Residents

Before sunrise Monday, Kevin and Shelley Taylor set out from their Millersville home to a new employment center for the Maryland Live! Casino, a slots parlor next to the Arundel Mills mall seeking workers for 1,500 jobs. Having tracked the progress of what will be the state's largest casino, the Taylors believe the facility could provide opportunity for their five-member family. Though Kevin Taylor has a job, he wants a better-paying one. And Shelley Taylor has been out of work for several months.

In less than five minutes, Tom Kiefaber said, he was left with nothing. "They've taken my home, my principal residence. They've taken my job," Kiefaber, the one-time owner and operator of Baltimore's storied Senator Theatre , lamented Thursday morning. He was standing feet from the steps of the Baltimore County courthouse, where minutes earlier his home and 8 acres on York Road in Sparks had been auctioned off. "My mission at this point is to retrieve my home from this corrupt nonsense," he said.

The story of a 24-year-old Georgia graduate student fighting a flesh-eating disease has prompted a microbiologist with the Veterans Affairs Maryland Health Care System to speak out about the infection. Aimee Copeland lost most of her left leg after the flesh-eating bacteria necrotizing faciitis is believed to have entered a cut on her leg, according to the Associated Press, which reports she may also have to have her fingers amputated. The waterborne bacteria Aeromonas hydrophila is believed to have caused the infection.

Joanna Sullivan knows what she saw Saturday night as she and her husband peered through the window of their home overlooking Patterson Park - more than 20 youths involved in a "melee" on the tennis courts. But police statistics and incidents reports won't show that any such incident took place. The reason points to a disconnect between residents' experiences with crimes and longstanding police policies. The incident occurred at about 9 p.m. on the Patterson Park tennis courts.

After a seven-year delay, Randallstown residents cheered Monday over an announcement that a Walmart will open on Liberty Road next year. Officials and residents have long hoped that the store — a planned $9 million, 160,000-square-foot supercenter with groceries and a pharmacy — would revitalize the aging commercial corridor, encouraging other national retailers and restaurants to set up shop in the affluent, largely black community....

Albert Lord doesn't like to wait - not in business or on the golf course. The colorful chairman of student loan behemoth Sallie Mae, who's embroiled in a nasty fight over the failed sale of the company, has spent 40 years in the accounting and banking industries. He said that experience should have instilled in him a measure of patience, but it hasn't. Whether in traffic, at the office or on the links, Lord said, he just doesn't like to wait. He can't do much about the first two, but he's got a sure-fire solution for the last one: He's building his own, an 18-hole golf course on land he's acquired amid shuttered tobacco farms and grazing horses in southern Anne Arundel County.

One of the country's largest national prepaid cell phone carriers is making free phones and 64 minutes of monthly air time available to nearly 400,000 low-income Maryland residents under a new effort it brought to the state this week. TracFone Wireless Inc., which has 10 million customers nationwide for its prepaid cell phone plans, can offer the free service because it obtains a $10-per-customer subsidy through a federal program whose goal is to improve land-line and wireless phone access, a company spokesman said Wednesday.

Rhonda Wimbish says she has been battling Baltimore officials over a $300 water bill — more than six times her normal rate — for more than a year. Now Wimbish, a single mother of a disabled child, says her West Baltimore home is scheduled to go to tax sale over the bill, which she maintains is inaccurate. "What do I do? Do I pay my inflated water bill or do I feed my child?" Wimbish said to a City Council committee Wednesday evening. "I've gone through your process. I've done everything I could to fight this bill.

Don't do it, Virginia! Our neighbor to the south is weighing legislation that would allow lenders there to make car-title loans with triple-digit interest rates to consumers in Maryland and other states. This only four months after Virginia lenders were banned from making such loans out of state. Car-title loans, which allow you to borrow against the value of your vehicle, are such bad deals that more than half of the states, including Maryland, basically don't allow them.

Of all the recreational facilities that make Columbia one of the region's most attractive communities, the 88-acre Horse Center stands out -- for the wrong reasons.Few residents use it. Few think it's important. And, year after year, it loses money -- their money -- with losses totaling an estimated $1.5 million since 1986 and $250,000 more projected over the next six years.The center's supporters say it epitomizes the best of the planned community because riding lessons, horse shows and boarding stables are benefits that help distinguish Columbia.

Pigtown resident Daryl Landy believes he's one of a growing number of Americans striving for better, not bigger, living quarters, and last week he launched a new online magazine devoted to living, working and playing in small spaces. Rohous Magazine went live Wednesday. The electronic magazine, available on iPads and the Internet by subscription, will highlight home furnishings, products, decor and do-it-yourself projects. It will feature a different city each month (the first issue focuses on Baltimore)

It's 10 in the morning and Tracy Campola has already been up for hours, putting the finishing touches on one of 14 racing silks that are due by the end of the week. The Arbutus resident is surprisingly calm, considering that she's up to her neck in orders and less than three days away from the state's largest horse race — the Preakness. Campola's calm demeanor and attention to detail brought her success as a jockey agent, but the long hours, constant travel to racetracks in other states, and the desire to spend time with her elderly father sent her in search of a different career.

In July, Joe Zuccaro will celebrate one year of living in a condo in a historic Fells Point tobacco warehouse that he refers to as "a Renaissance bachelor's pad with a million-dollar view. " "I have always wanted to live in Baltimore," said the Montgomery County native. "I wanted to be somewhere neat and right on the water. " The renovated warehouse, like several in and around Baltimore's harbor, is in many ways a monument to Baltimore's great industrial past. Located on Henderson's Wharf, the brick building was constructed well over a century ago by the Baltimore &Ohio Railroad for storage of tobacco bound for Europe.

Maryland is fortunate to have many beautiful parks, rivers and streams, breathtaking views, delicious fish and shellfish and enjoyable recreational opportunities, from our nation's largest estuary to the snow-capped mountains in Western Maryland. Throughout our history, we have not done enough to protect these treasures and the water that links them, allowing them to deteriorate and their ecosystems to suffer. Under Gov.Martin O'Malley's leadership, though, things have started to turn around.

Robert Larkin's association with Oak Crest retirement community in Parkville began long before he and his wife purchased a condo there in 2001. The 86-year-old retired Baltimore City police major had contacts with Oak Crest before it even opened its doors. "I used to walk over here from Perry Hall during construction," Larkin said. "I'd wear my hard hat, [and] I got to know all the workers. That was in 1994. " There was never any doubt that the he and his wife, Gloria, would move into Oak Crest when they felt the time was right.

A grass-roots idea to bridge the gaps among racially divided neighborhoods has blossomed into an annual block party in West Baltimore that drew hundreds Saturday to a triangular park in Upton. At the fifth annual Boundary Block Party, sponsored by a coalition of five of the city's central-western neighborhoods, children frolicked near a fountain, a wooden platform served as a stage for local musicians and choirs, and dozens of people lined up for free hot dogs and potato salad.

With cannon booms, a drum roll and the Navy at the ready, the state unveiled its plans Thursday to celebrate the bicentennial of the War of 1812, a series of events designed to showcase Maryland's role in the conflict. The Pride of Baltimore II, numerous Navy vessels, the Coast Guard's Eagle and at least 10 other tall ships, many from foreign shores, will berth at the Inner Harbor in June to launch the commemoration. Organizers expect about 1 million people to attend the weeklong event.

About 30 Glen Burnie residents worked for hours Tuesday night tryingto come up with a blueprint for the future.The volunteers, who met at the Glen Burnie Improvement Association building, spent the evening brainstorming about how to fix Glen Burnie's problems and build on its strengths.One of the most frequently voiced complaints was the community's "image problem." A stereotyped image of Glen Burnie as "Chrome City,"dominated by automobile dealerships and repair shops, is perpetuatedby people who don't live in the communityand know little about it, residents said.

The Supreme Court's ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, expected in June, will determine the future for countless Americans. Health care reform debates have elevated the plight of millions of uninsured Americans to the national consciousness. However, the physician workforce that would be needed to care for millions of newly insured people deserves equal attention. There is a growing shortage of primary care physicians in the U.S., and it has been forecasted for decades.

Debate over the meaning of gold-colored sheets of paper passed among members of the Carroll County Board of Commissioners has pitted the elected officials against residents who allege they are thumbing their noses at state open meetings rules. Two residents complained to the commissioners and state officials Tuesday that the so-called "goldenrod" form — or as it's officially known, the "Board of County Commissioners Action Authorization Form" — violates the state's Open Meetings Act, which requires elected officials to meet publicly when conducting official government business.