Pits

Birds perched on the jagged edges of the quarry flew up and out as the first horn sounded. After the third horn, the explosives planted in holes in a quarry wall were detonated. A loud boom was followed by a huge dust cloud that mushroomed up as 5,800 tons of limestone crashed from the wall to the floor of the pit.The county's mineral mining committee stood on the edge of the quarry, about 600 feet away from the blast. The explosion was over in a few seconds, and committee members reboarded a school bus, which took them 200 feet down steep ramps into the Genstar Stone Products Co. quarry.

Some of Baltimore's best-known candy makers are pressing Congress to overturn a decades-old sugar policy they say is leaving a bad taste in their mouth. Goetze's Candy Co., Wockenfuss Candies and others want lawmakers to rethink long-standing restrictions on foreign sugar imports that they argue are inflating the cost of making caramels, toffees and chocolates. The debate between the sugar industry - including the ASR Group, which owns Baltimore's Domino Sugar plant - and confectioners and others who buy sugar by the truckload is expected to come to a head this week in the Senate.

In a shallow pit on a wooded Elkridge lot, swarms of maggots devour dozens of carcasses of dogs, cats and deer. The powerful stench of rotten flesh hangs in the air.Flies circle above a German shepherd decomposing in a begging position. The blackened skull of what looks like a cat peaks out of a small white trash bag. The body of a deer rests face down atop about 50 other animals in the uncovered pit.The animals' bodies were dumped in the uncovered grave -- and perhaps in at least six other nearby covered pits -- in a wooded area several hundred yards from the 7700 block of Mayfield Ave., off Route 108.The grisly animal dump is also several hundred yards from a large county public works facility that includes a police-car repair shop.

Only five programs have repeated as national champion - most recently in 2009 when Syracuse collected back-to-back NCAA titles. Loyola may have been one of the last teams to earn an at-large berth in the upcoming NCAA tournament, but the team has a chance to join the Orange, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, North Carolina and Princeton. “Obviously, that's the ultimate goal,” senior midfielder Davis Butts said Thursday. “The thing is, we have to take it one game at a time with the opponent that is ahead of us and not think about too far down the line because at this point, it's one game or you go home.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Ravens quarterback Jim Harbaugh will be a working stiff tomorrow, down in the pits, holding a sign board for his IndyCar driver, Scott Goodyear.Football personnel and motorsports -- it's beginning to sound like love and marriage. Joe Gibbs, Dan Marino, Walter Payton, Mark Rypien, Jerry Glanville and Joe Montana all have owned one kind of race team or another.Now it's Harbaugh's turn.He is back in Indianapolis getting ready for the 82nd Indianapolis 500 as part-owner of the car that Goodyear will start from the inside of the fourth row."

"I didn't win American Idol one week and become a superstar. I actually trucked up and down the country and carried gear up and down stairs and slept in flea pits." -- Sting

The state announced long-awaited rules yesterday to keep toxic substances from leaking from coal-ash dumps. The regulations require liners and runoff collection systems at all new dump sites accepting coal ash. The purpose is to prevent harmful metals and chemicals from leaching into ground water or nearby streams. Dump operators must also take steps to prevent ash from being blown onto neighboring properties. The state Department of the Environment proposed regulating coal-ash dumps after it was discovered that toxic chemicals had contaminated the wells of 23 homes near two sand-and-gravel pits in Gambrills.

They're dubious landmarks with the look of a low-budget post apocalyptic movie, a fascinating history and an ironic geographic anomaly. The recently-sold Funkhouser Quarry property on the Mason-Dixon Line in the Delta-Cardiff-Whiteford area was a major source of slate from the era in U.S. history when slate was the preferred material for roofing shingles. The durability of slate is evident in buildings throughout the region whose roofs, shingled with the flat rocks a century ago, remain largely as they were even as more modern roofs have been replaced two and three times in the time since mining slate became unprofitable.

An IndyCar practice session for the Honda Indy 200 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course was cut short this morning for Penske driver Helio Castroneves when he had a run-in with driver Mike Conway, as Conway was leaving the pits. "We were having a good session," Castroneves said after being released from the infield care center. "Finally, I was getting the rhythm, especially since we didn't get to test last week. I was really starting to understand what the car needs. " But then, when Conway came out of the pits the two eventually collided and the steering wheel's knob spun around and hit Castroneves' hand hard.

Minute amounts of Freon-type chemicals have appeared for the first time in wells along the eastern side of the Millersville landfill.Officials said the amounts found in the test wells -- 10 parts per billion -- are barely detectable and pose no threat to the landfill's neighbors.The compounds are used as refrigerants and in spray-can propellants. They were first detected in about five test wells on landfill property in November, said James Pittman, who oversees the county's 567-acre landfill.

Marta Mossburg's recent column about pit bull legislation ("Pit bull compromise fails, trial lawyers win," April 9) was full of inaccuracies. As a dog lover, and as someone who witnessed the proceedings first hand, I hope you will correct these errors in print. Sen. Brian Frosh has led the effort to craft a rational state policy on dog attacks in the wake of the Court of Appeals decision in the Solesky case. He brokered several compromises, all of which were fair to victims, pet owners and landlords.

Despite the General Assembly's failure last week to pass pit bull legislation, there are still ways Maryland voters and animal lovers can show their support for this and similar breeds, which are being turned in at Maryland animal shelters in increasing numbers ("Pit bull compromise fails, trial lawyers win," April 10). On April 21, the Maryland SPCA will host its annual March for the Animals, the organization's biggest fundraiser of the year. All donations go directly to provide care, shelter, food and medical care for the animals in the group's adoption center, which last year placed more than 3,000 pets in loving homes.

Lawmakers didn't act on pit bull legislation this year because the bill under consideration didn't offer any solutions to the problem of dog attacks ("Pit bull compromise fails, trial lawyers win," April 10). Bravo for them. Here is a simple solution. Have the state or counties license and train dog owners who keep potentially dangerous breeds. Most attacks that end with death or injury to people or other animals could have been avoided if the owners understood their dogs. I am a lifelong animal lover, with dogs being my favorites.

Three days after the General Assembly ended its 2013 legislative session, there's already a call to bring lawmakers back to Annapolis for what would be their fourth special session in a two-year span. Del. Benjamin F. Kramer, a Montgomery County Democrat, wrote Gov. Martin O'Malley Thursday asking him to call a special session to resolve the issue of how to deal with an unpopular Court of Appeals ruling that pit bulls were "inherently dangerous" and that their owners and their owners' landlords could be held to a standard of "strict liability" when one of the animals bites a person.

Now that our lawmakers have failed to pass breed-neutral legislation that would overturn the court ruling that declared one breed of dog dangerous, thousands of Maryland voters and their pets will unfairly be affected ("General Assembly session ends in flurry of votes," April 9). We counted on legislators to right a wrong that was already causing a negative impact in homes and animal shelters in Maryland. This did not happen. The direct impact from the lack of compromise between our legislators will lead to more landlords burdened with the responsibility of determining a dog's breed and forcing tenants to choose between their home and their pets; more Marylanders having to give up their beloved pets; and an increase in abandoned pit-bull type dogs in already crowded animal shelters.

House Speaker Michael E. Busch said a compromise bill intended to reverse a court decision singling out pit bulls as an "inherently dangerous" breed died on the House floor because it just didn't have the votes. It is extremely rare for a conference committee report to fail on the House floor, where unlike the Senate there is no filibuster. But opponents made it clear they were willing to chew up as much time as they could to block its passage -- even if it meant other legislation went down.

A roundup of new products and servicesIt's the PitsBall pits have long been a favorite among children at amusement parks, carnivals and play lands (and among their parents, who are happy to see their tots use some of their energy safely). Now the same fun can be had at home. The Hedstrom Corp. has introduced the world's first home ball pit. Four sizes are available and each model comes with commercial-size and commercial-quality balls. The pits, which can be folded down to hang in a closet, are available at Wal-Mart, Toys R Us, Sears and through J. C. Penney catalogs.

The scars across 16-year-old Dominic Solesky's face are faint, but that doesn't stop people from asking where he got them. The Towson High School junior and his family have told the story many times. Six years ago, Dominic was mauled by a pit bull named Clifford in the alley behind his red brick rowhouse in East Towson, an attack that resulted in trauma surgery at John Hopkins Hospital and a year of rehabilitation. The family's case seeking restitution resulted in last year's Maryland Court of Appeals decision labeling pit bulls "inherently dangerous" and broadening the liability of landlords.

There had to be some drama at the end. The 2013 General Assembly session, in a marked contrast to the train wreck that was the 2012 edition, moved toward its conclusion Monday as a model of efficiency and cooperation. For once, the kids weren't waiting until the night before to do their homework, having wrapped up virtually all of the major issues by Friday. And then came the speed camera bill. After a series of reports in The Sun about erroneous tickets given to motorists in Baltimore City (including one case of a car ticketed for speeding while stopped at a red light)