Vague

Prosecutors and police officers from across the state pleaded with legislators Tuesday for tougher anti-gang laws, saying they want to define who is a "gang member" and broaden the number of crimes that trigger longer prison sentences. Law enforcement groups told the House Judiciary Committtee that the Maryland Gang Prevention Act, enacted two years ago to stiffen penalties for gang members, isn't working because it fails to define "gang member," doesn't include enough gang-related crimes and carries no mandatory prison time.

Winter in Baltimore will be colder than usual this year, with snow beginning around Thanksgiving. But it looks like next spring and summer, despite a rainy June, will be dry to the point of drought. I can say this with some confidence because The Old Farmer's Almanac for 2010 was released - as always - on the second Tuesday of September, and that's its weather prediction for our area. And I can be confident of this weather prediction - though it is somewhat vague - because The Old Farmer's Almanac is the oldest continuously published periodical in North America, and it boasts 80 percent accuracy.

Reflecting how the financial sector's meltdown has reverberated beyond Wall Street, investors wiped out about 70 percent of the value of Constellation Energy Group's stock at one point yesterday, despite little information about how or whether the Baltimore energy company's trading operations are affected by the demise of Lehman Brothers and other firms. Constellation shares lost nearly 36 percent, or $17.23, to close yesterday at $30.76 on the New York Stock Exchange.

A Baltimore County judge hearing the case of the Rodgers Forge couple charged with murder in the starvation death of their 2-year-old son ruled yesterday that a police search warrant for the family's home was valid. Defense attorneys for John J. Griffin and Susan J. Griffin had argued that the warrant was so vague as to be unconstitutional, particularly in giving police authority to search for "any and all bloody clothing, any and all bloody items, any and all items that may lead to motive and any and all items that could reveal evidence of negligence."

Maryland's highest court overturned yesterday a Howard County man's conviction on identity theft charges, ruling that the state law is ambiguous and can't be used to prosecute someone who takes the identity of a fictitious person. The law prohibits someone from assuming the "identity of another" -- which is what police charged Kazeem Adeshina Ishola with doing in 2003 when they said he tried to open bank accounts under two fictitious names. But a majority of judges on the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that the law hadn't properly defined what "another" meant, and that state legislators hadn't explicitly banned the use of fake names in the statute.

Jennifer Feeney admits it wasn't the best way to break up. She was at an Orioles-Yankees game with a guy she'd been dating for two months. He was from New York, a Yankees buff, and she was a hometown Orioles girl. They often engaged in ribbing, but at the game, her new beau got on a Baltimore-trashing roll. "The entire game, I'm sitting there with my new guy listening to him bash the O's with all the other Yankee fans sitting around us," the 24-year-old Canton resident writes. "He then started going off on how crappy our city is."

When Gov. Martin O'Malley made his pitch last week to bring thousands of electronic gambling machines to Anne Arundel County, local lawmakers were sure about where the slots would end up: Laurel Park. But that's not written in stone. In fact, Laurel Park is not specifically mentioned in the proposed constitutional amendment and accompanying state bill to permit slot machines. Both pieces of legislation say that slots would be located in the county anywhere within two miles of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.

In the wake of residents' complaints that they were blindsided by plans for a bus depot in Jacksonville, a report by the county auditor concludes that the project was slipped past the County Council during the budget process. The depot was approved in May by the council as part of the budget after school officials asked the county executive for a place where buses from Jacksonville Elementary, Carroll Manor Elementary, Cockeysville Middle and Dulaney High schools could be parked. A 5,000-gallon gasoline tank and a 10,000-gallon diesel fuel tank would be located above ground as part of the project.

Don't start. I never claimed to be the second coming of Nostradamus, placed back on this Earth to perfectly predict the outcome of every NFL game, so no apology is necessary for my dismal 6-7 performance against the spread last week. Nobody is right all the time. Even John Edward, the pop medium, who travels around the country making a fortune supposedly channeling the dead relatives of people gullible enough to pay 175 bucks a ticket to see him, gets a vacant look from the audience once in awhile.

The American company most often named as a potential buyer of the U.S. operations of Dubai Ports World said for the first time yesterday that it is looking into a purchase - or a sale. The vague announcement by SSA Marine, a private Seattle terminal operator and cargo handler, added to the guessing game. But it shed little light on who would end up at the nearly two dozen ports, including Baltimore, that Dubai Ports World entered when it bought Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. this month.