Testimony

Baltimore County Council members heard emotional testimony Tuesday as dozens of residents turned out to speak about a proposal meant to prohibit discrimination against transgender people. Supporters of the legislation, introduced Tuesday by Catonsville Democrat Tom Quirk, said the county must protect transgender people in the workplace and other areas. Opponents said they fear the bill would have dangerous consequences, including allowing men into women's restrooms. The bill would add sexual orientation and gender identity to existing county laws that prohibit discrimination in housing, at work and in public places.

The family of a special needs student who lost a $1.3 million lawsuit against the Baltimore city school system last month is seeking a new trial, saying the jury wasn't impartial and violated court instructions. Donna King, the attorney for Edmund and Shawna Sullivan, filed the motion Tuesday on behalf of the family who took the system to court after they say the complaints about the chronic bullying of their son — who suffers from a traumatic brain injury — and daughter were ignored by school administrators at Hazelwood and Glenmount elementary schools.

A former team leader of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning testified Tuesday that she told superiors on several occasions that Manning should not be allowed to handle classified information or be sent to Iraq, but her warnings apparently went unheeded. Manning, then an intelligence analyst, deployed with his unit to a base south of Baghdad, where Army prosecutors allege he gave hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks in one of the largest security breaches in U.S. history.

Defense attorneys for Army Pfc. Bradley Manning on Sunday grilled military officers about the intelligence analyst's dealings with classified information, suggesting that computer security at his Iraq base was lax and rules were routinely broken. Prosecutors sought to emphasize that Manning, the 24-year-old accused of sending hundreds of thousands of classified files to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, was well trained in how to handle sensitive information and knew not to distribute it. Manning's direct supervisor, Sgt. First Class Paul Adkins, was set to testify Sunday but invoked his Article 31 rights, similar to the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.

"Ehrlich, Steele, Mandel attest to Schurick's honesty," reported The Sun's Dec. 1 headline on the trial of former Ehrlich aide Paul Schurick on charges he tried to suppress African-American voter turnout in last year's gubernatorial election. Who's next, Ulysses Currie? Mark Plogman, Pikesville

Howard County school board chair Janet Siddiqui told the county delegation Tuesday night that a proposed bill to change the makeup of the board would jeopardize the search for a superintendent and hamper the progress of the state's only school system to make academic yearly progress this year. Siddiqui testified during the public hearing on behalf of a school board that could see its current makeup of seven at-large, elected members changed by a bill sponsored by Del. Frank Turner.

Federal prosecutors suggested through witness testimony Thursday that state Sen. Ulysses Currie secured legislation for Shoppers Food & Pharmacy by slipping it in at the last minute during the 2005 General Assembly session, when it was less likely to receive scrutiny from the public and other lawmakers. Del. Dereck E. Davis testified that an amendment transferring a beer-and-wine license from a Takoma Park Shoppers store to one in College Park was added to an unrelated bill at Currie's request, just days before the legislature was to vote on it. The change "did not seem like a big deal," said Davis, a Prince George's County Democrat who chairs a government committee that oversees alcoholic beverages, adding that he tried to help the senator whenever he could.

As Constellation Energy Group prepares to sell itself to Chicago-based Exelon, critics are advancing proposals to make the deal more palatable to Maryland customers. The state's consumer advocate is proposing a three-year freeze on rate increases after the merger to ease the transition to out-of-town ownership. The Maryland Energy Administration is questioning whether the $100 credit the companies have proposed for Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. customers is enough, given the savings the companies expect to realize from the merger.

An article in the Sept. 18, 1935 edition of The Catonsville Herald and Baltimore Countian reported on the courtroom proceedings as a black Arbutus resident sued Baltimore County to allow his daughter to attend all-white Catonsville High School. Testimony in the mandamus ( Editor's note: a command by a high court to a government agency, for example, that a specific action must be taken) suit instituted by a Negro to force admission of his daughter to the Catonsville High School was heard in the Circuit Court at Towson this week before Judge Frank I. Duncan . Joshua B. Williams, Jr., is the complaintant and he is represented by Thurgood Marshall and Charles H. Huston , both Negroes, as attorneys.

A Baltimore pastor who paid a hit man $50,000 in church funds to kill someone for life insurance payouts bought similar indemnity policies on his boyfriend when the pair were fighting, along with contracts on the man's mother and daughter, he testified Friday in city Circuit Court. He canceled them after time, however, "because we were getting along," he said. The admission was one of many confessions Kevin Pushia offered from the witness stand during the trial of his alleged accomplices, brothers James "Omar" Clea and Kareem Clea.