Streets

A cabal of corrupt corrections officers and members of the Black Guerrilla Family gang enjoyed nearly free rein inside the Baltimore City Detention Center, federal authorities allege, smuggling drugs and cellphones into the jail and having sexual relationships that left four guards pregnant. An indictment unsealed Tuesday names 25 people - including 13 women working as corrections officers - who face racketeering and drug charges. Twenty of the accused also face money-laundering charges.

We're making a few tweaks to the Baltimore Sun Food Truck Finder. Here's where your Baltimore food trucks are today: The Gypsy Queen will be at President and Pratt streets. Philly Mignon will be at Commerce and Pratt streets. Kooper's Chowhound will be at Monument and Wolfe streets. Woody's Taco will be at 2610 Boston St. in Canton, near the Safeway. GrrChe will be at Charles and Baltimore streets. Kommie Pig will be at Wyman Park near the Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller hurled a verbal snowball at the city of Annapolis Tuesday morning, criticizing what he called the municipality's "disgraceful" efforts to clear icy and slippery roads. Annapolitians, he said, "should have better treatment from their elected officials." "This is a high-end city," he said. "It is a very wealthy city. What was good in the 1700s is not acceptable." The weekend blizzard left snow drifts in Annapolis that reached 33 inches, said a spokesman.

The pitch bores in low and skitters under Ian Anderson's mitt. As he chugs to retrieve the baseball, another enemy runner dashes across home plate, putting the Carver Bears more hopelessly behind. Shoulders slump around this West Baltimore diamond, lumpy and pocked with dandelions after weeks of no mowing. Harvey White, pitching his first game ever for Carver, can't find his control. And Anderson, filling in for a suspended teammate, looks like the novice he is behind the plate. But from the bench comes an animated voice, cutting through the dejection: "Good job, Ian!

In Anne Arundel County and Annapolis, officials warned Monday of unplowed residential streets and roads that are passable but narrow and rutted with packed snow and ice. Annapolis Mayor Joshua J. Cohen has postponed Monday night's City Council meeting due to snow. With many residential streets not passable, free parking in the Annapolis city garages was continued until further notice.

Two Annapolis streets closed Friday morning due to flooding: Compromise Street between St. Mary's Street and Memorial Street. Dock Street is also closed, said Annapolis Police Sergeant Eric Crane. As of 8:45 a.m. Friday, Philadelphia Road near Maryland Route 136 in Harford County, remained closed in both directions for debris in the road, according to state highway officials. Also in Harford County, Maryland Route 165, north of Dooley Road, was closed in both directions for debris blocking the road.

Parts of two downtown streets were closed for three hours Friday afternoon after a coolant leak at the University of Maryland Medical Center, a hospital spokeswoman said. A contractor working in the basement broke a valve to a refrigeration system in a tank that holds coolant gas, Sharon Boston said. Because the gas can be an irritant, a Fire Department hazardous-materials team vented the gas outside as a precaution, the spokeswoman said. Lombard Street was closed between Penn and Greene streets, and Greene was closed between Lombard and Baltimore streets to accommodate emergency equipment.

For many people, when they think of Baltimore, they might imagine the crime-ridden streets that were practically a character in the HBO series, "The Wire. " For others, the city can bring to mind more sanitized images of Ravens, Orioles or the Inner Harbor. But when Theodis Walkins thinks of his hometown, he sees people and uses pictures and videos to tell their story. Walkins, 31, has lived in Baltimore his whole life. Having been raised by a single parent, he is well aware of the struggles that inner city residents go through every day. A couple of years ago, he decided to pick up his cameras and document what he knew.

B altimore does not handle snow well, and December snows come with their own peculiar consequences. Over the years, I've collected favorite snow tales, and my vote for the 12th month goes to Dec. 14, 1951. It was a Friday. Downtown Baltimore was mobbed with Christmas shoppers. The storm arrived unexpectedly about noon after most people had left for work or boarded streetcars, buses and trackless trolleys for the department and variety stores, as well as Lexington Market downtown. The snow fell heavily for a short while in midafternoon as many shoppers and workers converged on the downtown.

The following letter was addressed to Laurel Mayor Craig Moe: Delayed congratulation on your win for a new term. I truly hope things in town will get better this time around. That said now that the Double Dipper Ice cream Parlor and Cafe (DD) has officially opened across the street from me, now is the time to revisit an issue I have brought up to you many times in the past, a stop sign on Montgomery at Ninth Street. I spoke to the DD's owner, Robert Crowell, about this situation.

It was just after noon Saturday and a large blue-crab-mobile was drifting out into the harbor with four students from Arbutus Middle School aboard and unable to steer. The problem? A thrown sock puppet that had damaged their controls. The absurd moment captured the spirit of the annual Kinetic Sculpture Race, now in its 15th year, even down to the puppet as the source of mischief — carrying one is a requirement of the competition. School principal Michelle Feeney watched anxiously from a pier at Canton Waterfront Park as a pair of kayakers paddled out to tow the middle-schoolers back to shore, so they could continue on their way. "All they care about is who threw the sock puppet," Feeney said.

Laurel has undergone many changes since the 1980s, but one thing has remained consistent over the years: the Laurel Board of Trade's annual Main Street Festival. This year's Main Street Festival, the 33rd one overall, will be held on Saturday, May 11, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Main Street will be closed to traffic between southbound Route 1 and Seventh Street for the festival, which could attract upward of 100,000 people. The festival usually hosts about 300 vendors and service organizations are spread out along the street, said Janet Able, treasurer of the Laurel Board of Trade.

Timothy R. Streett, a Bel Air lawyer and outdoorsman, died Saturday of complications from cardiac arrhythmia at Upper Chesapeake Medical Center. He was 53. Timothy Ryan Streett, whose father owns Boyd & Fulford Drugs in Bel Air, was born in Baltimore and raised in Bel Air. He was a 1977 graduate of Bel Air High School, where he played varsity football. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1981 from what is now McDaniel College. Mr. Streett earned a law degree from the Shepard Broad Law Center, which is the law school of Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Fla. A solo practitioner, Mr. Streett worked from a Main Street office in Bel Air as a criminal defense attorney for nearly 30 years.

There are two key questions that need to be asked about the proposal in Bel Air to close Office Street to vehicular traffic, turning it into a kind of pedestrian plaza near the Harford County Courthouse. They are: • Why doesn't the proposal also include closing the block of Courtland Street on the other side of the Courthouse to vehicular traffic? • And why didn't someone think of this before? The subject was broached because the Bel Air Board of Town Commissioners is working on plans to replace the brick sidewalks along Office Street next to the Courthouse, and make some other upgrades in the area including planting some shrubs.

A firefighter sustained a minor knee injury in a two-alarm blaze at a home in Southeast Baltimore early Thursday morning, according to the Baltimore Fire Department. Firefighters responded to the 3700 block of East Pratt Street — near the border of the city's Highlandtown and Baltimore Highlands neighborhoods — about 12:20 a.m. and began fighting the fire, which had extended to an adjacent vacant home and another occupied home, said Captain Roman Clark, a department spokesman.

Laurel police report felonies, arrests and property crimes. Prince George's County police report violent crimes and property crimes. City of Laurel Baltimore Avenue, 14100 block, April 14. Shoplifting. Main Street, 600 block, April 14. Theft. Washington Boulevard, 900 block, April 13. Shoplifting. Fourth Street, 14700 block, April 12. Theft of motorcycle. Fourth Street, 14700 block, April 12. Theft of motorcycle. Oxford Drive, 14200 block, April 12. Motor vehicle theft.

With mounds of snow making Baltimore sidewalks impassable Saturday, many pedestrians took to the middle of the streets, following paths carved by plows or trucks. And that drove Don Dziwulski a little nuts. A 12-year-veteran of the Baltimore Fire Department and one of its supervising paramedics, Dziwulski has about all he can handle on a normal day, when calls for assistance - and life-and-death decisions - come thick and fast. Saturday afternoon, driving an ambulance around the snow-covered city was made even tougher by having to slow down, and even stop, for pedestrians who just wouldn't get out of the way. "I'm trying to be a gentleman right now," Dziwulski said at the wheel of a red-and-white Ford F-450 truck, its siren blaring and lights flashing, as he carefully maneuvered his way around a man on Harford Road who appeared to be too busy talking on his cell phone to consider stepping aside.

O ne day back in the early '80s, when Leon J. Henry was 14 or 15, he tried to buy a nickel bag of pot. His friends had pooled their allowance money and an excited Leon marched to a corner near his home on Barclay Street. The dealer stared at the $5 bill and shook his head no. "Aren't you Mr. Lewis' son?" he asked. Leon returned home empty-handed. His stern father, Lewis Henry, whose reputation alone kept order in the neighborhood, never found out what his son had tried to do. Now, the father has passed and the teen is a grown man, 43 years old, a high school and college graduate, and director of outreach for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Maryland.

The Bagby Restaurant Group has hired a new executive chef for Fleet Street Kitchen.  He is Chris Amendola,  most recently of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a restaurant in Pocantico Hills, N.Y., that serves a $208 12-course "farmer's feast" menu. Chris Becker, who opened Fleet Street Kitchen last September, is now the executive chef for the entire Bagby operation, whose other restaurants include Bagby Pizza and Ten Ten. Becker, who was also recently named the group's chief operating officer, will be turning his focus to Cunningham's and Cunningham's Cafe & Bakery, which are scheduled to open this summer in the Towson City Center.

Leon Samuel Idas, who owned a commercial used clothing business and fought the German occupation of his native Greece during World War II, died of a cerebral ailment April 12 at his home in Lauderhill, Fla. He was 87 years old and formerly lived in Bolton Hill. Born in Athens, Greece, he was the son of Samuel and Miriam Ioudas, who also used the name Gabrielides. His father was a textile merchant. "My father's early life was interrupted by the invasion of his beloved homeland, by the Germans during World War II," said his son, Samuel Idas of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "At 16, Leon fled the Nazi-fortified city of Athens with forged documents and instructions from underground resistance leaders.