Sales

When the owners of the Brewer's Art announced it would begin selling cans of their flagship beer, Resurrection Ale, in the summer of 2010, many Baltimore beer-lovers rejoiced. On Friday, those some fans will have another reason to cheer: Cans of Ozzy Ale, another long-time favorite of the Mount Vernon bar, will be available for purchase, partner Tom Creegan announced today. The first can of Ozzy, which has 7 percent alcohol content, will be cracked open on Friday at 4 p.m., Creegan said in an email.

A dispute between the owner of an 11-acre site in Remington and the developer that plans to build a Walmart-anchored shopping center there has thrown the project's future into doubt. Twenty Fifth Street LLC, the property owner, filed Wednesday in Baltimore Circuit Court asking a judge to declare that it legally terminated sale agreements with WV Baltimore-24/Sisson LLC, a development team led by Rick Walker. Twenty Fifth Street is controlled by Bruce Mortimer, president of Anderson Automotive Group, which has operated car dealerships on the site.

Marshall Norval "Buzz" Ragsdale, a retired National Cash Register sales executive, died of complications from multiple myeloma Saturday at his Timonium home. He was 91. Born in East Orange, N.J., he was a 1939 graduate of East Orange High School and attended Bucknell University, where he played freshman basketball. In July 1942, he enlisted in the Marine Corps and attended Officer Candidates School in Quantico, Va. He then served with Marine Fighting Squadron 314 on Midway, Ie Shima and Okinawa.

Among the annual events that should be marked on every book lover's calendar is the Smith College Club of Baltimore book sale , which starts Friday at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium. I've been going to the sales for years, and have never failed to make some interesting purchases. (The harder part is convincing my wife, a Kindle devotee, to let me bring more books into the house, which already has reading material on almost every flat surface -- except the stove. If I can find some fire-proof volumes, that will be covered too.)

Your recent article about the difficulty college students have at campus mental health centers should be mailed to Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Association ("Students struggle for mental health services," March 8). Mr. LaPierre contends that all gun-control laws are ineffective and that the problem of gun violence can be solved simply by helping those with mental health problems. Yet the young woman in your article who tried to get help at the counseling center at the University of Maryland were turned away because the center, like so many others across the country, is understaffed and underfunded.

The number of homes sold in the Baltimore metro area last month dropped sharply from January, but the decline likely doesn't mean the market is taking a turn for the worse. There were just under 1,500 closed sales in Baltimore and its neighboring counties during February, a 5.7 percent drop from the first month of the year, according to data released Monday by RealEstate Business Intelligence LLC. It's not unheard of for sales numbers to drop off between January and February.

Here's a quiz for all current and future college students and their families: Which of the following has risen in price the most sharply over the last several decades - tuition, health care, the consumer price index or textbooks? For the correct answer, please consult the back of your texts. Since 1978, the cost of college textbooks has risen 812 percent, according to the American Enterprise Institute. Few necessities can match that kind of price explosion. In 2011, the cost of college texts rose 8 percent, or more than four times the rate of inflation, according to U.S. Labor Department statistics.

Maryland's boating industry suffered badly in the economic downturn and has yet to fully recover, so it's no surprise that many in the boat business are once again looking for help from Annapolis. Unfortunately, the latest proposal - to cap the vessel excise tax at $10,000 - could do more harm than good. That's not just some knock against millionaires and their yachts - although they would be the primary beneficiaries of such a tax policy. Since the excise tax is set at 5 percent, that means only boats worth more than $200,000 would be affected.

Cal Ripken Jr. stopped by The Baltimore Sun this morning as part of the promotional tour for his third children's novel, “Wild Pitch,” which came out today. The book - about a young pitcher who loses his confidence after beaning an opponent - was co-written by Sun columnist Kevin Cowherd. Before leaving on a book signing tour that will include stops in a number of spring training spots (including the Orioles' camp in Sarasota on Thursday), Ripken sat down for a quick Q&A touching on the O's, his color commentary, the late Earl Weaver and his son Ryan.

History's throwaways and discards emerged as coveted attractions Sunday when bottles, vials and flasks that spent decades buried in dumps and privies returned in translucent glory. Billed as the "largest one-day bottle show in the world," the Baltimore Bottle Club's 33rd annual sale and exhibit, held in Essex, drew container connoisseurs who didn't flip a cork over paying $750 for a rare cobalt-blue poison bottle produced at Carr-Lowrey, a factory on the Middle Branch of the Patapsco in Westport.