Sales

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.

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.

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.

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.

Back this hitch up into the water Untie all the cables and rope Step onto the astro turf Get yourself a coozie Let's go…. Long before the pop-country group Little Big Town introduced its No. 1 hit, "Pontoon," last summer, pontooning had become been a part of the boating community in the United States. Its roots go back more than 60 years to a Minnesota farmer named Ambrose Weeres who came up with the crazy idea of putting a wooden platform on two columns of welded steel barrels and spending his lazy summer afternoons fishing on a nearby lake.

A 34-year-old Florida man pleaded guilty late Wednesday to illegally selling night vision goggles and other military style gear online to an undercover federal agent in Baltimore pretending to be an overseas buyer — a charge that could land him in prison for 20 years. Anthony J. Torresi, of Coral Gables, did not have the required U.S. Department of State license to sell the items when he posted them on eBay and then arranged to sell them to a buyer who he believed was in New Zealand, according to the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office of Rod J. Rosenstein.

Exports of Maryland merchandise rose 9 percent last year to a record $11.8 billion, the International Trade Administration said Tuesday. The state's export sales in 2012 far outpaced the 2011 export sales in places such as Belgium, Saudi Arabia, Australia, the United Kingdom and Egypt, the government data showed. Exports of goods and services for the United States as a whole also reached record levels last year, totaling $2.2 trillion. U.S. Commerce Department officials credited efforts to remove trade barriers and help businesses compete globally with helping boost exports.

I thought Ticketmaster was the most hated company in America, but it turns out to have had some competition for that title in recent years. It lost last year to AT&T, Bank of America, Walmart and Electronic Arts, the maker of digital games. The Consumerist, a savvy blog affiliated with Consumer Reports, conducts surveys every year and declares "The Most Hated Company in America" each spring. Ticketmaster is always in the running. The financial crisis of 2007-2008 crowded the field with Bank of America, AIG and Countrywide Financial.