Baltimore Region

Two men were shot to death in Baltimore on Tuesday night within 30 minutes of each other in separate and apparently unrelated incidents, police said, adding that an arrest has been made in a killing that occurred early Sunday. About 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, Torrey Darling, 26, was found lying in the 3900 block of Ridgewood Ave. in Northwest Baltimore by police responding to a report of a shooting. Darling, of no fixed address, was taken by ambulance to Sinai Hospital, where he died about three hours later.

TODAY Council to vote on Hamm Baltimore City Council is scheduled to vote on the confirmation of Leonard D. Hamm as police commissioner at its meeting at 5 p.m. in council chambers, Room 408, City Hall, 100 N. Holliday St. Social Security forum Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger will hold a congressional forum on Social Security at 10:30 a.m. at the Liberty Road Senior Center, 3525 Resource Drive, Randallstown. Among the speakers will be Priscilla Chatman of the National Association to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

The Baltimore-area housing market emerged from an extended slump in September, as home sales posted a gain for the first time in 14 months. Throughout the region, 1,500 home sales were settled during the month, an 11 percent jump over September 1994, the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors said.Sales rose almost everywhere in the region, with Baltimore and Harford counties leading the way with gains of 14 percent. Only Howard County saw a sales decline, of 3 percent."Is the market better?

Police Blotter is a sampling of crimes from police reports in Baltimore City and Baltimore County. Baltimore City Southwestern District Arrest: Durell Aldridge, 20, of the 3300 block of W. Caton Ave. was arrested Monday at his attorney's office in the 200 block of N. Charles St. by members of the Warrant Apprehension Task Force on a warrant charging him with first-degree assault in a Feb. 23 shooting. The victim, a 25-year-old man, was shot after trying to rob Aldridge at knifepoint, police said.

Johns Wilson Hopkins Occupation: Executive director of Baltimore Heritage Inc., a nonprofit organization founded in 1961 to promote the appreciation, preservation and economic potential of Baltimore's historic neighborhoods. In the news: Hopkins is leading a coalition of preservation groups to save the nearly 100-year-old Rochambeau apartment building from demolition. The Archdiocese of Baltimore, which owns the building at Charles and Franklin streets downtown, wants to build a prayer garden near the famed Basilica of the Assumption, which shares the block with the Rochambeau.

SEVERN Reisterstown man killed, 4 injured in 2-vehicle crash A 68-year-old Reisterstown man died and four people were injured Friday after a car and a pickup truck collided in Severn, Anne Arundel County police said yesterday. A 1998 Nissan Sentra driven by Alex Rusabrov of the first block of Red Mile Court in Reisterstown was turning onto Telegraph Road from Florida Avenue when it went into the path of a 1988 Toyota pickup, police said. Rusabrov died of internal injuries at Maryland Shock Trauma Center.

Are you paying too much for rent? Getting a steal? Check out what the average renter pays. New data in from Delta Associates, an Alexandria, Va.-based real estate research firm, shows the average rental price for higher-end apartment complexes in the Baltimore region is $1,497, up 3.2 percent from this time last year. The data was described in the firm's quarterly Mid-Atlantic “Class A” Apartment Market Report.  Newer apartments with amenities in common areas make up the Class A category.

A line of violent thunderstorms raced across Maryland yesterday evening, sparking dozens of fires, critically injuring a Carroll County woman and knocking out power to more than 80,000 homes and businesses in the Baltimore region. The widespread storms turned the sky black as sheets of wind-whipped rain and golf ball-sized hail were illuminated by streaks of lighting. They also spawned several funnel clouds and wind gusts to 70 mph that sent trees crashing into homes in the city and blew down fences in Middle River.