Activists

Anti-abortion advocates will gather at 10 a.m. Monday outside the Maryland State Police Headquarters in Pikesville to publicly discuss a $385,000 settlement involving both parties. The activists and their attorneys will discuss details of the case, which they say include a requirement that all state troopers receive additional training. The activists' federal lawsuit was over the August 2008 arrests of 18 protesters with Baltimore-based Defend Life during a Bel Air rally.

Joe Budge has been a familiar face at Annapolis city council meetings, speaking out on issues related to downtown. Later this month, he'll move from the public microphone to the dais as he's sworn in as the council's newest alderman. Budge, 60, was selected by the Annapolis Democratic Central Committee on Tuesday to replace former Ward One Alderman Richard E. Israel, who stepped down in April because he planned to move out of the city and into an assisted-living facility. Budge joins the council at a busy time, as aldermen finalize the city's annual budget and prepare to deal with planning and rezoning issues for the City Dock area.

Years of attempts to clean up the Chesapeake Bay have fallen short and there is continuing opposition to tougher regulation, but a panel of environmental activists that included the Obama administration's point man for bay cleanup said Saturday there is still reason to hope that anti-pollution efforts will succeed. The group gathered at the Museum of Industry in Baltimore, once the site of an oyster-packing plant, to discuss ways that community groups and individuals could improve water quality in the nation's largest estuary - which sustains not only thousands of wildlife species, but recreational opportunities and a slice of Maryland's economy.

  A Montgomery County woman who has split with other Second Amendment activists on how to fight Gov. Martin O'Malley 's recently passed gun safety bill said Friday that she has received the green light to begin a petition drive to bring the issue to a referendum. Sue Payne said has received approval from the State Board of Elections for the form and summary wording of the petitions she intends to circulate as she seeks signatures to put the gun bill, which O'Malley is expect to sign later this month, on the 2014 ballot.

I cannot tell you how disturbing I found the recent article describing the petition against Maryland's same-sex marriage law ("Activists exceed petition target," May 30). The suggestion that a group of people going around the state and collecting signatures in support of discriminating against a group of Marylanders are anything other than bigots is an insult to every activist who ever risked something to protect the rights of a minority. When I saw that Rev. Derek McCoy was African-American, I couldn't help but wonder if he would call some racist collecting signatures to get a referendum to overturn a law permitting interracial marriages an "activist.

Environmental activists met Saturday at the University of Baltimore to organize a push for a legislative ban on the natural gas drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — casting the issue as a fight pitting the little guys versus the lobbyists. Del. Heather R. Mizeur told the crowd of about 200 activists that she wanted Maryland to show others that they can hold the gas industry accountable before drilling starts, rather than trying to clean up after any environmental problems.

Activists, public officials and residents gathered Saturday outside an east Baltimore liquor store — where a man was severely beaten on Christmas Day — to protest violent attacks on gay people Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts told the crowd of about 40 people that his department plans to set up an advisory group to meet monthly to work with gay, lesbian and transgender people. "I want to come together as a community and make sure we connect and do the right things for every part of our community," said Batts, who became commissioner late last year.

Activists rallied outside a ramshackle West Baltimore storefront Saturday afternoon, demanding city officials take steps to quickly stabilize the building, which was the site of a historic civil rights protest. "The roof needs to be put back on," said C.D. Witherspoon, standing in front of the former location of Read's drugstore, where Morgan State University students held a 1955 sit-in that led to the desegregation of the chain. "We think that's the best way to celebrate Black History Month.

Activists have launched a last-minute attempt to halt construction of a $100 million jail for Baltimore teenagers facing adult charges, saying the state needs to have a broader conversation about how to deal with young criminals. Groundbreaking for the 180-bed facility, at the state-owned complex that includes a dozen other prison buildings just east of downtown Baltimore, is scheduled for this fall. "This is a building that nobody wants and barely anybody knows about," said Terry Hickey, director of the Community Law in Action Center, which tutors jailed teens.

Standing before some 30 activists and Union Square neighbors Saturday in a neon orange T-shirt with the words "I am Baltimore," 16-year-old Antonio Ellis recited a gritty poem about how the city appears through his eyes. "Born and raised in the city, where youth are always misunderstood. / Being judged based on skin color or because they're from the 'hood," the Reginald F. Lewis High School sophomore said in a lyrical rhythm. "Living in the city, where there is little chance to succeed.

Breakups are awkward, uncomfortable, difficult experiences. Just recently, I experienced a breakup of sorts, as I initiated the end of a relationship dating back 25 years. The relationship in question: myself and the Maryland Republican Party. People have different reactions when I told them I'd switched my registration from "Republican" to "Unaffiliated. " Conservatives worried I was drifting to the left, perhaps bending to the influence of my Obama-loving friends. As for liberals, some exulted that the political outlier in their lives finally seemed to be getting it. Well, sorry folks … but I guess I still don't get it. My switch is a non-ideological gesture of frustration by someone who has worked for and around some of the MDGOP's most notable and successful political figures — including Helen Bentley and Bob Ehrlich — over the past quarter-century.

Frank Bond Sr., a retired Maryland Transit Administration bus driver and neighborhood activist who believed in the value of education, died Monday of colon cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. "Frank was a wonderful man who treasured education even though he was not an educated man," said W. Byron Forbush II, who retired in 1998 after 38 years as headmaster of Friends School. "His three children went to Friends as well as two grandchildren," said Mr. Forbush. "He was so devoted and proud that his family was part of that institution.

Joseph "Zastrow" Simms, known as a colorful and compassionate community activist who helped bridge racial and social gaps in Annapolis from as far back as the turbulent 1960s, died Monday. Simms' niece Stacey Gaskin said Simms died of congestive heart failure, one month shy of his 79th birthday. He had been in home hospice care at her Arnold residence, she said. Simms grew up in Annapolis in the 1930s and 1940s, when the state capital was separated along racial lines, but became popular throughout the city because of his athletic prowess at Bates High School.

Maryland's highest-ranking judge, Robert M. Bell, likes that his courthouse is dedicated to his predecessor, pointing out that the letters etching Robert C. Murphy's name on the building's exterior are filled in gold paint to make sure even nighttime drivers can see it. As Bell approaches retirement, mandatory when he turns 70 in July, he scoffs at the notion that his name might someday grace a building as well. But then, his name is forever etched in legal history by virtue of the Supreme Court case Bell v. Maryland.

The 90-day legislative session in Annapolis wrapped up at midnight Monday to mixed reviews among environmental advocates, who hailed the passage of a bill promoting offshore wind development but had little else to celebrate. Gov. Martin O'Malley, who had pushed for the bill offering state incentives to put turbines off the Maryland coast, was scheduled to sign it Tuesday.  Karla Raettig, executive director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, called its passage "a great day for democracy," while Tommy Landers of Environment Mary land praised it as a "landmark victory for our climate and for our children and grandchildren.

Rebecca Rigger, a League of Women Voters activist who monitored the Baltimore County Planning Board, died of a heart attack March 25 at her Monkton home. She was 85. Born Rebecca Rogers in Big Island, Va., she was raised at an apple orchard in the Blue Ridge Mountains. She earned a bachelor's degree from what is now James Madison University, where she was editor of the college newspaper. As a young woman, she moved to eastern Baltimore County and taught at Middle River Junior High School.

About 100 activists and other members of the AIDS community marched through downtown Baltimore last night and placed an empty coffin on the steps of City Hall to memorialize John Stuban, a leader of the AIDS movement who died of the disease on Aug. 15.Mr. Stuban was the founder of ACT UP/Baltimore, part of a national network that uses civil disobedience to press for greater efforts to combat acquired immune deficiency syndrome.Before the march, nearly 200 people, including City Council members, health professionals and activists attended a memorial service for Mr. Stuban at Emmanuel Episcopal Church on Cathedral Street.

Concerned that Baltimore is in danger of losing valuable aspects of its African-American heritage, civil rights activists and preservationists gathered at City Hall Tuesday to urge the formation of a Baltimore City African-American Civil Rights Historic Commission. As outlined in legislation introduced in June, the panel's mission would be to "catalog, preserve, link and promote" resources memorializing the "pioneering civil rights struggle which occurred in Baltimore City in the 1950s and 60s," as well as other key moments in local African-American history.

Sitting alone at the edge of the parking lot outside Baltimore's 24-hour homeless shelter, Robin Bolden watched the dozens gathered nearby Saturday to remember her husband, Dana, who was stabbed to death at the facility earlier this month. Tears stained her face while she listened to Tony Simmons call on the homeless individuals and activists assembled to demand city leaders step up plans to find permanent homes for the more than 4,000 men, women and children who sleep outside and in shelters every night.

Carl Snowden, the former director of the Office of Civil Rights at the Maryland Attorney General's Office, reported to jail Friday morning to begin a 10-day sentence for violating probation on a drunk-driving conviction. Retired Judge Diane O. Leasure found March 11 that Snowden, 59, had violated probation in his 2010 drunken driving case in Anne Arundel County because he had been convicted last year of possession of marijuana in Baltimore City. She ordered him to begin his jail term on April 12, but Snowden received permission to begin Friday.