West Baltimore

The Rev. Dr. Harold A. Carter Sr., senior pastor of the New Shiloh Baptist Church, whose legendary preaching spanned generations and brought him an audience beyond his congregation of 5,000 members, died of cancer Thursday. He was 76. In 47 years of ministry, Dr. Carter preached with legends of the civil rights era, before his congregation in West Baltimore and to bigger audiences across America and in foreign countries. And for years, his resounding voice could be heard on Sundays on WBAL-Radio.

Lawyers for a veteran Baltimore police officer charged with killing his fiancee and then engaging in an hours-long standoff with fellow officers said Thursday that they want to explore whether he suffered from combat-related stress. The comments came after a brief hearing in which Officer James W. Smith, 49, pleaded not guilty, surrounded by a larger-than-normal complement of security staff in the courtroom of Judge Steven Sfekas. Smith was visibly upset, with defense attorney Linda Ramirez comforting him as the charges of first-degree murder and a handgun violation were read aloud.

A waterspout zipped across Baltimore harbor Monday afternoon, tossing pieces of a warehouse roof into the air, and at least one other tornado was reported in the area as storms brought heavy downpours and flooding. In Fells Point, cars sat in standing water and sandbags were placed at doors to prevent water from entering businesses. In the Inner Harbor, 1.74 inches of rain had fallen by 5 p.m. - all but a half-inch of it in the span of an hour before 4 p.m. Steve Fogleman, a Glen Burnie attorney and chairman of the Baltimore liquor board, was driving north on Interstate 95 just south of the Fort McHenry tunnel a little before 4 p.m. when he noticed a rotating cloud and something whipping through the air near Silo Point.

On most days in landlord-tenant court in Baltimore City District Court, the only issue is: "Did you pay your rent?" If not, you are on the street. No defense is allowed, such as "I was sick and lost time from work," "My benefit check did not arrive," or even, "We have no hot water and there is mold growing in the apartment because of the leaky roof. " The tenant must be able to pay the full amount to even raise a legal claim that the housing is posing a health danger. If rent due has not been paid, and the tenant cannot pay the full amount, the tenant is summarily evicted.

On most days in landlord-tenant court in Baltimore City District Court, the only issue is: "Did you pay your rent?" If not, you are on the street. No defense is allowed, such as "I was sick and lost time from work," "My benefit check did not arrive," or even, "We have no hot water and there is mold growing in the apartment because of the leaky roof. " The tenant must be able to pay the full amount to even raise a legal claim that the housing is posing a health danger. If rent due has not been paid, and the tenant cannot pay the full amount, the tenant is summarily evicted.

Ground has been broken for an affordable housing complex in West Baltimore, the developer has announced. The $14 million revitalization on the south side of the 3000 block of West North Avenue will consist of two low-rise, elevator buildings. It will replace 20 vacant lots and seven vacant rowhouses, according to a statement released Monday by The Woda Group LLC. Plans call for 22 one-bedroom and 42 two-bedroom units in the buildings. The apartments, which should be complete in June, will be leased to tenants with incomes at or below 60 percent of Baltimore's median income, Woda's statement said.

The doors of the Grace and Hope Mission open five evenings a week. Most nights, depending on the time of the month, about 40 to 60 people will step in from Gay Street, just south of The Block in Baltimore, for a religious service and a free meal. "But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus," said Helen Meewes, the mission's superintendent, quoting from the Book of Philippians. Meewes is one of three missionaries, including Karen Harp and Gunhild Carlson, who reside upstairs and staff one of Baltimore's oldest nondenominational, charitable institutions.

A 21-year-old man has been charged with killing a 2-year-old in West Baltimore, and detectives were investigating a fatal shooting of a 27-year-old man and two nonfatal shootings elsewhere in the city. Police said Damond Stansbury has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of the child, Marlo McFadden, who was found unresponsive Monday morning in his grandmother's home in the 1600 block of Mountmor Court in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood. Officers were initially told that the child appeared to have fallen from a bunk bed, and Marlo's grandmother said she had frantically splashed water onto his face in a futile attempt to revive him, charging documents show.

Lotfy Nathan spent some five years putting together his film about West Baltimore's dirt-bike culture. Now, with national acclaim for "12 O'clock Boys" promising to turn it into one of the year's breakout documentaries after a February premiere at the South by Southwest arts festival in Austin, Texas, he's happily basking in the acclaim. "The reception in Austin was incredible," Nathan said last week from Toronto, where the film was being shown at the annual Hot Docs festival. "It was more than I could have asked for. " This week, a distribution deal with independent film distributors Oscilloscope Laboratories safely in hand, the Maryland Institute College of Art -educated Nathan is bringing his film home.

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!

A 21-year-old man has been charged with killing a 2-year-old in West Baltimore, and detectives were investigating a fatal shooting of a 27-year-old man and two nonfatal shootings elsewhere in the city. Police said Damond Stansbury has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of the child, Marlo McFadden, who was found unresponsive Monday morning in his grandmother's home in the 1600 block of Mountmor Court in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood. Officers were initially told that the child appeared to have fallen from a bunk bed, and Marlo's grandmother said she had frantically splashed water onto his face in a futile attempt to revive him, charging documents show.

Baltimore police have identified a third suspect in last month's shooting death of a 1-year-old in Cherry Hill, and they are asking the public for help finding him. Police allege that Rashid Mayo, 22, was one of three gunmen who fired about 16 shots into a red Chevrolet on May 24, killing Carter Scott and wounding his father, Rashaw Scott, 22. Police have charged Eddie Tarver, 20, who they said they caught in a pursuit after the shooting, and...

From the prayer book she carried to the flower petals she kept pressed inside its pages, Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange has long been a vivid presence at the headquarters of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the order of African-American Catholic nuns she founded in Baltimore in 1829. Now pilgrims and worshippers can get even closer to Lange. As part of a campaign to have her declared a saint, church officials received and reinterred her remains at the order's mother church in Relay on Monday.

Baltimore author Sheri Booker sees dead people. In her mind's eye, she can clearly remember the 600-pound man whose corpse had to be hoisted by a crane out of his apartment window, the teenage suicide victim who tattooed instructions about his funeral arrangements onto his arm, and the thug whose death incited a brawl that erupted at his viewing and continued into the street. Booker, who now is 31, began working at the Wylie Funeral Home in West Baltimore in 1997 at age 15, partly as a way of coping with her grief over the death of a beloved aunt.

A Baltimore police officer accepted cash payments and provided protection for a man she believed to be a drug dealer — a man who was actually working with department investigators and FBI agents to build a criminal case against her, authorities alleged Friday. Ashley Roane, a 25-year-old patrol officer in the Southwestern District, agreed to access law enforcement databases listing informants and other sensitive information for the drug dealer, and provided Social Security numbers to him as part of a scheme to obtain false tax refunds, prosecutors said.

The Rev. Dr. Harold A. Carter Sr., senior pastor of the New Shiloh Baptist Church, whose legendary preaching spanned generations and brought him an audience beyond his congregation of 5,000 members, died of cancer Thursday. He was 76. In 47 years of ministry, Dr. Carter preached with legends of the civil rights era, before his congregation in West Baltimore and to bigger audiences across America and in foreign countries. And for years, his resounding voice could be heard on Sundays on WBAL-Radio.

Baltimore Police identified two suspects on Friday that were involved in a shootout with officers in West Baltimore earlier in the week that left one person dead. Ricky Dixon, 21, was charged with attempted murder and several weapons charges, police said. The other suspect identified, 23-year-old Larry Hooker, was killed in the shootout. The incident took place at about 10 p.m. Monday after two officers on foot patrol in the 2700 block of Edmondson Ave. saw gunfire coming out of a bronze sedan, police said.

Two Baltimore police officers arrived at a fellow officer's home to investigate a reported domestic assault. They heard a woman inside calling for help, and when nobody answered the door, they kicked the door in and brought Kendra Diggs out. James Smith, 49, ran upstairs as an officer implored him to come and talk. The other officer stood on the sidewalk next to Diggs, her face bleeding from a small wound. A shot rang out from a second-story window, authorities say. Diggs, shot in the head, hit the ground, and Smith and his fellow officers commenced a six-hour standoff.

When passersby drive through West Baltimore's Sandtown-Winchester community, they won't see flags symbolizing unity or notice traces of an affluent town. What they will see is a neighborhood once riddled with drug trade and prostitution, now being transformed with the help of activists like Pastor C.W. Harris. A native of Sandtown-Winchester, Harris is one of 15 BMe Leadership Award recipients being recognized as black men doing their part to better Baltimore. Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Open Society Foundations, BMe (Black Male Engagement)

Recorded 911 calls released Tuesday reveal frantic reports from neighbors who described the scene as Baltimore police said an off-duty officer shot and killed his girlfriend then barricaded himself in a home for six-hours. "The neighbor across the street she's laying down on the ground beside about four police cars," one woman told an emergency dispatcher as the West Baltimore incident unfolded. "One ambulance came and backed out. She's laying on the ground and bleeding terrible, and I haven't seen an ambulance since.