Fort Meade

Anne Arundel Workforce Development Corporation and Howard County Workforce Development are sponsoring a Fort Meade Town Hall Thursday, Oct. 25, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., at Arundel High School, 1001 Annapolis Road, in Gambrills. The public can learn from Fort Meade employers about their hiring needs. The following organizations are scheduled to be in attendance: Fort Meade Civilian Personnel Advisory Center, Defense Information Systems Agency, Defense Media Activity, the National Security Agency and the Fort Meade Kimbrough Ambulatory Care Center.

Defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. warned state regulators Friday that it will be laying off 224 employees across the country, including dozens based at Fort Meade, after losing a contract to provide security for a government agency. But a spokesman for Northrop Grumman said the company expects the employees will continue to do the same work for the incoming contractor. The switchover is expected in April. "The jobs aren't going away," said David Apt, the spokesman. The contract is for providing access-control services to the National Security Agency in multiple states, ensuring that the people driving onto NSA property and going into its buildings are supposed to be there.

More than 5,000 federal employees are expected to begin moving to Maryland's Fort George G. Meade military base starting in January and are to complete the move by June 2011, officials said Tuesday. The moves are part of the federal government's Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) program and will bring to about 48,000 the number of people working at Fort Meade by Sept. 30, 2011. Representatives from the U.S. Department of Defense on Tuesday gave media representatives a tour of the facilities being constructed for the new employees, many of whom now work in Northern Virginia.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating the cause of a Marine's death in his Fort Meade barracks room Wednesday afternoon. Emergency medical teams that responded to the call pronounced him dead at the scene. The name of the Marine, who was assigned to the Marine Corps student training detachment, is being withheld pending next of kin notification. More information will be posted as it becomes available.

A man was shot three times on the parking lot of an Odenton bar and two patrons were struck by stray bullets just outside the establishment early Saturday, Anne Arundel County police said. Officers found Antwone James Hooper with bullet wounds to his head, back and abdomen, lying on a parking lot behind My Place Bar & Lounge in the 1600 block of Annapolis Road shortly before 2 a.m., police said. Two other men were hit by stray bullets as they entered the bar, located in a strip of clubs and restaurants nicknamed "Boomtown," across from the Fort Meade military base, police said.

For three hours each work week, Bert Rice walks laps around Burba Lake at Fort Meade — part of a mission by the federal government to build a healthier workforce. Rice, 76, a retired Army colonel and former Anne Arundel County councilman working as a civilian on the garrison staff at Fort Meade, is one of thousands of federal workers who participate in health and fitness programs designed to lower the government's health care costs, increase productivity and better recruit and retain employees.

Two homes in the Potomac Place neighborhood of Fort Meade were destroyed and two more damaged in a fire Sunday, base officials said. No one was injured in the fire, which was ignited by a lightning strike to the roof of one home at about 6:30 p.m., officials said. The homes were located at 5th Corps Avenue and Taylor Lane. Several families were evacuated while firefighters from Anne Arundel County and Fort Meade brought the blaze under control, officials said. The displaced families were sheltered in a neighborhood center until they could be relocated into temporarily housing, officials said.

At first, the soldier's behavior was puzzling. He appeared to be having hallucinations. He was anxious. He became belligerent. A drug test identified the problem: The young man had become the latest service member at Fort Meade to experience an adverse reaction to synthetic marijuana. Commanders at the Army base in Anne Arundel County, home to the National Security Agency, the U.S. Cyber Command and other sensitive activities, are cracking down on cheap, widely available and dangerous marijuana substitutes that have been linked nationally to suicides and homicides.

A contractor has recovered a gauge containing a small amount of radioactive material, after reporting the device stolen earlier this month from a work site at Fort Meade in Anne Arundel County. The Maryland Department of the Environment says the gauge was found Dec. 10 at the job site where it went missing. The contractor that owns the device told the department that it was in a locked transport container and showed no signs of having been tampered with or having released radioactive material.

Red Cross offering courses on CPR, first aid, safety The Central Maryland Red Cross is accepting registration for a variety of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, first aid and safety courses that will be offered in Anne Arundel County next month. Class sites are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 409 Fifth Ave., Glen Burnie; Red Cross, 3475 Pike Ridge Road, Edgewater; and 4408 Llewellyn Ave., Fort Meade. Programs include: Adult CPR, dealing with victims ages 8 and older and covering cardiac and breathing emergency skills.