Stable

Roberto Pagan-Franco didn't have a bank account for decades. His employer paid him in cash or with a check that the Baltimore resident took to a check-cashing store. A few years ago he lost his job after a severe illness and for a time was homeless. Not exactly the type of customer you'd expect a big bank to court. But Pagan-Franco enrolled in a PNC Bank program that targets consumers who otherwise might be shut out of the banking system. And today, the 54-year-old has checking and savings accounts at PNC and is in the process of getting a credit card.

Baltimore police are investigating a double shooting at 11:33 p.m. Tuesday in the Beechfield neighborhood. Two men, ages 24 and 25, were shot in the 600 block of Brisbane Road, authorities said. The 24-year-old man is in critical but stable condition at a nearby hospital. The 25-year-old man is in serious but stable condition at a second nearby hospital. ywenger@baltsun.com Twitter.com/yvonnewenger

Horses that pulled wagons loaded with strawberries and cantaloupe were put out to pasture Tuesday after city animal control and humane society officials closed the largest stable that had housed the animals. Baltimore City Health Department officials, in conjunction with the Humane Society of the United States, confiscated 19 horses owned by a-rabs, the name given to street vendors who sell produce from red wagons that have long swayed along city alleys and roads to the jingle of silver-toned bridle bells.

Three men were shot Tuesday night in Edgewood, according to the Harford County Sheriff's Office. Police first received a report of shots fired in the 1900 block of Edgewater Drive shortly after 8 p.m., said Monica Worrell, a sheriff's spokeswoman. There they located two men suffering from gunshot wounds. One man, 43, was transported by ambulance to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore. The second man, 26, was transported by ambulance to Upper Chesapeake Medical Center in Bel Air. A third shot man, 37, arrived shortly afterward at the Upper Chesapeake Medical Center after being transported there by family members, Worrell said.

Glen Burnie baseball coach Bruce Sider, who was struck above his left ear by a batted ball Wednesday, spent his second night at Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore yesterday.A hospital spokesman said Sider is listed in serious but stable condition.Sider was hit by a line drive just above his left ear while pitching batting practice.

A 48-year-old man shot in the chest while walking along Liberty Road in the Rockdale area remained at Sinai Hospital yesterday, his condition upgraded from critical to stable. The victim, identified as Warren Douglas Calvin, who lived in the area, told Baltimore County police he was shot by one of two youths in their late teens who approached him in the 8000 block of Liberty Road Friday night.

The sale of 100 acres of Laurel Race Course property to Washington Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke included a provision for Cooke to pay for relocating Laurel's stable area, sources said yesterday.The new barn area will be built only if Cooke builds a stadium at the Laurel site, the sources said.The initial arrangement with Cooke called for him to buy 55 acres of Laurel land, but that was expanded on Thursday when Cooke announced he was buying an additional 45-acre parcel.Laurel/Pimlico operator Joe De Francis said yesterday that engineers "haven't drawn out the specific boundaries," but that the additional land "is located west of Brock Bridge Road and includes part of the [current]

Westinghouse Electric Corp. has eliminated about 1,000 jobs in Maryland over the past three years, but the company's top management said yesterday that employment is expected to remain stable here for the next five years despite signs of a recession and an anticipated reduction in defense spending.The outlook for the company's Electronic Systems Group, based near Baltimore/Washington International Airport, is "quite good," Paul E. Lego, Westinghouse's chairman and chief executive, said during a visit to Baltimore.

A Clary's Forest man who was shot by two assailants while taking out his trash Tuesday night was listed in critical but stable condition yesterday at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore.Howard County police said Derek Z. Bolden, 23, was taking garbage to a trash bin outside his apartment building in the 12100 block of Little Patuxent Parkway when two men accosted him about 10 p.m.The men fired several shots, striking Mr. Bolden once in the buttocks. Police said he ran to a nearby apartment building and collapsed in the stairway.

Raymond V. Haysbert, the 79-year-old former chairman of Parks Sausage Co., was in stable condition last night at Good Samaritan Hospital after suffering a heart attack Sunday evening at a political fund-raiser, his family said.Haysbert was speaking at an event for City Council candidate Sylvia Williams in Northeast Baltimore when he fell and hit his head. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation was performed until paramedics arrived.It was the second heart attack for Haysbert, who in 1952 joined the sausage business started in Baltimore by Henry G. Parks Jr. In 1969, the company became the first minority-owned firm in the United States to go public.

With another spawning season about to begin, horseshoe crabs appear to be hanging on in Maryland's coastal bays, despite limited habitat for their annual reproductive reunion. Volunteers tallied 23,105 crabs last year, roughly the same number counted in 2010, the Maryland Coastal Bays Program reports. The annual horseshoe crab spawning congregation on the Delaware shore is closely watched, because the ancient sea animals' eggs provide food for shorebirds, particularly red knots , which stop over there to rest and refuel during an epic 9,000-mile migration north.

A 17-year-old boy was stabbed multiple times in the upper torso in Edgewood shortly after 7 p.m. Monday, according to the Harford County Sheriff's Office. Bleeding from stab wounds, he flagged down a patrol deputy about 7:15 p.m. near the intersection of Woodbridge Center Way and Acorn Ridge Court, according to Monica Worrell, a spokeswoman for the sheriff's office. The boy, from the White Marsh area, told police he was in the area visiting a friend when he was jumped by several people, Worrell said.

A 48-year-old pedestrian hit by a van Friday night in Glen Burnie is hospitalized in critical, but stable condition, Anne Arundel County police said. Around 8:30 p.m., officers responded to the accident on 8 t h Avenue near Penrod Court. The victim, John Victor Bandtholtz, did not yield as he crossed the street and was struck by a 1996 Chevrolet Astro driven by David Edward Gooden, 54 of Glen Burnie, police said. Bandtholtz, who has no fixed address, was transported to Maryland Shock Trauma Center with life threatening injuries, police said.

Five young men were stabbed late Saturday in Edgewood, the Harford County sheriff's office said Sunday. Sheriff's deputies were called to the 400 block of Meadowood Drive just before midnight and found two stabbing victims, a 22-year-old with chest injuries trying to help a 19-year-old with multiple wounds, said Monica Worrell, a spokeswoman for the sheriff's office. A third victim, an 18-year-old who also had been stabbed in the chest, then approached the scene, she said. The young men said they were attacked while walking to a friend's house in the Windsor Valley neighborhood from a gas station in the 1700 block of Hanson Road.

Two Prince George's County firefighters, who were seriously injured while fighting a house fire in Riverdale, remained in critical but stable condition Sunday, according to their families. Bladensburg volunteer firefighter Ethan Sorrell, 21, remained intubated but was conscious at the Washington Hospital Center's burn unit. He suffered burns to his airway. Kevin O'Toole, 22, also a Bladensburg volunteer firefighter, had burns over 40 percent of his body and was expected to remain in the hospital's burn unit for at least six weeks, according to fire officials, citing O'Toole's father, Jeff.

January home sales slipped by 5 percent in the Baltimore area, while the number of homes on the market reached its lowest point in nearly six years, numbers released Friday show. There were 1,334 homes sold in the area last month, down from January 2011 but 4 percent higher than the five-year average for the month, according to data from the Metropolitan Regional Information Systems. The median sale price of a home in Baltimore rose 29 percent, to $93,100, but the city continued to be the most affordable in the region.

Ten saddles were stolen from two locations in western Howard County over the weekend, county police said, and one victim said only the best saddles were taken from among the 40 she owns.Eight of those saddles were taken from two locked buildings at Longen's Breece Stable in the 3300 block of Pfefferkorn Road in Glenelg, and the other two were taken from an unlocked barn in the 12600 block Old Frederick Road in West Friendship. Both thefts occurred between 6 p.m. Friday and 6 p.m. Saturday.

John Ed Anthony was in position to make history this year at the Preakness Stakes, but instead of attempting to become the first thoroughbred owner in 112 years to win the race three straight times, he will not even attend the race Saturday at Pimlico Race Course.Mr. Anthony's powerful Loblolly Stable not only failed to produce a horse worthy of competing in the Triple Crown series this year, but soon will cease to exist.Mr. Anthony, 55, stood at the pinnacle of the sport a year ago, when he joined Calumet Farm and Harry Payne Whitney as the only owners to win back-to-back Preaknesses in the 20th century.

On the wall of Eddie Gaudet's office is a photo of him as a jockey sitting atop a winner in Florida in the 1950s. Tucked in among dozens of snapshots and 8-by-10s spread over three walls, is another from 1966 showing Gaudet as the winning trainer at Bowie Race Track. "He's the dark-haired one," Linda Gaudet said, pointing to the photos of her husband. "He was the Dean Martin type. " "They used to call me Dean Martin," Gaudet, 81, said, his eyes twinkling from under a baseball cap. The walls are an historic collage that will be adding more photos in the new year as the longtime Maryland horse trainer hands off his business to his wife and 23-year-old daughter Lacey.

A man was stabbed Friday night at Benchwarmer's Pub in Middle River, Baltimore County police said. Police received a call at 11:28 p.m. and determined that the man was stabbed in the torso. It was unclear whether the stabbing occurred inside or outside the pub, police said. Officers did not identify the man. The injured man was taken to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center where he is in stable condition, said Cpl. John Wachter, a Baltimore County police spokesman.