Wire

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.

Baltimore's former health commissioner has come out with a way that just might get regular people to care about public policy -- he mixes in a heavy dose of "The Wire. " Dr. Peter Beilenson, who's now Howard County's chief health officer has written a book with journalist Patrick McGuire called "Tapping into The Wire: The Real Urban Crisis. " Each chapter is a different scene from the beloved HBO show, but with the storylines broadened to examine public policy questions. Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press, the 232-pager comes out Sept.

The battle over the redevelopment of the former Solo Cup property in Owings Mills is coming down to the wire, with opponents making last-minute allegations against Baltimore County Council Chairwoman Vicki Almond and announcing a drive to bring zoning maps to referendum. In what has become the county's most closely watched development issue, the County Council is set to vote Tuesday evening on whether to allow retail at the site on Reisterstown Road to pave the way for an upscale shopping center anchored by a Wegmans supermarket.

Baltimore County Police say a Towson-area church fell victim to burglars last week who took items of copper and other materials from the property. The incident occurred at Idlewylde United Methodist Church, in the 1000 block of Regester Avenue, between 2:30 p.m. Aug. 12 and 3:30 p.m. Aug. 14, according to the police report. An air conditioning unit cover and coils, and copper wire were stolen from the property. In addition to this incident, the following items were compiled from police reports from the Towson precinct.

An employee at Aberdeen Proving Ground pleaded guilty Tuesday to stealing tons of copper wire from government buildings and other locations in Harford County while on the job, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Baltimore. Timothy J. Bittner, 52, of Bel Air, used work vehicles and his experience as an electrician in the APG Department of Public Works to conspire with others to steal thousands of dollars worth of the metal from inside government buildings in Edgewood and from underground locations in Eagle Point between March and November of 2011, prosecutors said.

In "The Wire,"Lester Freamon famously said, "You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don't know where the [bleep] it's gonna take you. " Well, it's apparently taking folks to Martha's Vineyard for a chichi Obama campaign fundraiser. To raise some cheddar for Obama, National Journal reports via the Sunlight Foundation's Party Time blog that his campaign is throwing a little street party, Baltimore-style. Except that it's on the beach, in one of the country's most elite zip codes and at the private home of not junkies or cops or even dock workers -- but socialites.

Things are tough out there on the mean streets of Blocktimore, or so we find out in the newest spin on "The Wire" -- done this time entirely with Legos. Yahoo gets the credit for Baltimore redone like Lego-land, a funny bit just released online Wednesday. Just about everything from "The Wire" is in the four-minute short. The drugs. The corruption. The cops that enjoy a few drinks. There's Omar, with two guns. There's McNulty toting a very big bottle of something alcoholic.

Over the weekend, Baltimore Sun magazine published excerpts from a Q&A with Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III. After five years of talking to bad guys with guns, features editor Sam Sessa got him to dish on some more light-hearted topics such as his favorite music and his solo hike on the Appalachian Trail. You can read that interview here .  But Sam and the outgoing commissioner also talked the war on drugs, "The Wire," and his decision to retire. Here's what was left on the cutting room floor: You were a drug cop. What do you think about the push to decriminalize marijuana?