Claims

Always, there were those lovely old country estates and gracious manor taverns with roaring fireplaces, but in the old days fine dining was associated with the city. Not so anymore. Now, there are more compelling reasons than ever for diners to cross county lines for a good meal. The 50 best county restaurants in Howard County, Anne Arundel County and Baltimore County is a mix of the old and the new, destinations for special occasions and joints for Monday night suppers, the chef-driven and crowd-pleasing.

A Baltimore woman claims in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court that city police destroyed her camera and arrested her because she was recording officers who she observed beating someone else. The lawsuit, first reported last month by WBAL-TV when it was filed in Circuit Court , seeks $150,000. The plaintiff, Makia Smith, said that on March 8, 2012, she was driving on Harford Road when she witnessed officers beating a young man, according to the complaint. She said she took out her camera phone and started recording.

We like politicians. Really, we do. Most elected officials are what they claim to be: public servants. Many work harder than their constituents know or give them credit for. Now, of course, there are bad apples in all baskets, and politics is no exception. Our experience suggests, though, that the sleaze quotient among politicians — those who are in the game, in other words, mainly to line their own pocket or for other nefarious purposes — is about the same as you find in other lines of work.

Rutgers reinstated men's lacrosse coach   Brian Brecht on Tuesday, almost a month after having suspended him with pay over allegations of verbal abuse. While the university investigation found that the former Loyola University assistant did use inappropriate language and exhibited unprofessional behavior on occasion, the instances were infrequent and not directed at individual players. Accordingly the university found no criminal or university policy violations. “I regret my behavior and am determined to set a better example in the future,” said Brecht, who missed the last two games of the season.

Barbie Hall had tried yogurt boosted with probiotics, those so-called friendly microorganisms that commercials promised would regulate her digestive system within weeks. They did no such thing. After excessive Googling, she searched for a probiotic supplement, but she had little preference about which one — she bought the cheapest jar in the vitamin aisle of her local CVS. Two months later, Hall is convinced the once-a-day pill has cured her chronic stomach pain and irregularity.

In your editorial regarding the proposed tax increase for high-earners ("The Buffett Rule backlash," April 12)," you state that Warren Buffett's secretarial staff "were shown to pay a higher percentage of their income to the tax man than their billionaire boss. " However, to the best of my knowledge, neither Mr. Buffett's personal secretary nor anyone else from his company have publicly presented their personal tax returns to validate that information. To see this unverified claim in a column is understandable.

As the research analyst for a national disability rights group that opposes legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide, I am all too familiar with the Final Exit Network (FEN). I think it's important that readers – and the editors – know that Jerry Dincin misled readers on several points in his essay published on June 7 ("Death with dignity"). Mr. Dincin claims that authorities are "persecuting" FEN members in Georgia and Arizona. That is a gross distortion. The authorities in Georgia and Arizona initiated investigations after complaints by concerned relatives that the apparent suicides of their loved ones were aided and encouraged by FEN members.

Vengeful Wildcat caught pacesetter Chipshot and took the lead in mid-stretch to win the $100,000 Chick Lang Stakes. Under Jockey Carlos Marquez Jr., Vengeful Wildcat prevailed by a neck in the spring for 3-year-olds. A winner of three races in five starts, Vengeful Wildcat is trained by Ben Perkins Jr., and paid $6.40. "He's a pretty honest little sucker," Perkins said. "Carlos fits him well. He knows the horse completely. He broke well and ran well. He's a very tractable horse.

The number of workers fighting to recover back wages has grown amid the recession, including more claims from laid-off corporate executives who say they are owed large sums of severance or performance-based incentives, according to state regulators. On Tuesday, the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation announced that a Dallas-based information technology company agreed to pay a former Rockville executive $91,000 in severance - one of the largest claims for back wages ever secured by the state agency.

A recent article repeated a charge that the current Board of Education claims that our schools are perfect and need no changes. That's completely false, and no board member has ever said such a thing. I attended all of the hearings of the recent commisssion studying the method of electing school board members, and again, no board member, past or present, ever said our schools are perfect. Now is the time to look at ways to improve our schools, for all the children, not throw unwarranted charges about.

Bel Air boys lacrosse coach Scoop Kelly had twice the satisfaction when his Bobcats defeated Franklin, 14-10, on Monday in the Class 4A-3A South regional semifinals. Not only did Bel Air (12-3) move one step closer to an appearance in the state tournament, but Kelly also notched his 100th career win.  On Wednesday, Bel Air travels to Howard, a 20-3 winner over Kenwood in the region's other semifinal game, in a bid to reach the state tournament for the second straight year.

Peter Jensen 's editorial on conservatives' attitude toward environmental protection is misleading ("Don't save the planet," May 4). The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, stressed the importance of the marketing message. Conservatives react more favorably to marketing messages that stress energy-efficiency or energy-independence than they do to saving the environment. The study does not suggest that conservatives as a group do not support energy-efficient products.

The Stevenson men's lacrosse team did not enjoy its first lead of Saturday night's NCAA tournament second-round contest against Washington College until 54 minutes had elapsed. But that was all the Mustangs would need. Senior midfielder Nick Rossi's blast from the left point with 5:42 gave Stevenson a 14-13 lead, and two goals from sophomore attackman Mark Pannenton and one from sophomore midfielder Billy Burgoyne gave the No. 4 Mustangs some extra breathing room en route to a 17-13 win against the No. 11 Shoremen before an announced 740 at Mustang Stadium in Owings Mills.

The Poly girls and No. 7 Digital Harbor boys cruised to team titles at the Baltimore City track and field championships Saturday at Mervo. This was the first-ever team title for Poly's girls. Coach Latoya Brown's team finished with 121 points, beating out long-time Baltimore City powerhouse Western (104). "I tried to put people in places where I know they could score points," Brown said. "I told them to believe in themselves and go out and do it. " Poly dominated the field events, taking the top three spots in both the high jump and triple jump plus first and third in the long jump - which gave the Engineers 64 points.

A Howard County couple is suing one of the largest residential real estate brokerages in the state and a Columbia title company for more than $11 million, alleging that the firms had financial ties that violated federal law. The case is a proposed class action that could involve thousands of plaintiffs, all home buyers who bought a home with the Creig Northrop Team of Long & Foster Real Estate since 2000 and used a settlement firm called Lakeview Title...

Nearly 250 of the patients who accused cardiologist Dr. Mark Midei of performing unnecessary stent procedures at St. Joseph Medical Center settled their lawsuits against him Thursday, a major step forward in one of the largest medical malpractice cases in state history. The agreement was announced in Baltimore County Circuit Court, where lawyers for Midei, the Towson hospital, its former owner and 21 of the patients have been making arguments for several weeks in the cardiologist's first civil trial.

A federal judge in Baltimore has dismissed a lawsuit filed by eight state prison workers who claimed a strip search for drugs violated their constitutional rights. The plaintiffs' lawyer said he expects to appeal the opinion entered Thursday by U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz. The employees were searched after a drug-sniffing machine falsely signaled they were carrying drugs at the medium-security Maryland Correctional Training Center near Hagerstown in August 2008. The court found that there is no clearly established law regarding the level of suspicion raised by such alerts.

The Obama administration and the liberal news media continues to keeps up their line that the unemployment rate is between 8 percent 9 percent. Don't believe it, as nothing could be further from the truth. The real unemployment rate ranges close to 15 percent or 16 percent because of the Obama's administration failed economic policies of the past three years. The administration's fuzzy math does not reflect the millions who simply quit looking for work or gave up on finding full time jobs.

Six military veterans from Maryland pleaded guilty to fraud charges this week in a scheme to obtain federal military benefits and state tax breaks with faked documentation claiming they were exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, according to the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office. The veterans allegedly paid thousands of dollars in cash to David Clark, the former deputy chief of veterans claims in the state Department of Veterans Affairs Office, in exchange for $1.4 million in fraudulent benefits and tax breaks, prosecutors said.

Since Mitt Romney lost to President Obama on Nov. 6, the conventional wisdom has been that the Republican Party is in trouble. The less conventional truth is that it is the Democrats whose chances may be more bleak. Yes, Republicans are currently engaged in a round of intraparty sniping between establishment conservatives and the militant, purist right-wingers who abound in the ranks of party activists. And yes, the 2012 election exposed the GOP's profound unpopularity among rising voting groups, especially Latinos.