Balt

A union seeking to represent Baltimore County's white-collar workers wants a court order giving it equal access to information and forbidding backers of the existing union from using paid leave to electioneer.A long-delayed representation election was supposed to begin today, with secret ballots being mailed to about 1,600 potential union members by the private American Arbitration Association of Washington, which will count the votes Oct. 15.Last September, the Baltimore County Federation of Public Employees, affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers (AFL-CIO)

A man was killed in the unit block of Jack Pine Place in Baltimore County, police said Saturday night. A call about shots fired came in to police dispatch just after 9 p.m., they said. Jack Pine Place is a residential street in Nottingham near the intersection of White Marsh Boulevard and Interstate 695. steve.kilar@baltsun.com twitter.com/stevekilar

Baltimore county firefighters responded to a single-alarm fire in a Middleborough row home today, fire officials said. Glenn Bitters, of the county's fire liaison office, said firefighters responded to the Epping Court home, where they found a fire on the second story. Bitters said the fire was quickly extinguished and the four adults believed to reside in the home were unharmed. No other details were available. erica.green@baltsun.com .

The video shows a bus driver fighting a girl - and this time it was shot in Baltimore. A Baltimore bus driver has been suspended by the Maryland Transit Administration pending a police investigation into an altercation between her and a young female student on the No. 40 bus line about 2 p.m. Monday, according to a MTA spokesman. A video of the fight was posted on YouTube and the website worldstarhiphop.com and later reported by TMZ, and had already been viewed thousands of times as of Tuesday night.

Baltimore City Police reported two related shootings, one of them fatal, Monday night in Southwest Baltimore. The incident happened about 8:44 p.m. in the 3000 block of Brighton St. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said that one of the victims came to St. Agnes Medical Center for treatment. Their identities were not released. Jacques.kelly@baltsun.com Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

A Baltimore County police cruiser collided with another vehicle Saturday in Towson, police said, sending one person to the hospital. The marked patrol unit from Towson collided with a black Mitsubishi SUV just before 2 p.m. near the intersection of Putty Hill Avenue and Goucher Boulevard, according to Baltimore County Police. The police crash team was on the scene investigating the incident at 4:30 p.m. No determination of fault had been made by that time, police said. The injured person was taken to Greater Baltimore Medical Center, police said.

Baltimore County's Board of Education is seeking input from residents about its search for a new superintendent of schools. Three public forums have been scheduled for residents to inform board members of issues they should consider when choosing a new head for the county's school system. The first meeting will be held Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at Loch Raven High School, 1212 Cowpens Ave. in Towson. On Thursday, two meetings will be held, both beginning at 6 p.m. One gathering will be conducted at Woodlawn High School, 1801 Woodlawn Drive in Woodlawn.

Deep thought from Michael Phelps: Is random drug testing really random? The Olympian seems to have his doubts. "Feel like my #randomness for drug testing is like the randomness at the security lines at airports...6 times in three weeks?? Really?" he Tweeted this afternoon. "And not saying its bad that they test... But a little excessive IMO... Just wonder if the other athletes out there are getting the "randomness" that I get... " Perhaps he's alluding to personal history.

Harford Road in the Glen Arm area is closed between Hartley Mill and Glen Arm roads because of downed trees and wires following storms and heavy winds that swept through the region last night, according to Baltimore County police. Authorities have received no reports of major flooding in the county, Cpl. John Wachter said.

This week was pretty busy in the land of Baltimore technology. Here are some of the cool things that happened. * Baltimore Tweet maps : Dave Troy, 410 Labs cofounder , and Chris Whong, head of Charm City Networks , collaborated online to develop a map of Baltimore-based tweets . You can explore this map's geo-located tweets from Baltimore people, collected on Aug. 27. Chris even overlayed vacant housing on the map, so you can see...