Two popular Times-News features — the Who We Are section and an eight-part Regional Update series — will be appearing soon.

Who We Are drew about 1,000 responses from readers last year. A questionnaire for this year’s edition ran several times last week. The section will be part of the Feb. 24 newspaper edition.

The Regional Update sections will appear over eight days at the end of March. The sections are Real Estate and Development; Health and Wellness; Education; Tourism; Industry and Technology; Commerce; Auto and Transportation, and Religion...

Many residents in the vicinity of the Maryland Correctional Institution-Hagerstown said they were unaware of last month’s prison escape until long after it occurred.

Kandelario Garcia-Ramos, 23, scaled two fences between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m. on Jan. 17. He was captured five days later when a clerk at the Sheetz store at U.S. 40 and Md. 66, east of Hagerstown, called 911 to report a suspicious man loitering in the store.

Prison officials said a siren was sounded to alert people in the surrounding area of the escape. But many people said they did not hear the alarm....

The Hold the Presses feature in the February edition of Reader’s Digest featured a Cumberland Times-News headline: County Nursing Home Holding Second Annual Old Bags Tea.

The Old Bags Tea is the name of a social event held at the Allegany County Nursing Home....

The Baltimore Sun is no longer available in our area — at least not at newsstands.

The newspaper stopped delivering papers in much of Western Maryland last month. Dealers were told that it was too costly to have the paper transported here....

Faithful viewers of WJLA-TV (Channel 7) in Washington have no doubt noticed the absence of several familiar faces. The station laid off 26 staffers Jan. 23, including several prominent on-air reporters.

Among those going are Andrea McCarren, Sarah Lee, Alisa Parenti, Emily Schmidt, Jennifer Donelan and sports announcer Greg Toland....

Bobby Jones, longtime mail processor for the Times-News, recently was injured in a fall at home and is now recuperating at a Morgantown, W.Va. facility.

Jones for nearly three decades has been a familiar figure on the downtown mall as he delivers newspapers and makes frequent trips to the Cumberland Post Office.

Cards may be sent to him at HealthSouth Mountain View Regional Rehabilitation Hospital, 1160 Van Voorhis Road, Room 241B, Morgantown, WV 26505....

With Greyhound bus service here long gone and no prospects for commuter air service, Amtrak in and out of Cumberland is a travel necessity for some people. But Rep. Roscoe Bartlett apparently doesn’t agree. He is the only Maryland congressman to vote against stimulus funding for the rail service.

Fortunately, the Flake amendment which would have stripped President Obama’s stimulus bill of an $800 million infusion for Amtrak, did not prevail. Bartlett, a Republican congressman, saw 50 of his GOP house colleagues support the Amtrak funding....

Think the interest in wind energy is just a passing fad? Consider this: Wind industry jobs now outnumber those in the coal industry. Or, at least, maybe.

According to the American Wind Energy Association, wind industry-related jobs in 2008 jumped to 85,000, a 70 percent increase from the previous year.

In contrast, the coal industry employs about 81,000 workers, according to 2007 statistics from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Still, the numbers may be a matter of comparing apples to oranges. The 85,000 wind jobs include positions like installers, maintenance, legal, marketing services and the like. The coal employment figure is strictly for coal miners and not ancillary jobs....

Seen on the Internet — Questions to ponder:

• Do people in Australia call the rest of the world “up over?”

• Why is it that night falls but day breaks?

• Can you buy an entire chess set in a pawn shop?

• Have you ever imagined a world without hypothetical situations?

• Why do the signs that say “Slow Children” have a picture of a running child?

• Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?

Jan Alderton is managing editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Contact Jan Alderton at jpalderton@times-news.com.