Bond

Baltimore County officials say they can close a gap in pension funding while saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. But their planned strategy is one that carries considerable risk, experts say. County Executive Kevin Kamenetz has proposed borrowing $255 million through pension obligation bonds and repaying the money over the next three decades. Administration officials have acknowledged the bonds would carry risk because the borrowed money would be invested in the stock market.

The Baltimore City Council made the right choice Monday in unanimously approving an important provision in the deal that will retain Under Armour's corporate headquarters at Tide Point and allow the maker of branded performance apparel to greatly expand its presence here and add as many as 1,600 new jobs over the next decade. Under Armour is Baltimore's fastest-growing large employer, and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was also correct to "protect this house" and take the necessary steps to enable the expansion, which is expected to include a new 80,000-square-foot office building and retail outlet in the short term and eventually an office building three times that size and an 800-space parking garage, as well as athletic fields and walking trails.

The world-class ice dancer accused of sexually abusing a teenage girl surrendered himself to New York State Police and was released on $50,000 bond, according to his attorney. Genrikh Sretenski, 50, a Russian-born Olympic competitor who has trained Olympic skaters, appeared in New York Friday morning and was arraigned on sex abuse and related charges stemming from sexual abuse allegations from a July 2011 incident in Lake Placid. The indictment lists the victim at 16-years-old at the time of the alleged abuse.

When the Ravens opened training camp on July 26, they made the decision to cut fullback Jamison Berryhill and add free-agent wide receiver Logan Payne to the roster. And they didn't waste any time giving Payne a playbook and throwing him onto the practice field later that day. Not that 27-year-old Payne is complaining. The six-year veteran who has spent time with the New York Jets and the Seattle Seahawks said he appreciated the team's decision to indoctrinate him quickly. “The best way to learn is to be thrown into the fire,” he said after Monday's practice at the team's headquarters in Owings Mills.

A Pikesville man is being held on $50,000 bond at Baltimore County Detention Center on charges that he stole two beers from the basement of a Towson bar. County Police spokeswoman Cpl. Cathy Batton said a manager of the Kent House, in the 500 block of York Road in Towson, called police at 6:48 p.m. on Monday, July 16, to report a burglary in progress. Police said the manager went to the basement and noticed the light was off, and when he got downstairs, found a man lying on the basement floor.

Brian E. Wilcox, a surety bond expert and former partner in HMS Insurance Associates, was killed Wednesday in an automobile accident in Lenox Township, Pa. The longtime Lutherville resident was 56. Mr. Wilcox, who was driving a Lexus convertible, was en route to his hometown of Homer, N.Y., to visit his elderly father when he was involved in a seven-car chain reaction crash, after a tractor-trailer hit cars stopped in a construction area on...

There are serious clouds over the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System and the way the O'Malley administration has managed it. Consider the following: 1. The rate of return in the year ending March 31 was 3.18 percent, and the rate of return over the previous 10-year period was 5.40 percent, nowhere near the 7.75 percent projected by fund managers. 2. The fund's asset allocation targets are 36 percent public equity, 10 percent fixed income, 2 percent cash, and 52 percent "alternative investments" (10 percent private equity, 10 percent "credit/debt strategies," 10 percent real estate, 15 percent "real return" and 7 percent "absolute return")

Ruth Miller, a longtime Israel Bonds secretary, died Sunday of a stroke at Emeritus at Pikesville assisted-living facility. She was 92. The daughter of Russian-Polish immigrants, Ruth Scurnick was born in Baltimore and raised on Riggs Avenue. After graduating from Western High School in 1937, she attended secretarial school and worked as a legal secretary before World War II. She was married in 1952 to Sidney Miller, owner of an Eden Street tavern, who died in 1989. Mrs. Miller worked as a legal secretary for several Baltimore law firms before joining Israel Bonds as a secretary in 1966.

Oxygen's second season of “The Glee Project,” which premieres at 10 tonight (June 5), features a unique and talented Maryland native with a powerful story. Lanham's Mario Arnauz Bonds, 24, identifies himself as a, singer, songwriter, actor and dancer. But one thing that sets him apart is that he was born with Morning Glory Syndrome, which, at the age of 9, caused him to go completely blind. Mario does not allow his disability to hold him back from the competition. We talked with Mario via email about the people who inspired him, his love for performing and how his blindness has actually helped his musicality.

Ever have one of those nagging thoughts about yourself as a parent that kind of ricochets around in your skull like a bouncy ball whenever you try to corner it and figure it out? I'd been having this strange feeling that I wasn't really willing to address until I saw this post from Gina Crosley-Corcora, aka The Feminist Breeder . In it, she wrote about whether she loved her baby girl more than her older boys, after her husband commented on their seemingly extra special connection: Not only does Jolene allow me to slobber all over her, she welcomes it with the cheesiest grin you've ever seen.