The following stories have been hand-selected by the Assignment Desk at News4:
BANK GOES AFTER FIRE COMPANY
Baltimore Sun: " In rural hamlets, the volunteer fire station often doubles as the town square, community center and bingo parlor, where pancake breakfasts and spaghetti dinners bring everyone together at the same folding tables. That used to happen here, in this tiny unincorporated community in Western Maryland, where the closest town with a paid police force is across the north branch of the Potomac River and railroad tracks in West Virginia. But the thrice-weekly games of bingo are down to just Sundays, with only a handful of diehards and old-timers attending."
DISTRACTED DRIVER CRASHES ON THE RISE
Fredericksburg.com: "Crashes caused by distracted drivers are on the rise in the Fredericksburg area, bucking trends in the rest of Virginia and in the nation. In Fredericksburg and Stafford and Spotsylvania counties, distracted-driver accidents increased from 908 in 2009 to 961 last year, which included six fatalities, according to preliminary Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles statistics. Last year's figures also show a steep increase when compared with the 880 such accidents in 2006."
SMARTER GROCERY SHOPPING
The Capital: "There's no fooling teenagers with off-brand cereal, at least not in the Tantalla household. Laurie Tantalla learned that the hard way. The Annapolis woman, in an attempt to save a few bucks on breakfast, purchased some of Giant's store-brand cereal and poured it into a Tupperware container. She tossed away the cereal box and crossed her fingers that her children wouldn't notice the difference."
