Fighting

I'm glad that the Baltimore Sun is speaking up about what readers have known for too long: Even though our economy is improving, this prosperity isn't reaching working families ("Labor reawakens," April 26). President Barack Obama is doing the right thing by trying to move Congress to increase the federal minimum wage. It would help millions of American families that are struggling to make ends meet. But we can't wait for Congress to get this done - it's too important. Right now, families in my community and across Maryland are struggling on minimum wage, making impossible choices like deciding between paying bills or getting medication.

An Aberdeen EMS crew locked itself in its ambulance Tuesday night when it arrived at a call in Perryman and encountered a large fight. The ambulance was responding for a call of a sick woman in the 400 block of Daugherty Lane around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to Richard Gardiner of the Harford County Volunteer Fire & EMS Association and Edward Hopkins, spokesman for the Harford County Sheriff's Office. When they arrived, the EMS crew reported people were fighting in the road and they "locked themselves in the unit for their own safety," Gardiner said.

Your health section recently noted that a Hopkins dean was among those who want to eradicate polio ("Hopkins dean joins effort to eradicate polio," April 21). I believe we all ascribe to that hope. My comment comes from the point of view of all the work and money spent over the last 30 years by the Rotary Foundation and it's 34,000 community-based service clubs to achieve just that. The fact is that Rotary International was the first organization to have the vision of a polio free world, and it has since contributed over $1 billion to eradicate polio - not to mention the thousands of Rotarians who have rolled up their sleeves to volunteer during National Immunization Days.

A second man has been arrested and charged with murder in the fatal stabbing of a Cheesecake Factory employee during an early morning fight near the Inner Harbor restaurant, Baltimore Police said Tuesday. The move to arrest Derek Schuler, 24, of Glen Burnie, contradicts previous statements from police that he had tried to diffuse the situation and wouldn't be arrested. According to new charging documents, Schuler had in fact joined in the April 7 fight that left 20-year-old Anthony Black bleeding profusely in front of the World Trade Center building downtown.

Two people were beaten outside a Baltimore County restaurant Friday night, police said, an attack that was captured on a cell phone video and shared on Facebook. Jesse Agusto, 30, and Denise Thompson, 24, both of the Baltimore area, were assaulted by a crowd outside the Windsor Inn in the Windsor Mill area of western Baltimore County, police spokesman Lt. Robert McCullough said. They sought treatment at Northwest Hospital and were released, he said. A third person was also assaulted but did not seek medical treatment, McCullough said.

Linda Fletcher lives in fear of reliving a nightmare: a son dying from a heroin overdose. Her son Kris Klipner succumbed to the drug in 2007. He was 28. Klipner's half-brother battles the same kind of depression as Kris. He suffers the same heroin addiction Kris did. Kirk Fletcher, 29, is in a methadone program to help him avoid the drug. He says he has his addiction under control. But he understands his mother's fear that it will return - just as his brother's did. Linda Fletcher is hopeful that some relief is on the way. New legislation, pushed by Fletcher and other parents, backed by the state health department and passed unanimously this year by both chambers of the Maryland General Assembly, creates a statewide program allowing family members of addicts to be prescribed and trained in administering Naloxone.

City school officials said they will take extra security measures at a Southeast Baltimore charter school after five fires were set this week at the school, which also had an altercation that injured an administrator and a student arrest. Officials said they will increase the presence of school police officers and district staff at the Friendship Academy of Science and Technology Middle/High School, which they acknowledged has had "significant safety issues" this week. Among them were five trash-can fires - two Wednesday and three Thursday.

I am ashamed to find out that the U.S. Senate has voted to oppose minimal, common-sense gun control legislation ("Defeat leaves gun control backers at a loss for strategy," April 19). Thankfully, both of our Maryland senators supported these measures, while 46 senators, including 90 percent of Republicans, opposed requiring criminal background checks on sales at gun shows and online. Even more elected officials opposed banning assault weapons or large-scale ammunition magazines.

From Bangor to Peoria, in the Huffington Post and in Forbes Magazine, the press is focusing on the minimum wage. While we hear and read about it constantly these days, many of us never take the time to reflect on what it really means. When seen up close, as I do every day here in Baltimore at the Center for Urban Families, the real meaning of "minimum" becomes painfully apparent. Minimum is just that. As Merriam Webster says: "the least quantity assignable, admissible, or possible.

A man was stabbed and two other people were injured in an early-morning fight in the second floor of Charles Village Pub in Towson, Baltimore County Police said Saturday.   According to police, a man was stabbed, a second man received minor cuts to his hand, and a woman was injured when she fell.   All three were taken to area hospitals, and police said their injuries were not life threatening. Charles Village Pub Owner Melony Wagner said the bar manager, Jason Jankiewicz, reported that the fight took “less than 45 seconds.”   According to Wagner, a large man shoved a smaller man, and the smaller man allegedly pulled a knife and cut the large man in his shoulder.