Morning

The last man to take a horse to Belmont with a chance to snag the elusive final gem in the Triple Crown has some advice for Doug O'Neill. Stay true to the horse. "I think trainers going around asking other people what they should do, looking for how to handle it, that's stupid," Rick Dutrow, trainer of Big Brown in 2008, said in a phone interview Sunday. "It's got to be about your horse. Whatever anybody else did doesn't matter. You know your horse. " O'Neill, trainer of Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner I'll Have Another, has already disregarded common wisdom over the past three weeks.

I have been meaning to write a big piece about CBS News and "This Morning" for two weeks. But other assignments took precedence, so now I'll have to write a much smaller piece a day late after the network has already celebrated 100 days of its revamped and journalistically-amped 'Early Show' with Charlie Rose and Gayle King. For more than a year before Chris Licht was lured away from MSNBC to re-invent the morning show, I had been writing that the CBS morning show was dead in the water as a journalistic enterprise and ought to be taken out in an alley behind West 57th Street and put out of its misery.

Maryland Live! Casino at Arundel Mills will have its grand opening at 10 p.m. June 6, casino officials announced Thursday morning. The grand opening still requires approval by the Maryland Lottery, which will oversee a trial run to take place before June 6. The announcement comes as the state slots commission on Thursday considers a bid to open a casino in Rocky Gap, in Western Maryland, by Evitts Resort LLC. The commission also has yet...

An inmate serving a 10-year prison sentence for second-degree murder walked out of a Baltimore detention facility on Friday morning, never reported to his scheduled work-release job and was considered escaped by Friday afternoon, according to Maryland State Police. Jermaine Jeter, 30, left the Baltimore Pre-Release Unit at about 10:30 a.m., and was supposed to arrive for work at an area Checkers restaurant at 12:30 p.m., according to police. He never did, nor did he arrive back at the unit at 3 p.m., as he was scheduled to do, police said.

If all goes as planned, sometime this morning a spacecraft will blast off from its launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Fla., and ride a fiery plume of contrails upward through the pre-dawn darkness to begin a two-week journey to the International Space Station and back. But the flight won't be just another NASA resupply mission. Instead, the Falcon 9 rocket and its unmanned Dragon cargo capsule built by Space Exploration Technologies Corporation - SpaceX for short - will be the first commercially owned and operated vehicle ever to rendezvous with the station's orbiting astronauts.

All along, they had been so relaxed. So when it came time for Team O'Neill's horse to make his charge -- a historic one -- the colt moved forward almost nonchalantly. I'll Have Another glided past Bodemeister to win the 137th running of the Preakness Stakes on Saturday at Pimlico Race Course, setting up a chance at the first Triple Crown since 1978. The California-based horse is the 12th to win the first two legs of the Triple Crown since Affirmed edged Alydar in all three races.

Four trucks laden with 100 slot machines arrived early Wednesday morning at the nearly completed casino at Arundel Mills mall. For the next two hours, workers wheeled banks of the gleaming new machines, one by one, inside on hand trucks. Installation of the first set of slots moved Maryland Live! Casino, the state's largest, another step closer to its scheduled opening in three months. That's progress for Maryland's lackluster gambling program, which has yet to be fully implemented more than three years after voters approved five slots locations statewide.

All aboard! What are you doing this Thursday? It's nice to see an idea that percolated in the Baltimore Tech Facebook group months ago get birthed into reality this week. The "Geeks on a Train" event is about connecting Baltimore's tech community with other communities along the so-called Amtrak Corridor in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. [See my original blog post on it from back in November.] If you've got a day to ride the rails from DC to Boston, and meet entrepreneurs and techies in stops along the way, GOAT is for you. The Greater Baltimore Tech Council took the lead in organizing an itinerary for the trip, which you'll see here.

Traffic may be delayed at two points on I-695 this morning. The State Highway Administration reported a two-vehicle collision around 6:45 this morning at I-695 Inner Loop past Liberty Road. One Inner Loop shoulder was closed as a result. State highway officials also reported a second collision just after 7 a.m. at I-695 prior to Philadelphia Road, but no lanes were closed. jtorbati@baltsun.com twitter.com/jtorbati

The funeral for Baltimore Officer William H. Torbit Jr. is scheduled to begin Wednesday morning with a small procession down Pennsylvania Avenue, where the drug cop patrolled for eight years and forged strong ties with the community. Services will begin Wednesday at 10 a.m. at The Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in the 5200 block of N. Charles St., with an interment at Arbutus Memorial Park. Police say North Charles Street between Cold Spring Lane and Northern Parkway will be closed, and that delays should be expected in the area.

WEATHER Today's forecast calls for mostly cloudy skies and a chance of showers, with a high temperature near 81 degrees. Thursday night is expected to be mostly cloudy, with a low temperature around 68 degrees. TRAFFIC Check our traffic updates for this morning's issues as you plan your commute. FROM LAST NIGHT... First black Naval Academy graduate dies : Wesley Brown started at the academy in 1945, after the first five black men to attend failed to complete their first year there.

The National Weather Service is calling for Wednesday to be cloudy in the Baltimore area, with patchy fog in the morning, a high near 80 and southeast winds between 5 and 8 miles per hour. There is a 70 percent chance of precipitation. The weather service warns that locally heavy rainfall may lead to flash flooding in isolated areas Wednesday afternoon and evening. Wednesday night is expected to be mostly cloudy, with a low around 66 and south winds at 7 miles per hour becoming easterly.

All aboard! What are you doing this Thursday? It's nice to see an idea that percolated in the Baltimore Tech Facebook group months ago get birthed into reality this week. The "Geeks on a Train" event is about connecting Baltimore's tech community with other communities along the so-called Amtrak Corridor in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. [See my original blog post on it from back in November.] If you've got a day to ride the rails from DC to Boston, and meet entrepreneurs and techies in stops along the way, GOAT is for you. The Greater Baltimore Tech Council took the lead in organizing an itinerary for the trip, which you'll see here.

Fire and police officials are investigating an East Baltimore fire as a possible arson after finding evidence of a Molotov cocktail at the scene. Firefighters responded to the site of the fire, a vacant home in the 1100 block of Barclay Street, at about 9:20 a.m. Sunday. Chief Kevin Cartwright, a spokesman for the Baltimore Fire Department, said one person — not an emergency worker — was treated for injuries described as non-life-threatening and was sent to the Johns Hopkins Hospital for evaluation.

TV news has mostly been defined by downward trends the past decade. Shrinking audience. Aging audience. Fragmented audience. But there's been one very bright spot amid the economic and ratings gloom for stations in Baltimore and across the country — the morning news. Mirroring the success of network shows like "The Today Show," and "Good Morning America," local morning news programs are steadily expanding airtime, staff and revenue. Now, some local morning news shows are bringing in more money than the late newscasts — once the cash cows for stations.

Driving in the Baltimore area could be extremely difficult this morning as fog is reducing visibility to one-half mile or less in some areas, the National Weather Service said. A dense fog advisory remains in effect until 10 a.m. Thursday. The National Weather Service cautions drivers to use low-beam headlights and give plenty of distance around other cars when driving in fog. After the fog dissipates, it will become mostly cloudy, with Thursday's high near 72 and south winds around 6 mph. There is also a chance of rain before 10 a.m. Thursday night is expected to be partly cloudy, with a low around 57 and light south winds.