Operators

Robert W. Cos, a crane equipment safety consultant who raised awareness in the 1980s of the unsafe car practice called "clipping," died Sunday of pancreatic cancer at Stella Maris Hospice. The longtime Canton resident was 65. Robert William Cos, whose parents owned John's Lunch on Pier 7, was born in Baltimore and raised on South Montford Avenue in Canton. After graduating from Patterson High School in 1964, he enlisted in the Marine Corps the next year. He served in Vietnam during the war and had attained the rank of sergeant at the time of his 1969 discharge.

On her first full day on the job, the new Anne Arundel County executive shut down a surveillance operation inside the county office building that included 500 cameras recording minute-by-minute activity in and around numerous county government facilities. County Executive Laura Neuman said she became "suspicious" upon discovering the surveillance equipment, and called law enforcement officials about the operation, which was conducted from a small, unmarked room at the Arundel Center complex that few seemed to know about.

The Big Screen Store in Towson is now sharing top billing with its sister store. The retailer of home audio and video equipment is relocating to the building occupied by The Sofa Store, which are both owned by the Luskin family. The two will share a 50,000-square-foot space that The Sofa Store moved into last year. The location, off Cromwell Bridge Road , is just across the parking lot from the original Luskin Hill building where the home theater retailer opened in 1996. The store's owners said the move was an effort to streamline costs and operations.

The operator of an animal rescue has been charged with neglecting nearly two dozen dogs, including three that had to be euthanized, according to the Baltimore County State's attorney's office. Baltimore County police arrested Anthony Joseph Geer, 29, in Dorchester County Thursday. The Cambridge resident faces twenty-three counts of animal cruelty, after police and animal control officers said they found 18 puppies and five dogs caged in poor conditions at residential home in the 8600 block of Quentin Avenue Jan. 24. The state's attorney's office says Geer operated and advertised the Baltimore Animal Rescue Network.

The Baltimore City Health Department shut down Berger Cookies after receiving an anonymous complaint about the iconic Baltimore-based bakery and subsequently learning it was operating without a license. And now the city is not sure if the bakery ever had a license at all. “I can't speculate on how long they've been without a license,” said health department spokeswoman Tiffany Thomas Smith, “but would say that we're checking with state and FDA inspectors to confirm their last inspection dates.” However, state officials told The Baltimore Sun that they do not have jurisdiction over city facilities.

The Anne Arundel County Board of Education on Wednesday adopted a $1.01 billion operating budget request that marks a 3.2-percent increase over the current year's budget, and includes $16 million for employee raises. Allocations for a middle school science and technology program, health care costs and an Annapolis-based center for special and alternative education services are also included in the budget plan, which crosses the billion-dollar threshold for the first time. The school board approved the budget 8-1, with member Amalie Brandenburg voting against it. The plan now heads to the county executive - whoever that will be after a successor is chosen to replace John Leopold, who resigned this month.

The Orioles announced a set of front office promotions Tuesday, most notably naming Orioles Hall of Famer Brady Anderson vice president of baseball operations. Anderson's former title was special assistant to the director of baseball operations. Ned Rice, who previously was assistant director of major league operations, is now director of major league administration. Mike Snyder, who was assistant director of scouting and player development, is now assistant director of player personal.

One of the great things about American politics is its capacity for punishing hubris. For the ancient Greeks, hubris didn't merely describe god-like arrogance. It was a crime, usually defined as taking too much pleasure in the humiliation of your foes. In its modern usage it usually means the pride that comes before the fall. In the wake of Barack Obama's State of the Union address, both connotations seem at least a little apt. We are well into our fourth month of epidemic thumb-suckery over the question, "Are the Republicans doomed?"

The Baltimore City Police Department will resume some training at its academy early this week after all operations there were halted in the wake of an instructor shooting and critically wounding a recruit on Tuesday. Police plan to resume classroom and physical training, but delay firearms training to a later point in the curriculum as the investigation into the shooting continues, said spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. "We just want to make sure we don't fall behind in training officers," he said.

Food and retail workers at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport protested working conditions on Wednesday and attempted to deliver a proposed "Bill of Rights," to AirMall USA, BWI's concessions manager. Unite Here, a labor union that represents hospitality workers in Baltimore and elsewhere and is working to organize the airport concessions workers, said the private management company has benefited from higher passenger traffic while workers struggle with low wages and lack of health care access.