Statement

GP Strategies Corp., a global business consulting company based in Elkridge, has agreed to buy BlessingWhite, a Princeton, N.J., company that offers employee leadership training, the companies have announced. The roughly $10 million acquisition should be complete within a month, GP Strategies said in a statement Friday. GP Strategies expects the acquisition to add to earnings per share in 2013, the company said. Last year, BlessingWhite had revenue of more than $13 million, GP Strategies said.

A 10th grade boy was stabbed in a stairwell Thursday afternoon at Civitas Middle/High School in West Baltimore, Baltimore City Public Schools said in a statement. A 14-year-old has been taken into custody in connection with the incident, which occurred at about 1:30 p.m., according to the statement. The victim was stabbed in the lower left abdomen and taken to Sinai Hospital. He was in stable condition as of 4 p.m., the statement said. Baltimore City Schools Police are investigating.

Google has purchased Zagat. Here's the offiical annoucement by Marissa Meyer, vice president, local, maps and location services, on the Offical Google Blog "Zagat will be a cornerstone of our local offering," Meyer's statement said, "...enabling people everywhere to find extraordinary (and ordinary) experiences around the corner and around the world. " In their own posted statement, Nina and Tim Zagat said, "We are thrilled to see our baby placed in such good hands.

As a scientist, I am outraged at Rick Santorum's statement denying the validity of the dangers posed to the planet from climate change and global warming. What credentials does he have to make any statement about this highly complex scientific subject? His position is completely contrary to the one supported by the great majority of U.S. scientists, the National Academy of Sciences and NASA. Perhaps he will soon advise us on the intricacies of brain surgery or rocket science, about which he is equally knowledgeable.

The Pentagon acknowledged that it pays the salaries of convicted criminals while it gives nothing to some of their victims and said that it is "deeply concerned" with the policy."

Police in Carroll County on Tuesday evening fatally shot a man who is said to have approached an officer wielding a hammer, according to a press release issued on Wednesday. Taneytown Police Chief William Tyler said in a prepared statement that officers responded to an incident shortly after 8:30 p.m., on Commerce Drive, after receiving a 911 call. The callers reported that their son had been drinking and acting erratically. The caller's father said that his son was smashing the windows of his truck with a hammer.

A 41-year-old man who brutalized a woman with whom he once had a sexual relationship was convicted of a second-degree sexual offense yesterday. Adolph P. Pfefferle's guilty plea to the felony charge means he could receive a maximum 20-year prison term at his sentencing May 30 in front of Howard County Circuit Judge James B. Dudley. Prosecutors have agreed to cap their request for active incarceration at 10 years as part of a plea agreement, Assistant State's Attorney Jim Dietrich said.

The Visual Artist Alliance of Maryland meets at 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Howard County Center for the Arts, 8510 High Ridge Road. Ann Wiker will give a talk on "How to Write an Artist's Statement." For more information, call 301-854-3478.

The Sierra Club announced two endorsements in the Annapolis mayoral race yesterday, singling out Alderman Carl O. Snowden in the Democratic primary and Alderman Dean L. Johnson in the Republican primary as "the only candidates who consistently showed a strong grasp" of the city's environmental issues."

CHICAGO -- The nation's largest Lutheran denomination released yesterday the first draft of an unprecedented social statement on human sexuality that emphasizes the importance of trust at the center of people's relationships with friends, family, sexual partners and God. It does not discuss whether the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America should allow gay and lesbian clergy to serve. That issue, currently vexing many Protestant denominations, will be addressed in a second document, leaders said.