Cell Phones

Federal authorities said they have rescued a 15-year-old girl from being prostituted by a Washington man who had advertised her on the Backpage website and took her to College Park to meet a man. Melvin Longwood, age 31, was indicted on charges of transporting a minor for the purposes of prostitution. Authorities, working with the National center for Missing and Exploited Children, allege he used the girl between September and February. The investigation began with a report of a missing teenager from Virginia.

Maryland's highest court has upheld a law allowing police to listen in on cell phone calls that suspects make outside the state, a tool that authorities say is key to fighting the drug trade. The 5-2 Court of Appeals ruling is a victory for law enforcement, said Brian Kleinbord, chief of criminal appeals division for the Maryland Attorney General's Office. "It means that drug dealers can't evade a wiretap by driving their cars across the state line. " But dissenters argued that multi-state wiretaps are the latest example of police using advances in technology to chip away at privacy rights.

Senate Says: no holding cell phones while driving- March 23) The dim bulbs in Annapolis are at it again ("Senate says: no holding cell phones while driving," March 23). The physical distraction of a hand-held phone is not the problem, and encouraging the use of headsets is not the solution. The problem is that it is humanly impossible for us to "interact" with two things at once (sorry multi-taskers); ask your local neurologist or anyone who deals with brain functioning. The best you can do is "toggle tasking," switching your "cognitive" attention to one thing, and then the next, but not focusing on both together.

The case before the Maryland Court of Appeals is straightforward. Detectives in Montgomery County got a warrant to intercept cell phone calls of a suspected drug dealer. They caught him in the act and made an arrest, finding marijuana in his suitcase. A jury convicted the man and he was sentenced to five years in prison. But he argued that the cops exceeded their authority. The telephone conversation the cops picked up was placed in Virginia, and was made to another man in another state.

Terry Bittner's assertion that cell phones in Maryland's prisons are an issue is correct. This is an issue in every state. His assertion that Maryland is focusing on a single solution — cell phone blocking — is inaccurate. And his insinuation that we are not doing enough is wrong ("Cell phone blocking isn't the only answer for Md. Prisons," June 15). There is no one single solution to meeting the challenge of illegal cell phones in prisons. In the absence of jamming, which is generally illegal in the United States, the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services has conducted more than 20 months of research on all available technologies to better understand which cellular detection, managed access or jamming applications would work best in our prisons.

If "relinquishing our freedom" will save lives, I'm all for it. Writer Chris Millirons can bleat all he wants about a right to drive while using handheld cell phones, he's out of step with reality ("Cell phone ban: how quickly we relinquish our freedom," Readers respond, March 30). Do I have a "right" to drive while drunk? It's been proven that talking on a cell phone is a similar impairment. People who cannot exist without being perpetually connected suffer a form of addiction.

Maryland's Senate wants motorists to keep both hands on the steering wheel, giving initial approval Tuesday to a measure that outlaws holding a cell phone while driving. The bill does not ban the use of cell phones -- drivers would be allowed to chat using a headset while navigating traffic. Also, senators reduced the fine for violations to $40; a companion measure in the House carries a $100 fine. "My constituents are on the road and see people with one hand on the wheel and one on the phone and want that to end," said Sen. James Brochin, a Baltimore County Democrat.

Police repeatedly remind us that people drive badly over the holidays. They're aggravated, irritated, crowded, rushed and overwhelmed, and put behind a wheel of a car and on a road with others who feel the same way, they become maniacal. But spending a few hours with a state trooper on Baltimore's highways to see just how bad we are at maneuvering around and through the post- Thanksgiving Day and pre-Christmas crush revealed another dimension to the problem. And it had nothing to do with getting to the store or the party on time.

Aiming to cut down on the high number of premature births in Maryland and across the nation, a new program will offer words of advice for pregnant women and new mothers in a place that will be hard to miss: their cell phones. The free text messages will be sent every week, and will include information about such things as seeing the doctor, avoiding alcohol and cigarettes, and eating properly. And while it's just rolling out in Maryland, the program, called text4baby, has more than 18,000 women signed up for what's expected to be the largest nationwide health initiative using mobile phones.

The Maryland Senate Wednesday passed by the narrowest of possible margins a ban on the use of hand-held cell phones while driving -- sending the bill to the House for what could be final action. The long-proposed but never-before-enacted bill squeaked by on a 24-23 vote, overcoming an impassioned plea by Republican Sen. E. J. Pipkin that rejecting the ban would be a "liberty issue." Two Republicans, Sen. Bryan Simonaire of Anne Arundel County and Sen. Larry Haines of Carroll County, joined 22 Democrats in supporting the bill.

West Belvedere Avenue 2500 block, between 9 and 9:30 a.m. April 26. Wallet with ID and cash stolen from Blue Point Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. Man left wallet in sweatshirt pocket in his room while he went to bathroom and returned to find wallet missing. Croydon Road 100 block, between 2:30 and 2:45 p.m. Aril 23. Copper drainpipe stolen from outside of house. Derby Manor Drive 3800 block, between 9:30 and 10:30 a.m. April 27. 40-inch Toshiba TV, Kindle Fire, 32-inch Vizio TV stolen from residence.

More than 600 cars brought unwanted household items and other recyclables to the second Clear Your Clutter Day held Saturday at Harford Community College. "We had an overwhelming response with 623 cars coming through," Nettie Owens, the owner of Sappari Solutions and the event's organizer, wrote in an e-mail thanking those who participated. The four-hour event was held in one of the HCC parking lots. "That does not include the many cars who got in line, waited an hour and decided to move on before actually coming through," Owens continued.

Weather radios have been the de facto means of weather emergency communication for decades, but the National Weather Service is bringing its warnings into the 21 st Century. Starting in May, the agency will begin texting tornado, flash flood and other warnings to wireless users in the affected county. There is no need to sign up for the alerts, but not all cell phones are capable of receiving them. The alerts will have special tones and vibrations that will be repeated twice, and they will display messages of up to 90 characters.

On the heels of a successful inaugural event last spring that drew nearly 200 cars, Sappari Solutions and Harford Community College are hosting a second Clear Your Clutter Day Saturday, April 28, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Clear Your Clutter Day offers Harford county residents a convenient opportunity to get rid of household clutter in an environmentally-responsible way and also provides attendees information on organizing, donating and other area...

I admit I was one of the skeptics when it comes to the NFL draft. When ESPN started televising it in 1980, I said: "Big guys in pricey suits walking across a stage - who's going to watch that?" Yep, I'm a regular visionary. A Nostradamus for our times. All that happened was that the draft turned into one of the biggest events on the sports calendar, as well as a TV ratings King Kong. But let's face it, whatever the NFL touches turns into ratings gold. Look at all the fans who tune in to the scouting combine in Indianapolis to watch beefy players do the vertical jump and three-cone drill.

Federal authorities said they have rescued a 15-year-old girl from being prostituted by a Washington man who had advertised her on the Backpage website and took her to College Park to meet a man. Melvin Longwood, age 31, was indicted on charges of transporting a minor for the purposes of prostitution. Authorities, working with the National center for Missing and Exploited Children, allege he used the girl between September and February. The investigation began with a report of a missing teenager from Virginia.

Los Angeles -- Next time you see a museum-goer in front of a Rembrandt with a cell phone pressed to one ear, don't assume this is some philistine more interested in gabbing than in art. He or she might be listening to the museum's audio guide to the exhibition. In recent months, a number of U.S. museums - including the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles - have begun offering audio tours that can be accessed via mobile phones as an alternative to the audio devices often available for rent at exhibitions.

I read with interest Glenn McNatt 's editorial about the use of cell-phone video to document historic events in Syria ("The YouTube war," Feb. 25). His editorial was a significant one and deserves to be expanded into a series exploring the uses of new media in global conflict. Mr. NcNatt's piece hearkens back to the best kind of writing that is the heritage of your newspaper. The revolutions occurring in the Arab world are profound. I believe that the use of non-professional video by those who are intimately involved in these struggles will be counted as one of the most important uses of new media.

President Obama's mantra that we all need to pay our fair share and go after the fat cats of Wall Street appears to be missing a few other groups. We don't hear Mr. Obama mention the fat cats of sports, movies and the entertainment world paying their fair share. Gov.Martin O'Malley echoes Mr. Obama's sentiments about high-income people paying their share in Maryland. I'd like to offer a side that the president and governor fail to mention. Before we write that check or have new taxes imposed, we need to make sure the entitlement crowd surrenders a few of the following prior to accepting entitlements: cell phones, Bluetooth ear pieces, iPhones, iPods, cable/Dish TV, luxury cars, etc. If one is going to accept entitlements, that person needs to demonstrate that they are living within their financial means and worthy of entitlements.