Investigation

A month has passed since Gary Sick, a former Navy captain who worked on the National Security Council staff in the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations, wrote a widely read article for the New York Times stating his belief that Reagan campaign operatives in 1980 cut a secret deal with the Iranians to forestall the release of the American hostages who had, at that point, been held for a year in Teheran.Predictably, the article provoked a welter of agreement and disagreement, not always from predictable sources.

Did key figures in the 1980 Reagan-Bush presidential campaign cut a secret deal with the Iranians to extend the captivity of American hostages in order to manipulate the election?We do not know the answer to that deeply troubling question but, as is indicated in an article today on the opposite page, the evidence continues to fall into place like a jigsaw puzzle that such a cynical pact might indeed have been reached. The latest piece comes from the ABC television news program "Nightline," working in conjunction with London's prestigious newspaper, the Financial Times.

Next week will mark one year since North Carolina teenager Phylicia Barnes, later found dead in the Susquehanna River, disappeared while visiting relatives in Baltimore for the holidays, and the anniversary is triggering renewed interest. Investigators have been tight-lipped, with little developments since the summer, when The Sun first reported on July 7 that the FBI was seeking access to Facebook accounts as part of a child pornography investigation. Anticipating media inquiries, Maryland State Police sent out this statement today describing the investigation as "actively continuing" but declining to reveal any progress: INVESTIGATION OF THE MURDER OF PHYLICIA BARNES CONTINUES (BALTIMORE, MD)

Baltimore County police have named five men arrested in connection with stabbings in the Garrison neighborhood Tuesday. They are Ronald Anthony Williams, 20, of Gwynn Oak; Ryan Antwon Johnson, 19, of Randallstown; Christopher Ramgeet, 18, of Garrison; Merez Lamar Ferguson, 21, of Westminster; and Jeffrey Micah Jackson, 20, of Mount Washington. Police were called to a triple stabbing on the unit block of Spectator Lane near Reisterstown Road at 3:45 p.m. Tuesday. Investigators said a disagreement had escalated into a physical confrontation with weapons between the suspects and the residents of the town home, who knew each other.

An assault on two males shut down The Block to traffic late Tuesday as police detectives sought information on the apparent altercation, according to Baltimore police. Police responded to the scene in the 400 block of East Baltimore Street about 8:45 p.m. and found two males of unknown ages who appeared to have been assaulted outside "with an edged weapon," said Detective Jeremy Silbert, a police spokesman. Silbert said he did not know whether the victims were stabbed, cut or injured in some other way. The victims were transported to an area hospital, Silbert said.

State health officials investigating claims that a Towson cardiologist performed hundreds of unnecessary medical procedures have identified other doctors in Maryland with similarly questionable practices, The Baltimore Sun has learned. Several cardiologists in the state have performed a suspiciously high number of the same invasive cardiac stent procedures that Dr. Mark G. Midei is accused of over-performing at St. Joseph Medical Center, according to an analysis of data from the state's Health Services Cost Review Commission.

Approximately 50 firefighters spent about two hours battling a fire Saturday at the abandoned Henryton State Hospital in the Marriottsville area of Carroll County, officials said Sunday. Brett Pearce, deputy chief of the Sykesville Fire Department, said Sunday the site - which once served tuberculosis patients and, later, mental health patients before it closed in the mid-1980s - has been a hot spot for crime. At least 12 suspicious fires have been set in the last 10 years, Pearce said.

A retired FBI agent says the agency was too slow to investigate Antonio Martinez, who is accused of trying to blow up a military recruiting center in Maryland, and showed a "reckless disregard" for evidence collection by failing to record several meetings between Martinez and an informant. "The inattention and the delayed response by the FBI to conduct investigation … is not commensurate with generally accepted reasonable FBI investigative practices," James J. Wedick, a 34-year bureau veteran, wrote in a 13-page report, calling the case a "serious departure from the FBI's authorized mandate to respond quickly to threats, particularly crimes of violence and threats to national security.

State education officials are investigating possible testing violations at a Northeast Baltimore elementary school where in some cases 100 percent of students passed annual reading and math exams last year but where scores plunged by as much as half this year. Baltimore City schools CEO Andrés Alonso said this week that he had asked state officials to investigate the drops in performance by third- and fourth-graders at Abbottston Elementary, a school so highly regarded that U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan visited last year to celebrate the students' achievement and praised it as a model for the country.

It's a common answer to public information requests: "I must deny [what you asked for] because disclosure of any records that may be responsive to such requests would jeopardize ongoing investigations.” That's the response I received last month for a request I made to the state Department of Human Resources for information on the state's second-largest foster care provider, the Hyattsville-based Contemporary Family Services. The company is the subject of an investigation by the agency's inspector general.