Baltimore Station

A 25-year-old man was found shot in the hand Sunday afternoon near the Penn North subway station, Baltimore City police said. Police spokesman Jeremy Silbert said the unidentified victim was taken to a local hospital. He said the incident occurred in the 1800 block of Presstman St., though it had initially been reported as North Avenue and Woodyear Street.

A theft this month of 311 gallons of gasoline from a station in Baltimore is one in a series of similar incidents, according to the station's owner, who says people have been disabling pumps and allowing friends and relatives to fill their tanks for free Mehdi Rezakhan, who owns BP stations in Remington and East Baltimore, said each businesses has been hit once, and stations owned by friends have been taken several times, one for 1,800 gallons of...

When Oprah Winfrey ends her syndicated talk show Wednesday, millions of fans will not be the only ones facing a void. TV station executives who have lived with what's come to be known as the "Oprah Factor" are buying, selling, hoping and praying to get a piece of the audience of one of the most lucrative franchises in television. Tens of millions of dollars are at stake. "With Oprah leaving, it's the Wild West in lots of cities like Baltimore," says Bob Papper, Hofstra University professor of media studies.

Baltimore television stations expected little in the way of political advertising this election year. Then the fight over expanded gambling in Maryland erupted, pitting deep-pocketed casino companies against each other. The barrage of ads urging viewers to vote for or against the gambling referendum could drive political ad spending at local television stations to well over $10 million this year, according to some estimates. Still, the Baltimore TV market's share of the political spending will fall short of 2010, a year that featured a governor's race as well as heavy casino-related issue advertising.

On Feb. 2, 1961, at 1 p.m., a train carrying fans to Bowie Race Course derailed near the race track, killing six and injuring more than 200. Undaunted, a number of passengers scrambled over the dead and wounded, smashed windows and hurried on foot to Bowie, in 15-degree cold, to place their bets before the first race. One man walked to the track with a broken collarbone. Another limped out of the woods nearby carrying a bag of money and one of his shoes. "I saw people with blood all over them, standing there (at the mutual windows)

It's a whole lot quieter in Penn Station these days - no whirring sounds, no clickety-clack of an old-fashioned, mechanical signboard bringing the news that your train is 20 minutes late. In place of the iconic board above the main desk at Baltimore's Amtrak station, there now hangs a large digital board that works intermittently as it undergoes testing. For live information, passengers depend on two small temporary digital screens - miniature versions of what travelers might see listing arrivals and departures at an airport.

Touting his record and ignoring his opponents, Gov. Parris N. Glendening began airing his first campaign ad of the year on Baltimore television stations yesterday.The commercial mentions several Glendening initiatives approved by the General Assembly in the last 3 1/2 years, such as the state's new prepaid tuition program and a 10 percent cut in the income tax.An incumbent governor's taking to the airwaves a full three months before the Democratic primary surprised some observers, but a Glendening campaign spokesman said that had long been the schedule.

8 finalists to design, build Station North bike racks Judges have selected eight finalists, including three Maryland Institute College of Art students, to design and build eight one-of-a-kind bike racks to be installed by next spring in Baltimore's Station North district. The designs were submitted as part of the Station North Bike Rack Project, a competition held this fall to help raise the bike rack to an art form and make Baltimore a more bike-friendly city. A public display of the 79 designs will be held from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Dec. 12 at 20 W. North Ave. The winners will each receive $4,000 to execute their designs for locations to be determined.

At the soon-to-be WYPR-FM, the successor to WJHU, leaders are mapping plans for a new local news operation. But the man who selected the station's shows over the past four years has some tart advice: You'd better do it right. "It has to have the core values of radio," says Terry R. Trouyet, who will leave his job as WJHU's programming director later this week. Since 1997, he has helped to guide the National Public Radio affiliate toward a more consistently news- and information-oriented format.

Head down, eyes focused, Alexis Brown sat on a bench at Penn Station yesterday, typing fast on a laptop. "I'm writing a paper that's due in an hour," said Brown, a second-year law student at the University of Baltimore, her tone slightly anxious. She'd been too busy to notice, she said, that the train station was newly equipped as a Wi-Fi "hot spot," a system that would enable her, if she chose, to send her paper directly to her professor via e-mail. The Wi-Fi setup was established Monday at Penn Station and at four other Amtrak terminals on the Northeast corridor - Philadelphia's 30th Street Station, Wilmington Station in Delaware, Washington's Union Station and Penn Station in Manhattan.