Gahagan

Residential customers of Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. can expect to see a one-time $100 credit on their February bills, a welcome relief as the peak of the winter heating season approaches. The credit is one of several conditions imposed by Maryland energy regulators in approving BGE parent Constellation Energy Group's $4.5 billion nuclear joint venture with Electricite de France, which closed early last month. EDF now owns nearly half of Constellation's nuclear power business.

The notion of a standard retirement age may be fading, but there's still one age - 70 1/2 - you really can't ignore. At that age, owners of most workplace retirement savings plans and traditional individual retirement accounts must begin drawing down those accounts and paying taxes. You can delay the first withdrawal until April 1 of the next year, but subsequent withdrawals must come out by year's end. Still working? You can delay taking required minimum distributions in your workplace plan but not in your IRAs.

VOLUNTEERS to the March of Dimes are planning a walk from 7 to 10 a.m. on Sunday at Canton Waterfront Park in the hope of raising funds which were lost this year on the April 14 walk when temperatures dropped to 30 degrees with wet and rainy conditions.''The awful weather brought out about 7,000 of the 20,000 registered,'' says Michael Gahagan, director of development. ''We raised $600,000, which was about $300,000 away from our goal.''This Sunday's 6-mile walk begins and ends at the park, which is on Boston Street in Fells Point, and walkers will wind through Highlandtown and Fells Point.

A proposed plan by Constellation Energy Group Inc. to split into two independent companies later this year will saddle Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. with too much debt and leave the regulated utility vulnerable to a takeover bid, the state regulatory agency's chief economist said yesterday in testimony that sent company officials scrambling. Regardless of whether a suitable plan is in place to pay off BGE's $2.4 billion debt after the split, there will be no guarantee that goal will be completed by new management if the company is sold or taken over, said Calvin L. Timmerman, a key witness who is also director of the research and economics division of the Maryland Public Service Commission.

Dylon Cormier and Erik Etherly scored their 1,000th career points within eight minutes of each other as visiting Loyola won for the fifth time in six games, beating Fairfield, 65-60, on Monday in a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference men's basketball game in Bridgeport, Conn. Cormier (Cardinal Gibbons) finished with a team-high 21 points, Etherly added 16 points and a team-high nine rebounds, and Jordan Latham scored 10 points for the Greyhounds (14-6, 6-2 MAAC). "We battled and held them off tonight with big baskets when we needed them," Loyola coach Jimmy Patsos said.

An article in Friday's Anne Arundel edition of The Sun about the District 31 legislative primary omitted a portion of candidate James Riley's stance on welfare reform. Mr. Riley favors pursuing deadbeat dads to recover child support costs.The Sun regrets the omission.@District 31 is likely to see a live ly primary race for the House of `Delegates this year, with seven Re publican candidates competing for chance at three seats in Annapo lis.The three incumbent Democratic candidates -- Joan Cadden, W. Ray Huff and C. Stokes Kolodziejski -- will run against two other Demo crats in the primary.

Richard M. Nixon brought to the language of American politics biting turns of phrase that often helped him win elections but often came back to torment and defeat him. A resolute anti-Communist, he won a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1950 by labeling his opponent, Democratic Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas, "the Pink Lady."That campaign and other early chapters of his life brought him a label of his own: "Tricky Dick."A question asked about him in a campaign ad -- "Would you buy a used car from this man?"

Alyssa Thomas scored a career-high 30 points and added 12 rebounds to lead No. 8 Maryland to an 86-61 win over host Boston College on Thursday night. Tianna Hawkins grabbed her 1,000th career rebound in the win. Hawkins scored 15 points, Malina Howard had 11, and Alicia DeVaughn added 10 points and eight rebounds for Maryland (22-4, 13-2 Atlantic Coast Conference). Thomas notched her 16th double double of the season, which leads the ACC. With four rebounds, Hawkins became the third woman - and the fourth player, male or female - in school history to grab 1,000 rebounds.

Junior Ian Chiles scored 16 points and hit a pair of clutch free throws to help Morgan State hold off host Howard, 53-51, on Monday night. The Bears (8-12, 4-5 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference) won the rebounding battle 37-25 and outscored the Bison (6-18, 3-7 MEAC) in the paint 30-10. Chiles, a 7-foot-2 center, pulled down seven rebounds and had three blocked shots. His 16 points matched a career high set at UNLV on Nov. 20, 2011. Junior Justin Black had 13 points and eight rebounds, while sophomore guard Blake Bozeman had 11 points for the Bears.