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City police said the deaths of two people found inside a North Baltimore home Monday afternoon appeared to be the result of carbon monoxide poisoning. Officers responded to a home in the 2900 block of Greenmount Ave. to check on the well-being of a tenant who had not been heard from since late April, said Agent Donny Moses, a police spokesman. Inside, police found the woman at the top of the stairs, and a man in a bedroom, Moses said. Both were in early stages of decomposition. Police located a generator that had run out of gasoline, and the landlord said the block had recently lost power.

Howard County police have arrested a Columbia teenager they say used Internet "spoofing" software to make telephone threats to his former high school and the Howard County Board of Education. The 15-year-old boy, who is accused of making the calls on four occasions over the past three months, was arrested Monday and charged with making arson threats, telephone misuse, harassment, second-degree assault, making a false statement about a destructive device and disturbing school operations.

Police partner with Web site to map area crime Anne Arundel County police are contracting a Web site to provide enhanced crime mapping information on the Internet, the department announced. The department, using a $2,388 state grant, has contracted CrimeReports.com to provide real-time crime information on the Web. Residents can access the data through the department's Web site, www.aacounty.org/Police. Man arrested for burglary, destruction A man was arrested last week on a warrant charging him with breaking a window at his ex-girlfriend's Annapolis apartment last fall.

Kristen Detwiler had just merged onto busy Route 100 in Ellicott City one afternoon last week when she saw a shocking sight: Her 7-year-old autistic son was running against traffic on the right shoulder. "I slammed on the brakes and started running after him yelling, 'Stop, Colin, it's Mommy! Stop! stop!'" she recalled. Detwiler gathered up her son as other motorists called 911. A county police officer arrived and accompanied Detwiler back to Veterans Elementary School, the site of a county-sponsored summer day camp from which her son had wandered off. Though the boy was unharmed, Detwiler, an Ellicott City resident, said she is angry that camp staffers did not call police earlier and that after the incident, she did not receive a call from a high-ranking parks department official for two days.

It was the kind of sight that makes a rescuer smash a vehicle's window: a young child, alone, locked in a car on a hot summer afternoon. A day after a 14-month-old girl was pulled from a sweltering sport utility vehicle in an Annapolis parking lot, police said yesterday that the toddler's mother faces criminal charges. And, as they often do when this seasonal danger presents itself, they warned that children can die if left in cars when the weather is warm. "Even a few minutes can be critical for a child," Battalion Chief Matthew Tobia, an Anne Arundel Fire Department spokesman, said.

Baltimore County police officers with more than nine years of experience should receive 4 percent pay raises next year, according to an arbitrator whose findings were made public yesterday. As a result of the arbitration, the raises, which will cost about $4 million, must be included in the budget to be proposed by County Executive James T. Smith Jr. this month. The step increases for officers with more than nine years of service would make midcareer salaries of county officers more competitive with the midcareer salaries of police officers in other jurisdictions, said Cole B. Weston, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 4. "It's important to stay competitive with the other jurisdictions, all of which are getting cost-of-living raises this year," Weston said.

State officials found the man who abandoned a small sailboat in the Magothy River in Anne Arundel County over the weekend after the sailor called authorities yesterday to let them know he was safe. Maryland Natural Resources Police, the Coast Guard and members of the Anne Arundel County Fire Department searched the water throughout the night and into yesterday morning after authorities found the day sailer capsized with its sails out on Sunday night, said Sgt. Ken Turner with the Natural Resources Police.

Carl Kent started looking for his cousin Nelly the day after Christmas. He organized a search party and went to a flophouse in the city where she sometimes stayed with a friend. But nobody there had seen her. The day after New Year's, Kent received a phone call from a woman who was in jail. "She said, `You don't have to worry about looking for your cousin anymore. Go to my house, kick in the door, you'll find your cousin. She's been in there, and she's been dead for three days,' " Kent recalled in an interview.

Citing rapid growth and increasing crime, residents in the western part of the county are lobbying police and county officials for a new substation that would give law enforcement quicker access to towns near the county line, including Russett, Maryland City and Laurel. "As the population grows, you need more infrastructure," said Ray H. Szyperski, the vice president of Maryland City Civic Association. "We pay the same taxes as people in Glen Burnie. We should be getting the same types of help and material."