. The motorcade will travel northbound along Interstate 495 and Interstate 95. krector@baltsun.com twitter.com/rectorsun

New York Rangers forward Taylor Pyatt initially thought the team's equipment managers might not like him as much as Rick Nash. Each day, Pyatt would glance over to Nash's adjacent locker at the team's practice facility and notice long socks, wristbands, ankle braces and other assorted gear neatly arranged and folded — etiquette rarely seen within hockey dressing rooms. Pyatt figured it was at the request of New York's newest superstar, not the quirk of a meticulous neat freak. "I thought he was getting special treatment," Pyatt said this week, after watching Nash carefully fold and place every piece of equipment along a bench in front of his stall.

A woman in her 70s was badly injured when she fell out of a moving antique pickup truck in Baltimore County Sunday morning near the Pennsylvania border, police said. Details of how the woman fell out of the 1949 black Chevrolet pickup were not available, and Baltimore County police were investigating the matter but it has not been determined whether charges will be filed, Lt. Rob McCullough, a police spokesman, said. The woman was flown to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center as a precaution, but her condition was stable and she was able to answer questions from detectives, McCullough said.

Coach Chris Hasbrouck was pleased to see St. Mary's play with the emotion he had hoped the team would play with as it raced out to an 8-1 advantage in the first quarter en route to a 22-5 demolition of Wesley in the first round of the Capital Athletic Conference tournament on Wednesday. And the No. 3 Seahawks' reward is a return matchup with York, which edged St. Mary's, 9-8, last Saturday to gain the No. 2 seed, a first-round bye, and a semifinal contest at home. “We're glad we got there to have a chance,” Hasbrouck said Thursday morning.

Chris Hasbrouck is not happy that St. Mary's dropped its regular-season finale to Capital Athletic Conference rival York last Saturday, and the coach wants to see his players show a little emotion when they meet Wesley in the first round of the conference tournament this Wednesday at Seahawk Stadium in St. Mary's City. “We need to go in there with a little bit of a chip on our shoulder,” Hasbrouck said Tuesday morning. “They knew that for a lot of reasons, we let a great opportunity slip by. I think we play better when we feel like there's more at stake.