HEALTH
By Meredith Cohn, The Baltimore Sun | May 7, 2012
Maryland is slated to receive $1.8 million for its part in a national settlement with Illinois-based Abbott Laboratories over allegations of illegal drug marketing, Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler said Monday. Abbott will pay $100 million to 44 states and Washington, where officials had claimed the company marketed Depakote for uses other than those approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It's considered safe and effective for treating seizure disorders, mania associated with bipolar disorder and migraines.
BUSINESS
Jamie Smith Hopkins | May 2, 2012
Internal Fannie Mae documents show the mortgage financier was about to launch a principal reduction program in 2010 after determining that it would save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, a Baltimore congressman says -- contradicting claims by Fannie's regulator that such a move would be costly. U.S. Reps. Elijah E. Cummings of Baltimore and John F. Tierney of Massachusetts, Democrats who sit on the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform, sent a joint letter Tuesday to regulator Edward DeMarco demanding more information about why the program was "mysteriously terminated" in July 2010.
NEWS
By Justin Fenton, The Baltimore Sun | April 30, 2012
Nearly 20 percent of arrests made by Baltimore police for low-level, "quality-of-life" crimes haven't been properly documented, according to a new audit that a civil liberties group says understates the agency's shortcomings in meeting terms of a legal settlement. Independent auditor Charles Wellford, a University of Maryland criminologist, sampled about 1,100 arrests from April to December 2011 and found that 17 percent of reports written by officers did not support a finding of probable cause.
FEATURES
By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun | April 18, 2012
A new trial date has been set for Oct. 9 in an environmental group's lawsuit accusing an Eastern Shore farm couple and Perdue Farms of polluting a Chesapeake Bay tributary. The case brought by the Waterkeeper Alliance was originally scheduled to begin this week in U.S. District Court, but was postponed by Judge William M. Nickerson to encourage the sides to try to reach a settlement. Perdue spokeswoman Julie DeYoung said in an email Wednesday that despite talks, "it does not appear the case will settle.
NEWS
By Yvonne Wenger, The Baltimore Sun | April 15, 2012
Anti-abortion advocates will gather at 10 a.m. Monday outside the Maryland State Police Headquarters in Pikesville to publicly discuss a $385,000 settlement involving both parties. The activists and their attorneys will discuss details of the case, which they say include a requirement that all state troopers receive additional training. The activists' federal lawsuit was over the August 2008 arrests of 18 protesters with Baltimore-based Defend Life during a Bel Air rally.
NEWS
By Heather E. Harris | April 10, 2012
She was dragged, tossed, handcuffed, and, she says, repeatedly called a "bitch," according to news reports. In her own words, she was "brutally abused. " At the time of the incident, Venus Green was also 87 years old. Recently, at age 90, Mrs. Green received an out-of-court settlement for her troubles from Baltimore City for $95,000. The settlement for the indignity is not the point of this commentary; rather, it is the repetition of such indignities and violence on the bodies of people of African descent, and Africana women in particular — not just by people of other ethnic groups but also by members of our own communities.