Year In Baltimore

A man was charged with murder yesterday, shortly after a fatal shooting in West Baltimore, police said. Police arrested Steven Haag, 23, in the death of Kieta J. Smith, also 23, after finding Haag in a building near where gunshots were fired. Officers had responded about 11:30 p.m. Thursday to the report of the shooting in the first block of N. Fulton Ave. Witnesses told police that the gunman ran to a nearby home. Police found Haag on the third floor of a house in the block where the shooting occurred.

Although the program's suspension was announced in July, AAA Mid-Atlantic would like to remind Marylanders that the free Tipsy?Taxi! service will not run this New Year's Eve, says Public and Government Affairs Manager Ragina C. Averella. The last Tipsy?Taxi! service provided in Maryland was for July 4 of this year. The service was established in 2006, and it gave free taxi rides during popular holidays known for their partying. Averella says one of the main reasons for the suspension was lack of funding.

More than 1,000 volunteers will repair the homes of 69 low-income elderly and disabled residents Saturday as part of Christmas in April, a national event to promote voluntarism.Typical repairs provided by volunteers include painting, landscaping, roofing, electrical wiring and plumbing."Our purpose is to help the elderly and disabled with repairs that they could never complete themselves, so that they may continue to live in warmth, safety and independence," said Michael Falkner, president of Christmas in April, Baltimore 1997.

Abram, his wife, Bessie, and his teenage brother Sam came first, traveling by train from their Russian village to a German port a thousand miles away in 1912. Then they boarded the ship that would bring them to their new home - Baltimore. The brothers, tailors by trade, mailed packages back to their densely wooded village - coats with bills sewn into the linings, shoes with coins hammered into the soles - to help their siblings and parents pay for the voyage. After 14 years, all eight siblings and their parents - Chaim and Suhra - were reunited in Baltimore.

The average worker in metropolitan Baltimore will get a 5 percent pay raise next year, a New York consulting firm predicted yesterday."Although these raises are fractionally lower than Baltimore-area raises the past two years, the good news is that they seem likely to outpace the expected rate of inflation," said Bram Groen, who heads the Baltimore-Washington area practice of William M. Mercer Inc., an actuarial and benefits consulting group.Mr. Groen said that executive compensation, which grew much faster than more workers' pay during the 1980s, will come more into line with raises subordinates are getting.

Solidly entrenched as one of the Major Indoor Soccer League's model franchises, the Blast looks forward to 2007 as a year in which it can win a fourth championship in the past five years and top the league again in drawing power. The franchise is leading the league in average attendance through about one--third of the season and is hopeful that it can overcome a slew of injuries, improve its performance on the road and challenge for another title. In addition, player performances are doubly important, because the MISL will undergo its third expansion draft in as many years after the season, with three new teams to be added for 2007-08.

A 41 year-old East Baltimore woman was found dead yesterday after a fire heavily damaged her rowhouse apartment, officials said. Firefighters found the victim, Cynthia Hines, in her third-floor bedroom in the 1800 block of E. Baltimore St., said fire spokesman Michael M. Maybin. The fire, reported about 4 a.m., apparently started in a second-floor kitchen and caused about $55,000 in damage, Maybin said. It took firefighters about 25 minutes to bring the blaze under control. No one else was hurt, and the cause remained under investigation, Maybin said.

Doug Neely became the third former Blast player to join the Spirit of the National Professional Soccer League, signing a one-year contract yesterday.Neely, 27, played in all 40 Blast games last season, finishing with eight goals and 21 assists. The defender was voted the team's "Unsung Hero." He joins former Blast teammates Rusty Troy and Joe Koziol."I'm happy to be back in Baltimore," said Neely, a native of Garden Grove, Calif. "It was a tough couple of weeks for me while things got sorted out with the Spirit.

Senior citizens have one place to go each year in Baltimore County to have their hearing tested, listen to big-band music, look for a job, shop for a nursing home and surf the Internet. Baltimore County's 14th annual Senior Expo will be held Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium. The event will feature more than 150 exhibits ranging from gambling casinos to cemeteries to attorneys specializing in legal issues for the elderly.

No one knows why Davon Robinson, a 19-year-old Cherry Hill man who family and friends called upstanding, suddenly opened fire on a Mass Transit Administration bus last year in Baltimore.And no one will probably ever know, Judge Clifton J. Gordy Jr. said yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court as he sentenced Robinson to 55 years in prison. "I'm not sure even Mr. Robinson understands," Gordy said.The shooting left Rodney Barnes, a 15-year-old student, dead and two wounded.Assistant State's Attorney Gerard B. Volatile told the judge that Robinson was capable of doing it again.

Baltimore schools opened the year with 87 teacher vacancies, a trend that is not uncommon in the region but comes during a critical year for the system as it embarks on a new student curriculum and teacher evaluation system. City officials said they are tapping substitutes and other school staff, such as department heads or instructional support teachers, to lead classroom instruction. Electives in student schedules are also being shifted. In rare cases, they said, classes are being combined.

Will Power was widely considered to be nearly untouchable coming into in the Grand Prix of Baltimore. He had won the inaugural event last year, was on the brink of clinching this year's IndyCar Series title and, after sitting on the pole for Sunday's race, was leading 18 laps into the 75-lap race. But as three-time Indianapolis 500 champion Dario Franchitti said about Power on the eve of the event, "I think we've proved the last two years he's beatable. " Ryan Hunter-Reay showed it Sunday, as did the four others who finished ahead of Power on the rain-slicked course.

A 21-year-old Baltimore man was sentenced Tuesday to life plus an additional 20 years in prison for murdering another man in an East Baltimore carryout restaurant in 2008, prosecutors said. Darius Duppins and Damien Davis, both teenagers at the time, entered the restaurant in the 2500 block of Hoffman Street in the Berea neighborhood on May 5, 2008, and approached Paris Richardson, 21, with handguns drawn, prosecutors said. Duppins shot Richardson eight times in the head, neck and torso, prosecutors said.

It was Happy Hour at the Poncabird Pub on Wednesday, and the South Baltimore tavern was as busy and bustling as usual, but as late-afternoon sunlight streaked through a side window, the expressions it caught on the faces at one table were decidedly grim. "This [stinks]," said Dane Sobus, a regular customer who has spent many evenings drinking with crew members and workers from the USNS Comfort, the hospital ship the Navy announced this week will be moving to Norfolk, Va., after a quarter-century in the port of Baltimore.

Thanks to a wonderful general state assembly many, many years ago , Baltimore city bars don't have to stop serving liquor at 2 a.m. New Year's Day. In fact, they can stay open continuously from New Year's Eve to 2 a.m. January 2.  Some bars will keep normal hours Saturday, but other, awesomer bars, will extend their hours way past 2 a.m., basically, until people start ordering water. Below you'll find a pretty comprehensive - though not complete!* - list of those bars with extended hours.

Baltimore County Public Schools will be closed on Monday, Aug. 29, delaying the start of the new school year due to what officials called, "the continuing effects of Hurricane Irene. " By Sunday afternoon, 65 BCPS schools were without power, and safety concerns prompted school officials to close schools on what would have been the first day of the 2011-12 school year for students. "The passage of this storm had a widespread impact on our area, leaving many homes and schools without power, flooding many roadways, and creating conditions that would pose a hazard for many children," said Joe Hairston, superintendent of Baltimore County Public Schools.

Ethiopia steps up attacks Ethiopian troops seized towns throughout southern and central Somalia yesterday and bombed the international airport at Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, in a rapid escalation of a two-day-old offensive against Islamic fundamentalists who've controlled most of Somalia for the past six months. pg 1a Movement in the Mideast Israel has agreed to remove some military roadblocks in the West Bank and streamline checkpoints to strengthen the position of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

In recent weeks, the man I call the most interesting manager in the world has looked like the most irritated manager in the world as he scowls away in the Orioles dugout. Then again, I would be pretty ticked off, too, if the Yankees put up double digits in the first inning against my team's latest fading pitching prospect. These past two months have been the most turbulent of Buck Showalter's first 12 on the job. On June 2, his Orioles were four games below .500 and within a Nick Markakis throw of the rest of the AL East.

Marian Shriver McSherry, long-time devotee of Maryland's Catholic aristocracy and mother of 12 children, died on July 24 of breast cancer at her home in Frederick. She was 85. A second cousin of R. Sargent Shriver, Marian Macsherry was born in Baltimore and grew up in Roland Park, spending her summers at Union Mills, the Shriver family homestead. She graduated from Noroton School of the Sacred Heart in Noroton, Conn., and attended Manhattanville College in New York for one year before she got married.