First elephant birth at zoo is expected within days
Officials at the Maryland Zoo are on 24-hour watch, rotating late-night shifts while awaiting the birth of an elephant within the next few days.
It will be the first elephant birth in the zoo's 132-year history, officials said. Felix, the 24-year-old soon-to-be mother, arrived at the zoo in December with a male elephant, Tuffy, from Riddles Elephant and Wildlife Sanctuary.
Zoo officials have about 12 people monitoring the elephant barn, waiting for Felix to go into labor. Mike McClure, general curator and elephant manager, said he expects visitors to be eager to see the newborn when the zoo reopens Saturday after being closed for two months.
"This is big," McClure said. "We anticipate people will be very excited about it. We have excellent community support. We've double the herd size and anticipate people wanting to see what is going on."
Zoo officials say the elephant exhibit recently completed a $1 million renovation, which doubled the size of the indoor space for the elephants.
McClure said Felix could be in labor as little as 20 minutes or as long as several hours. The average weight of a baby elephant is about 230 pounds, zoo officials said.
Brent Jones
Cecil County
: North East
3 1/2 -year sentence for formula tampering
A U.S. district judge sentenced a 29-year-old Maryland man yesterday to nearly 3 1/2 years in prison for tampering with infant formula for profit, federal prosecutors said.
Bobby Wayne Rhoades of North East "jeopardized the life of an innocent child for $22.78," Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said in a statement.
According to the plea agreement, the father of an infant in Rising Sun purchased a container of powdered baby formula from a store on Jan. 4, 2006. The father said his infant was reluctant to drink the formula and after finally consuming some started to vomit.
The father saw that the formula label had fallen away and that there was a hole in the container that had been taped over, court papers say. The container was sent to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which determined that it contained flour and salt.
In reviewing the store's video recordings and business records, investigators learned that on Jan. 1, 2006, a man had purchased a container of powdered baby formula and then another man returned the same formula that day for a refund of $22.78.
That container of baby formula was put back on the shelf by store employees and was bought Jan. 4, 2006, by the infant's father, prosecutors said.
After his arrest in February 2006, Rhoades admitted to authorities that he had returned the tainted baby formula to the store and split the money from the return with one of his brothers.
Matthew Dolan
Harford County
: Edgewood
Cracked pipe leaves stench at school
A pipe under the kitchen at Edgewood High School cracked last week, causing wastewater to spill into a crawl space and leaving an unpleasant odor in the cafeteria and locker room areas, school officials said yesterday.
Although repairs and cleanup were completed after the leak was discovered on Feb. 20, the smell lingers in parts of the school.
"It takes time and large fans to remove the smell out of the area," said Don Morrison, a spokesman for the county schools. "Lime is being used to absorb the smell. It's getting better each day, but it's not a pleasant odor."
County health inspectors determined that there were no health concerns but that the odor presents a "human comfort situation," Morrison said.
Madison Park
Baltimore
: Morgan State
38 to be inducted into honor society
Thirty-eight Morgan State University students will be inducted into the Alpha Kappa Mu Honor Society (Pi Lambda Psi Chapter) March 18.
The inductees are juniors and seniors who have maintained a grade point average of 3.3 or higher. The ceremony will begin at 7 p.m. in Ballroom C on the campus.
Information: 443-885-1754.