Door

A cabal of corrupt corrections officers and members of the Black Guerrilla Family gang enjoyed nearly free rein inside the Baltimore City Detention Center, federal authorities allege, smuggling drugs and cellphones into the jail and having sexual relationships that left four guards pregnant. An indictment unsealed Tuesday names 25 people - including 13 women working as corrections officers - who face racketeering and drug charges. Twenty of the accused also face money-laundering charges.

The U.S. Peace Corps will begin accepting applications from same-sex couples who wish to serve overseas together for the first time next month, the agency announced Tuesday. The move follows a broader shift by the Obama administration toward publicly supporting gay rights and denouncing LGBT discrimination globally through U.S. diplomatic efforts, including at the State Department and the United Nations. The Peace Corps said opening its doors to same-sex domestic partners "further diversifies the pool of Peace Corps applicants and the skills of those invited to serve overseas in the fields of education, health, community economic development, environment, youth in development and agriculture.

Bentley, a Jack Russell, was rescued at 8 weeks old. When someone leaves my house, he races to the door and jumps against it, barking. If I go out with someone, he goes to the door agressively, like to bite or nip. He has nipped someone before. I now either crate him prior to someone coming or lock him in another room. This behavior isn't any different with people he knows or strangers. What do I do? Putting Bentley in a separate room or a crate is a good start - you don't want him to keep rehearsing this behavior until you've taught him what is appropriate.

Senior defenseman Parker Bratton is fully expected to make his customary start when No. 4 Stevenson welcomes No. 13 Lynchburg to Mustang Stadium in Owings Mills for Wednesday night's NCAA tournament quarterfinal. Whether the Baltimore native and McDonogh graduate plays the entire 60 minutes is a different matter. Bratton, who is tied for fourth on the team in caused turnovers with 17 and ranks seventh in ground balls with 47, has been bothered by a turned ankle suffered about two weeks ago. Coach Paul Cantabene said he is not too worried about Bratton, who has missed two games this season.

To an extent, I agree with the stance of "if you don't want to hear the music, don't live next door to Merriweather. " The fact is, however, that we don't live next door to Merriweather and we still hear the music. We live in Owen Brown, and our house is about 1.5 miles from Merriweather as the crow (or bass percussion) flies. For the entire concert season, we are definitely hearing the Merriweather merriment. We don't hear the crowds or the people, and the lyrics are definitely not distinguishable; we hear the bass and some of the music.

Many musicians believe that their live show should be an exact representation of what they've put on their album, but not Andreas Vollenweider.On his new album, "Kryptos," the Swiss composer performs in a variety of settings, accompanied at various points by bandoleon (an Argentine accordion), shakuhachi (a Japanese flute) and full orchestra. But when he performs those pieces on the road, he'll be playing entirely as a solo artist, using his harp, guitar, piano, saxophone and an assortment of electronic gadgets.

Editor's note: Misunderstanding his wife's instructions, an old man sets out for a party with a door on his back.This is the story of an old man in a little village who was good at working in the garden, but terrible at listening to his wife.On Saturday, while he was giving their dog, Coco, a bath on the porch, his wife came out of the house dressed in her best clothes. She was off to her comadre's for a barbecue."I don't want you to be late, viejo," she warned."I won't," he promised. "Just let me finish here."

The Door opens at 9 a.m., but it never really closes."It's a full-time job," said Joe Ehrmann. He's the former Baltimore Colt whose playing field has moved to the streets of East Baltimore, where drugs and guns compete with him for the future of Baltimore's children. But this story, at his request, is not about Joe Ehrmann. He wants you to know about The Door, not the man who opened it.The Door provides the young people in this neighborhood with the academic and spiritual means to make it in the world.

THIS IS A faith ministry:Operating expenses have doubled in the last year. The gas and electric bill is $1,000 a month. Four employees have not received their past month's paycheck. It's the holiday season. Donations are down. The country is bracing for an economic skid.And you're talking about expanding your 13,000-square-foot building. You're talking about removing standing water from the basement to use that space. You're talking about creating new programs. You're talking growth at a time when the world all around you is screaming recession.

A friend of Roland E. Slaysman says Baltimore's dean of locksmithing would be a millionaire if he charged his clients by the hour.The 77-year-old mechanical specialist walks into his back yard workshop and a few days later emerges with a perfectly functioning replica 1770 door lock for some stately mansion. He does take time off to eat and sleep, but he doesn't sit still much.Slaysman is the man that experts call on for advice on restoring or making the locks for some of Maryland's architectural treasures -- such places as the Paca and Carroll houses in Annapolis, the B&O Railroad Station in Ellicott City (oldest in the nation)

Towson's 11-8 upset of No. 15 Drexel in one semifinal of the Colonial Athletic Association tournament Wednesday evening means the Tigers will meet No. 9 Penn State in the title game on Friday and get a chance to seize the automatic qualifier to the NCAA tournament. The outcome may also have opened the door a little wider for No. 13 Johns Hopkins. The Blue Jays (8-5) are rated 17th in RPI in the latest rankings produced by the NCAA. The Dragons (11-4) are two spots ahead of Johns Hopkins but could slide down when the RPI list is updated this weekend for the NCAA selection committee.

It seems many people are in a hurry and don't make allowances for our older population. As much as a senior might want to move faster, their bodies cannot react or walk as fast as a younger person. I have seen the elderly trying to cross the street with someone beeping their horn at them or the driver getting far too close, intimidating the poor senior trying to move as fast as they can. I have witnessed impatient people in line behind the senior who tower over them as if it's going to make them pay faster.

Is the Iraq war to blame for the mess we are in? Now, I should qualify that question by explaining "mess" and "we. " By "mess," I mean the dawn of Barack Obama's second term, the predictably catastrophic rollout of Obamacare, the exploding debt and deficit, the stimulus boondoggles, etc. By "we," I mean conservatives (particularly those, like me, who supported the war), but also anyone else who doesn't think President Obama has done a bang-up job. There seems to be a growing consensus that the answer to that question is "yes.

The Rawlings-Blake administration and Baltimore's fire unions are battling over the city's proposal to require firefighters to work longer hours — 24 hours straight, every three days. The mayor says the move — which mirrors staffing trends in other large U.S. cities — will save millions for cash-strapped Baltimore while giving its 1,300 firefighters a huge pay raise by creating a longer work week. The fire unions, however, say the move would represent a cut to their hourly pay and is unfair to employees who have built their lives around a work schedule that's been in place for 20 years.

Randy Edsall is a football coach, not a marketing guy, but he's got the lingo down. Ask him why the Maryland football team is practicing Saturday at Dunbar, and he says it's all about growing the Terps brand in this area and throughout the rest of the state, too. "What we need to do is make sure we're going out and meeting the people and being visible in the Baltimore community, rather than expecting people to come to us," he says....

Given how low the expectations were for President Barack Obama's highly publicized trip to the Middle East, it may not be saying much to declare that he exceeded them. But given the precarious state of Israeli-Palestinian relations, it would also be easy to underappreciate just how crucial his efforts may prove to be in the long quest for a lasting peace in the Middle East. When Mr. Obama arrived in Israel, he faced many who believed that the possibility of a two-state solution was on its death bed, if not gone already.

A black woman who lives in Glen Burnie found racist graffiti written on her apartment door as she was leaving for work Wednesday morning, county police said.Daniel V. Mathis, 42, told police she discovered the vandalism about 7:30 a.m. Someone used a marker to write a sentence with a racial epithet on her door, followed by "KKK 666," she said.Police photographed the graffiti and sent copies of the pictures and the police report to the department's intelligence unit. The building will be checked periodically, police said.

An arsonist doused the door of an Elkridge apartment with a flammable liquid yesterday and then set fire to it, Howard County police reported.The flames triggered a sprinkler system that doused the fire about 1: 20 a.m. at the building in the 7000 block of Ducketts Lane, said Sgt. Morris Carroll, a police spokesman.The arsonist fled after igniting the liquid at the door of 22-year-old Edlen Clybourn. No one was hurt.Pub Date: 8/08/98

The second in the Historical Society of Harford County's tours of historically significant or interesting buildings and homes in Harford County will take place this Sunday, March 17, at the Elkridge-Harford Hunt Club in Monkton. The clubhouse will be the focus of the day's tour, according to the society. Designed by prominent New York Architect James O'Connor, the clubhouse was built on the foundation of an older structure destroyed by fire. The public is welcome to stop in and see the home of the second oldest recognized foxhunting club in the United States.

“Grammarnoir 5: The Shame of the Prose” is a four-part serial, running on Mondays from February 11 until the thrilling conclusion on March 4, National Grammar Day.  Grammarnoir is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance of characters to any persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Part 1:  See a Fellow About a Scam   Part 2: The Capo I knew where to find David Minthorn. When the bottom fell out of the paragraph game, the AP Stylebook gave up its ritzy offices on West 33rd Street, and Minthorn wound up working out of the back room of a bar called Strunky White's.