Unlocked

New Carrollton police say an officer's cruiser was stolen while he helped another officer serve a warrant. Police say the officer left the car unlocked and running about 3 a.m. Sunday at an apartment building while responding to a call for backup. New Carrollton Police Chief David Rice says the cruiser was found about an hour later parked between two buildings down the block. The police chief says the trunk had been opened -- but nothing was missing and the car had minimal damage.

President Barack Obama wants to invest an initial $110 billion in a study of the human brain that could have benefits as great as those achieved by the Human Genome Project. Maybe the first study should be done on the one-track minds of tea party Republicans who will undoubtedly oppose funding for the study because their brains are fixated on the single idea that government can do nothing right. After that, researchers could move on to figuring out Sarah Palin's brain. Perhaps they could answer this question: How can a person with so little knowledge and so little interest in acquiring knowledge imagine she has what it takes to be president of the United States?

State police are investigating reports of at least 10 vehicle break-ins in the Hampstead Valley area of southeastern Hampstead.The cars, all of which were unlocked, belonged to nine different individuals, police said.Numerous items, valued at a total of $636, were reported stolen from the vehicles Friday, according to state police.FIRE* Manchester: Engines from Manchester, Hampstead and Lineboro were dispatched to a house fire in the 4500 block of Millers Station Road at 7:15 p.m. Friday.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security now incarcerates, via immigration detention, more people per year than any other state or federal agency. In 2012, the DHS detained over 429,000 noncitizens awaiting immigration hearings or deportation, at a $2 billion cost to taxpayers. Yet the DHS' new risk assessment technology, which comprehensively and individually assesses immigrant detainees and collects valuable data, makes it possible for Congress to improve detention practices while reforming broader U.S. immigration laws.

Thirteen residents in southeast Taneytown discovered early yesterday that their vehicles -- all unlocked -- had been rifled between midnight and 6 a.m.Not everyone had property stolen, said police Chief Melvin Diggs, who began responding to complaints at the breakfast hour.The thieves did get a pair of leather boots and a leather coat with $325 in a pocket from one victim on Pumpkin Drive, Diggs said. Vehicles on Morning Frost Street and Fairground Avenue also were entered, he said."Mostly, they got items like cellular phones, compact discs and disc players," he said.

An idea conceived during a police captain's lunchtime walk has become a warning aimed at preventing theft from vehicles -- and if you leave your car unlocked in Towson, it could turn up on your windshield.Capt. George Harvey, who heads Towson Precinct, was walking to his credit union before Christmas when he saw a woman's purse on the seat of an unoccupied car. Such an invitation to theft annoyed him, so on the way back he took a harder look: Counting the cars that were unlocked or with visible valuables inside.

POLICE LOG* Scaggsville: 7200 block of Kindler Road: A bicycle was stolen from an unlocked garage Sunday or Monday, police said.

Police logOakland Mills: 6100 block of Night Street Hill: Someone took two chain saws from an unlocked shed Monday.Pub Date: 9/13/96

Police logSykesville: 1000 block of Day Road: A burglar entered an unlocked front door and stole cash and jewelry Tuesday morning.Pub Date: 9/20/96

Police logFulton: 7500 block of Flamewood Drive: A house was ransacked and robbed Tuesday after someone got in through an unlocked garage door.

A few years ago I raised my hand at an auction and bought a box of 19th-century sepia-toned landscape photographs. After hours of looking at them, I detected that they had been taken not far away, in the heart of the Jones Falls Valley in Baltimore City, before an elevated highway and 125 years of development intervened. The other morning I was standing in the bottom floor of the old cotton warehouse at the Mount Vernon Mill on Falls Road, an amazing property that will make its debut this spring as Mill No. 1, a residential and office complex.

The Carroll County Sheriff's Office said Friday that a 21-year-old Marriottsville man was arrested and charged for the theft of a Toyota RAV 4 and some $6,000 of hunting rifles and hunting equipment from unlocked vehicles at a condominium complex in Eldersburg. According to reports, just after 6 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 30, sheriff's deputies responded to Rudy-Serra Drive, south of Liberty Road, for a call from a resident reporting the theft of his Toyota RAV 4, which was left in the parking lot unlocked with the keys inside.

The following is compiled from police reports from the Cockeysville Precinct. Our policy is to include descriptions only when there is enough information to make identification possible. Monkton Everett Road , 200 block, between June 29 and June 30. Hood, battery and oil breather stolen from vintage car on property. Manchester Gunpowder Road , 21500 block, between noon and 1 p.m. July 3. Two 9 mm handguns stolen from vehicle. Owner told police he was going out to shoot guns but left them in vehicle with windows down so vehicle could cool off. When he returned, guns were gone.

About three times each week, an enterprising researcher at theUniversity of Maryland, College Park, takes a step toward patenting an invention. Each year, that results in the creation of about five new high-tech firms, the kinds of businesses often credited with creating good jobs. That's a good start, but the school's goal is to double that rate in the next few years. With a small but smartly focused investment by the state, we can get there - and all Marylanders can benefit.

To understand the impact meditation can have on the human mind, picture a glass of muddy water. If you stir it, the water stays cloudy and anything that might sink to the bottom is instantly sucked back into motion. But if you allow the glass to become still, slowly the dirt settles to the bottom and the water begins to clear. Meditation means different things to different people, but most agree that it is a means of quieting the mind, of stilling the parade of daily distractions and becoming less reactive to the stimulation that assaults our senses and emotions every waking hour.

Dr. Constance A. "Connie" Griffin, an internationally known pancreatic cancer researcher who led the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center's Cytogenetics Core and was director of the Pathology Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory, died Jan. 8 of pancreatic cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The Ruxton resident was 60. "The irony is that Connie passed away from the very disease that she studied," said Dr. Ralph H. Hruban, director of the Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The following is compiled from local police reports. Our policy is to include descriptions when there is enough information to make identification possible. If you have information about these crimes, call the Wilkens Station at 410-887-0872. Overbrook Road , unit block, 12-1 p.m. Oct. 22. Television, jewelry and cash stolen from unlocked home. Frederick Road , 6400 block, between 11:30 p.m. Oct. 21 and 7:20 a.m. Oct. 22. Door smashed and cash stolen from Thai Heaven restaurant.

Here, recycling is the name of the game. Copper and aluminum obviously, but also steel, brick and even seemingly worthless nuggets of concrete from demolished buildings find their way to new and productive uses. Grasses are planted to protect critical wetlands near the Chesapeake Bay, and further toward the Appalachian Piedmont, new trees will help protect tributaries of the Potomac River. Dedicated individuals pick up trash along miles of highway and reclaim historic sites. The mission spans the generations, as well; kids tend raised beds, pick cucumbers and make friends with writhing red worms in rich black soil.