Questionnaire

WASHINGTON - Steroid use is a problem for women as well as male athletes, the chairman of a House panel said yesterday. And it's not just athletes who are using, but also young girls "looking for a way to get thinner, to reduce body fat - to conform to an idea of beauty they feel pressured to emulate," House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis said yesterday during a hearing. Studies have shown that "growing numbers of young girls" are beginning to use steroids, said Davis, a Virginia Republican.

With the Sept. 12 primaries fast approaching, candidates for Anne Arundel County executive are praising their stances and outlining their policy ideas in news conferences and a barrage of advertising. In the past two weeks, Democrat Dennis Callahan held a news conference blasting fire and police unions for making endorsements; Republican David G. Boschert spoke of the need to upgrade county infrastructure outside the Mill Creek Pump Station, where a collapsed main in December caused a significant sewage spill; and Republican Phillip D. Bissett trumpeted his "gridlock-free zone initiative" to counter the effects of sprawling development.

I want to sit in a sky box at Camden Yards.I want to sit in a sky box because I want someone to ask me -- as the Orioles recently asked their sky box lessees in a questionnaire -- what I thought of the concierge service at the ballpark.This is not something you'd expect to hear at a ballpark, where the most commonly posed question is this: They haven't run out of beer, have they? I have another question. What does a ballpark concierge do -- get you tickets to see "The Babe"?I want to go to a ballpark and hobnob, which is what I'm guessing they do in sky boxes.

Up to half of sexually active young people will get a sexually transmitted disease by the time they are 25, yet many don't seek testing because it may be difficult, costly or embarrassing. Public health officials nationally and in particularly affected cities like Baltimore, however, say they've found a method that seems to address the major hurdles — a website that supplies free in-home testing kits for three of the most commonly reported STDs. "The highest prevalence is in young adults, and we knew we had to reach these kids," said Charlotte A. Gaydos, a professor of infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women, but many don't recognize the warning signs. They may ignore the symptoms or mistake them for more benign ailments. Dr. Shannon J. Winakur, medical director of the Women's Heart Center at Saint Agnes Hospital, said women should be more aware of heart disease and how to prevent it. How are the warning signs of heart disease different in women? Warning signs of heart disease typically occur with exertion and go away with rest. The classic symptom of heart disease is a dull tightness in the center of the chest, which may or may not radiate to the neck, jaw, left shoulder or left arm. Women can certainly have these symptoms, but they also often describe sharp or burning chest pain.

The Sun asked the candidates for Baltimore state's attorney to complete a questionnaire as part of our endorsement process. The questions were derived from suggestions made by readers. After reading the responses, please let us know which candidate you support and why, either on the editorial board's blog, Second Opinion , or by sending an e-mail to talkback@baltimoresun.com . A selection of readers' comments will appear alongside our endorsement. Democrat Gregg Bernstein's responses to The Sun's questionnaire: 1. Summarize your education and professional experience.

The Baltimore City Detention Center had the nation's second-highest rate of sexual contact between jail staff and inmates, according to a U.S. Department of Justice study released less than a month after federal prosecutors accused corrections officers at the jail of sleeping with gang members. The report, released Thursday, also found higher-than-average rates of inmate abuse at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup. Women in prison are generally subjected to more abuse than men, and nearly 13 percent of inmates at that facility reported being abused either by a fellow inmate or staff member.

NEW YORK -- A simple, one-page patient questionnaire that provides an extraordinarily fast diagnosis of mental illness can help keep internists and family physicians from missing the first important signals that their patient may need help, researchers say.Testing of the questionnaire, conducted at four sites around the country, found that 26 percent of the 1,000 study participants had a diagnosable mental illness and an additional 13 percent had sufficient symptoms...

On June 24, 2011, a middle-aged Harford County woman drove to the Hollywood Casino in Perryville to give authorities permission to arrest her for trespassing if she ever set foot again in one of Maryland's casinos. Before she signed the paperwork she wanted one last taste and lost hundreds of dollars at slot machines. "I considered it my last hurrah. That I was going to gamble and then I was going to sign myself out," said the 50-year-old woman, before a recent Gamblers Anonymous meeting at Mountain Christian Church in Joppa.