Rules

A woman and a Pitbull found dead in her Davidsonville home were both stabbed multiple times and her death has been ruled a homicide, Anne Arundel County police said. Two people found the body of Nicole C. Burgess, 37, in the 3300 block of Royale Glen Court around 11:30 a.m. on Mar. 22, police said. The medical examiner's office determined that Burgess and the dog both died of multiple stab wounds, according to police. Detectives believe the deaths are related but have no motive for the crimes and did not know whether it was a targeted or random attack, police said.

SARASOTA, Fla. -- Orioles Rule 5 pick T.J. McFarland will make the team's Opening Day roster as a left-handed reliever who can pitch multiple innings out of the bullpen. The Orioles also will place right-hander Steve Johnson on the disabled list with strained right lat muscle on Sunday before rosters are finalized. McFarland, who pitched four scoreless innings in the Orioles' 6-1 exhibition win over the State College of Florida on Friday, was told he was making the team after the game by Orioles manager Buck Showalter.

We want to thank reporter John Fritze for his article laying out the issue of out-of-pocket costs for child dental care insurance through the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange ("Advocates, insurers duel over cost of child dental coverage," March 21). The new rules by the Obama administration perhaps unintentionally eliminate the general principle of the Affordable Care Act that dental care is an essential health benefit for children. The new rule will permit pediatric dental insurance plans to charge a maximum of $1,000 per child in out-of-pocket costs and up to $2,000 for a family.

Heart disease killed a 64-year-old passenger on a cruise ship out of Baltimore, the FBI said Thursday, ruling out foul play and ending a brief mystery as to how the Virginia woman died last weekend. "It's considered a natural death," FBI Special Agent Rich Wolf said. The FBI identified the woman as Katherine Kennedy of Midlothian, Va. Kennedy and her husband were on a six-night, seven-day cruise that began March 18. Among 2,409 passengers, they were aboard Royal Caribbean's Enchantment of the Seas, a 989-foot ship with 11 decks that had stopped in Port Canaveral, Fla.; Nassau and CocoCay, Bahamas.

The Obama administration is expected to propose new rules today that would slash the amount of sulfur in gasoline, one of the most significant steps the administration can take this term toward cutting air pollution, people with knowledge of the announcement said. The new rules would bring the rest of the country's sulfur standards in line with California's gasoline program. The oil industry has warned of resulting price increases and has been joined by members of Congress from oil states in criticizing the standards as onerous with few health benefits in return.

Let me put this up quietly tonight in hopes that everyone is too tired to argue.  There was some nervous tweeting among editors today about the that/which  rule. You may have been taught it under various terms: Restrictive (limiting, essential, defining) relative clauses begin with that  and are not set off with commas; non-restrictive (non-limiting, non-essential, non-defining, parenthetical) relative clauses begin with which  and are  set off with commas. You know it is a rule because your English teacher told you so, and besides, there it is in black and white in the Associated Press Stylebook .  There is just one little hitch: IT IS NOT A RULE.  The Fowler brothers suggested in The King's English  that it would be a useful distinction to observe; it would tidy up the language a little.

Regardless of whether the Supreme Court is ready to declare a constitutional right to gay marriage, it has the responsibility to fully recognize the decisions Maryland and eight other states, plus the District of Columbia, have made to allow same-sex couples to wed. There is little other conclusion that could be drawn from the arguments today on the constitutionality of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which banned all federal recognition of same-sex...

The Maryland Senate voted Wednesday to pass a bill that would qualify more Marylanders for government health care and pay for a new health insurance marketplace, both part of advancing the rollout of federal health reform. The House of Delegates approved an identical bill Monday, clearing the way for the legislation to make its way to Gov. Martin O'Malley for his signature. Initiatives in the bill spell out changes in the way poor or uninsured residents and small businesses would access health care once the federal law becomes effective next year.

If the tenor of their questions is any indication, the justices on the U.S. Supreme Court appeared evenly divided in the challenge to California's law banning gay marriage, with Justice Anthony Kennedy, predictably, in the middle. But rather than deciding which way to tip the scales, Justice Kennedy seemed to be looking for an escape hatch. Indeed, his most persistent line of questioning to the advoates on both sides sounded more like a lament: "I just wonder if this case was properly granted.

SARASOTA, Fla. - Standing on the mound at Ed Smith Stadium on Monday afternoon, with 30 mph winds swirling around him and ESPN cameras capturing his every move, Orioles left-hander T.J. McFarland was the perfect picture of calm. Sitting in an office chair in Bedford Park, Ill., huddled over an MLB.com video feed that wouldn't work, Tim McFarland wasn't exactly as collected as his 23-year-old son. "I'm the only one that didn't watch it live on ESPN. I had the MLB feed at the office and the damn thing went out two pitches into the first batter.