Danger

IndyCar officials listened to drivers' complaints about the chicane, man-made turns that slowed cars on Pratt Street before the light-rail tracks, in last year's race. So they left it out when setting up the track for this year's Grand Prix of Baltimore. Drivers didn't want to slow down. They wanted an uninhibited run into a widened first turn and the ability to pass anyone in their way. "We were unanimous in wanting the chicane out," KV Racing driver Tony Kanaan said. "We all agreed we could handle the railroad tracks without it. But after the morning practice, we all agreed we couldn't go over the railroad tracks.

Recently, the Maryland Public Service Commission convened to hear testimony from Baltimore Gas and Electric, Pepco and Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative Inc. regarding news of smart meters overheating and causing fires in Pennsylvania. I attended this public hearing but was denied an opportunity to speak for several minutes along with a former delegate and other concerned citizens. The testimony that I heard only confirmed that smart meters are dangerous, intrusive, and have a tendency to break and overheat.

The Crofton man accused of calling himself a "joker" while threatening to carry out a workplace shooting will be under GPS monitoring and not have access to guns while undergoing mental health treatment, a judge ruled Thursday. Neil Edwin Prescott, 28, appeared in Mental Health Court to update a judge on his first week outside of an inpatient mental health facility after being taken into custody last month. Police raided Prescott's apartment, seized two-dozen firearms he legally owns, and later charged him with using a telephone to make threats.

It is refreshing to see a politician admit his mistakes, take full responsibility for them and ask for forgiveness ("Dwyer admits to drinking in boating accident," Aug. 24). As they return to school this month, may our youth learn from the events of this past week - the teenagers who died in the Ellicott City train derailment and Del. Donald H. Dwyer's boating accident - that alcohol use compromises one's judgment. Benedict Frederick Jr., Pasadena

Over the years, we have often disagreed with Del. Donald H. Dwyer Jr. on numerous matters of law and social justice. But it gives us no satisfaction to learn of the Anne Arundel Republican's involvement in a horrific boating accident Wednesday on the Magothy River. The accident caused serious injury to six people, including Mr. Dwyer, another adult and four children. Mr. Dwyer had been drinking and operating one of the vessels, the "Baja," a 26-foot runabout that collided with an 18.5-foot Bayliner and sank near Cornfield Creek.

No parent would ever intentionally leave a child in a steaming car on a hot summer day. But it happens every year to astounded parents. Dr. Melissa Sparrow, clinical director of pediatric inpatient and emergency services at Greater Baltimore Medical Center, talks about what can happen when babies are left in hot cars and how to prevent it. How common a problem is kids getting left in hot cars? Kids getting left in cars is fairly common, but the incidence of death from being left in a hot car is the number we can clearly articulate.

The arrest last month of a Maryland man for allegedly threatening to commit a mass murder at his former workplace inevitably drew comparisons to the shooting at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater that had occurred a few days earlier, leaving 12 people dead and 58 wounded. Both incidents raised questions about how people apparently suffering from mental illnesses managed to obtain firearms and whether tougher state and federal gun laws might have prevented them from doing so. That should be one of the first orders of business for the state task force that convened this week to consider changes to Maryland's laws governing gun access by the mentally ill. But the issue may not lend itself to an easy or quick resolution.

This week, we mourn for the loss of Elizabeth Nass and Rose Mayr, the 19-year-old college students who died on a downtown Ellicott City train trestle, victims of a coal train derailment late Monday night. Theirs were promising lives cut short in a truly senseless tragedy. By all accounts, the Mount Hebron High School graduates were outstanding young women, studious, outgoing, personable, funny, attractive. That they were killed seconds after posting their thoughts and a photograph on Twitter while dangling their bare feet over Main Street in a last end-of-summer get-together as the fall term at college beckoned makes the awful incident seem all the more surreal.

Federal officials are working to place compassion at the center of how our nation aims to treat elderly patients suffering from dementia. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced that they'll coordinate an effort to dramatically reduce the use of antipsychotic drugs among dementia patients in nursing homes. The agency's plan acknowledges that these powerful pharmaceuticals are often overused - and represents a valuable first step toward improving the way we treat people with this condition.

Speculation in Israel about the possibility of a strike on Iran's nuclear program in the coming weeks has intensified, and not just because of Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's tough talk in Jerusalem. Mr. Romney called for the U.S. and Israel to use "any and all measures" to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons - a position repeated virtually verbatim by U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta when he visited Israel a few days later. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week that "time to resolve this peacefully is running out," even as theU.S.