Wire

An anti-bullying event being planned by Baltimore City Councilman Nick J. Mosby will feature a performance by an actor from "The Wire. " Tray Chaney will perform his new anti-bulling rap "Mike Bully" at the the third annual Stamp Out Bullying Conference on Oct. 27 at Coppin State University, an event also sponsored by Empowering Minds of Maryland's Youth. "This is one of the most important topics for today's youth that must be addressed by the entire community," Mosby said in a statement.

The very last episode of Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" will offer a taste of both New York and Baltimore. The Baltimore flavor will come by way of "The Wire. "  As the Los Angeles Times puts it, Bourdain has frequently "geeked out" about "The Wire" and welcomed any number of its actors onto his food-oriented travel show. David Simon has been on, as has Felicia "Snoop" Pearson. Bourdain has also done some writing for Simon's other HBO project, "Treme. " In the final Travel Channel episode of "No Reservations" that airs Nov. 5,  the actor who played Omar, Michael K. Williams, shows Bourdain one of his favorite spots in New York for Caribbean, a place called Gloria's in Crown Heights.

Running through the streets of a still slumbering city, fighting off cramps, the chill October air and the dozens of runners around him, Stephen Muange once again tasted victory in Charm City, claiming his second consecutive Baltimore Marathon championship. The Kenya native defended his 2011 title with a personal best time of 2:13:08, three seconds ahead of second-place finisher Tesfaye Alemayehu of Ethiopia. It broke the record Muange set last year for narrowest margin of victory in the men's marathon.

"Holy crap. What was I thinking when I decided to take this on?" That's what Sonja Sohn said last week shortly after I joined her at a coffee shop. Fortunately, she wasn't having second thoughts about our interview but wondering how to handle a mishap with a printer that might hamper the promotion of a volunteer event she was planning now that the battery on her laptop was dead. Her phone soon followed suit. Ms. Sohn is better known to some as Shakima Greggs, a detective from the HBO series "The Wire," a five-season indictment of America's war on drugs that examined poverty, political corruption and structural racism from the back alley to the penthouse in minute detail and made Baltimore more infamous than it already was. If "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" had been set in an American city, they could hardly have been more dramatic.

In case you missed it: There's a budding Internet company in our midst, right here in Bethesda, Md. WeddingWire.com raised $25 million in equity financing as the Bethesda-based company strives to be the Yelp of weddings for brides, grooms and event planners, according to an SEC filing made public today . Some say WeddingWire is trying to be the Yelp of wedding planning, offering tools for wedding planners and reviews of vendors (over 200,000...

His big break was playing a dealer on "The Wire," but these days Tray Chaney has a much cleaner message. The Maryland actor has released an anti-bullying rap, the third single off his "Be Inspired" album which includes a number of songs with positive messages. Just in time for October's Bullying Prevention Awareness Month, Chaney's "Mike Bully (Stand Up for Our Future)," tells the story of a bullied boy named Michael and how he manages to turn around his situation with the help of his mom. On "The Wire," Poot was a dealer for Barksdale, hanging out on corners, shooting people and getting shot, serving time and eventually getting a job at a shoe store.

Olson Wire Products Co. has agreed to pay an $80,000 fine to settle allegations it improperly stored hazardous wastes at its southwest Baltimore plant, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday. The agency cited Olson, which makes refrigerator racks and other steel-wire shelving, following a May 2011 inspection of its facility at 4100 Benson Ave. Inspectors found wastewater treatment sludge, waste from its electroplating operations and used aerosol cans stored there in apparent violation of federal hazardous-waste law and regulations, according to EPA. Among the alleged infractions: storing wastes for more than 90 days without a permit, failure to properly label or keep waste containers closed and offering to ship hazardous wastes offsite for disposal without required manifests and using unauthorized shippers.

With time running out before the contract expires, the union representing 14,500 longshoremen on the East and Gulf coasts and the port employers' organization will meet Wednesday morning with a federal mediator to try to avert the first strike in 35 years. Talks on a master contract covering 14 ports, including Baltimore, broke off in late August with leaders of the International Longshoremen's Association and the U.S. Maritime Alliance accusing each other of bargaining in bad faith.

If you ever wanted to get inside Omar's head, here's your best shot. Actor Michael K. Williams, who played everyone's favorite gay hitman on "The Wire," has just shared with New York Magazine the songs that he'd play to get himself in the Omar mood. It's hip-hop heavy, for sure. But what else would it be -- Barry Manilow? “Music is always a part of my characters' make-up,” he told New York. “All my characters have playlists.” Williams told the magazine he carefully curates the list, making sure he picks just the right tunes for each character.

Michael K. Williams, who played Omar in "The Wire," is talking about his years of drug abuse and saying he's surprised it didn't lead to him ending up in a body bag. Williams tells the Newark Star-Ledger that while he was playing Omar in the Baltimore-based HBO series, he was doing cocaine and marijuana and hanging around with felons on some of the scarier streets of Newark. “I was playing with fire,” Williams tells the paper. “It was just a matter of time before I got caught and my business ended up on the cover of a tabloid or I went to jail or, worse, I ended up dead.