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Maryland could become one of a handful of states that grant special driver's licenses to illegal immigrants under legislation garnering strong support in Annapolis. The bill, passed by the Senate on Monday, would expand and make permanent an existing two-tiered driver's license system to include more than 100,000 people whose immigration status currently prevents them from applying for a license. Gov. Martin O'Malley backs the plan, which now moves to the House of Delegates. "It's a safety issue," said Del. Jolene Ivey, a Prince George's County Democrat who introduced the House version.

A snowball stand's success depends on two key things: hot weather and lots of hard work, say Baltimore-area purveyors of the summer treat. Add those ingredients to the crushed ice and syrup concoction that has long been a regional favorite, and summertime entrepreneurs say they can make a decent living during the season's warmest weeks. "A lot of people think it's easy to start it," said Margo Torsell, who along with family members runs a three-year-old stand on Liberty Road in Randallstown.

Johns Hopkins scientists have found a way to screen for hard-to-detect endometrial and ovarian cancers in women using a routine Pap smear, a discovery they hope eventually could reduce the number of deaths caused by the deadly malignancies. The researchers from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center hope the Pap smear, a procedure in which cells are scraped from the cervix and examined under a microscope, can catch the two cancers in early stages and allow for earlier treatment. The Pap test has dramatically improved detection of cervical cancer over the years, curbing deaths by 75 percent among those who are screened.

Two more bidders emerged Friday to compete against MGM National Harbor for the right to build a casino in Prince George's County. Penn National Gaming submitted a proposal to the state's gaming control agency for a $700-million Hollywood Casino Resort at its Rosecroft Raceway site. And Maryland Casino LLC, a subsidiary of Greenwood Racing Inc., bid to build an $800 million Parx Casino Hotel & Spa in Fort Washington. MGM National Harbor dropped off its own proposal — outlined in 13 boxes of materials — Thursday for an expected $800-million project.

Maryland corrections officials are taking advantage of new technology designed to block the use of contraband cellphones by inmates - a problem at the heart of recent indictments at the Baltimore City Detention Center. In a program being used at another prison facility in Baltimore, phones smuggled inside have been severed from the network and rendered inoperable, officials said. The new system, which the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services hopes to expand, could supplement efforts to find the phones using metal detectors or trained dogs to sniff them out. The department says it is catching more illicit phones than ever - more than 1,300 were found in the last fiscal year - but the federal indictments show the limits of those efforts.

Paula Foertsch wasn't ready to be forced into retirement at age 60. An office supervisor, Foertsch started looking for ways to start her second act shortly after she was laid off in January 2009. She'd always been interested in doing medical billing. Her timing couldn't have been better. Baltimore County was launching Maturity Works, a custom health care job training program for people age 55 and up, part of a nationwide effort to prepare older employees for the new workplace and meet regional employment needs.

Number-crunching baseball fans who flock to Camden Yards today will eat this up: 9,200 hot dogs, 4,500 pounds of french fries, 3,700 soft pretzels, 2,500 Boog's pit beef sandwiches and 1,500 hamburgers. But the food stats that the Orioles throw out every year, based on how much gets gobbled up at Oriole Park on a typical Opening Day, don't tell the whole story this time. There's no telling how many gluten- and casein-free Asian noodle salads, "Turtle Bites" or Attman's coddies and knishes fans will down because no one's had the chance to eat them at the ballpark before.

The pitch from the door-to-door salesman sounded appealing: a deal to lock in a lower electricity rate with Constellation Energy Group and get a better gas price with Constellation's BGE Home for the next 12 months. But Baltimore County resident Michelle Breau says she soon discovered the deal offered by the Constellation vendor wasn't all that she believes she was promised. Feeling deceived, Breau says, she tried to get out of the contract within the three-day cancellation window guaranteed by state law, but found it wasn't easy.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts says that the Black Guerrilla Family gang is spurring much of the recent violence in the city as it tries to expand its reach.  Batts, who recently took over as commissioner after working 30 years on the West Coast, asked his commanders to draw up "conflict diagrams" so he could better understand the web of connections driving crime in Baltimore.  He said those diagrams showed that the Black Guerrilla...

Dr. Michael Ain stands 4 feet 3. It's the first thing you notice. There's no way around it. He rolls his green surgical pants around the ankles. He climbs a step-stool to reach the operating table. Even then, his colleagues stand a foot or so above him.He's an orthopedic surgeon, a specialty usually reserved for the jocks of medicine. Ain doesn't exactly fit the stereotype, but he did wrestle in high school, and now he golfs on weekends and fixes bones with big power tools that could tear down walls.