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Beretta U.S.A. announced Tuesday that company concerns over a strict gun-control law enacted in Maryland last year have made it necessary to move its weapons making out of the state to Tennessee. The well-known gun maker said it will move to a new production facility it is building in the Nashville suburb of Gallatin that is set to open in mid-2015. Beretta general manager Jeff Cooper said that a sweeping gun-control measure that was passed last year initially contained provisions that would have prohibited the Italian gun maker from being able to produce, store or even import into Maryland the...

Beretta U.S.A. Corp., located in Accokeek, Maryland, announced today that it has decided to move its manufacturing capabilities from its existing location to a new production facility that it is building in Gallatin, Tennessee. The Gallatin facility is scheduled to be opened in mid-2015. Beretta U.S.A. had previously planned to use the new Gallatin, Tennessee facility for new machinery and production of new products only.

After news broke July 17 of Catholic Charities of Baltimore’s aim to house unaccompanied immigrant children at a Baltimore-area facility, the first response Executive Director William J. McCarthy received was positive: an e-mail praising the agency’s decision with a pledge of $200 in support. Others like it have poured in to the agency, Maryland’s largest social service provider. As for the detractors? “Critics are cowards,” McCarthy said. “Most of the responses I’ve received are from supporters,” he said. “What I’m really encouraged by is the number of affirming, supportive and thoughtful people who recognize this for the humanitarian crisis that...

Johns Hopkins Hospital has agreed to a $190 million settlement with more than 8,000 patients of a gynecologist who secretly photographed and videotaped women's bodies in the examining room with a pen-like camera he wore around his neck, lawyers said Monday. Dr. Nikita Levy was fired in February 2013, days after an employee alerted hospital authorities about her suspicions. Levy committed suicide 10 days later. Investigators discovered roughly 1,200 videos and 140 images in his home. "All of these women were brutalized by this," said the women's lead attorney, Jonathan Schochor. "Some of these women needed counseling, they were sleepless,...

The number of Americans who see illegal immigration as the nation's most pressing problem has spiked from 3 per cent to 17 per cent since May, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday. That percentage now tops government corruption, the U.S. economy, jobs, health care and every other hot-button issue, driven by a flood of tens of thousands of illegal immigrant children pouring across the U.S.-Mexico border. 'We are all connected. We can't just build a wall or a fence and say no more,' Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis tweeted on Tuesday. 'This is America. Our doors are open.' The...

Catholic Charities wants to care for about 50 children from Central America at a campus in Baltimore County, seeking a role in the immigration crisis even though the consideration of other sites in Maryland has met with fierce local opposition.The organization plans to apply to federal officials to house the children at St. Vincent's Villa, a residential facility on Dulaney Valley Road, Catholic Charities head William J. McCarthy Jr. confirmed Thursday night.McCarthy said housing the children would amount to his organization doing its job. "Our role and our mission is to meet the needs of these children," he said. "This...

(CNN) - After his strong criticism of the Obama administration's plans to return thousands of young undocumented migrants back to Central America, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley asked a top White House official that the children not be sent to a site that was under consideration in his home state, sources familiar with the conversation said. "He privately said 'please don't send these kids to Western Maryland,'" a Democratic source told CNN. The heated discussion between O'Malley and White House domestic policy adviser Cecilia Munoz occurred during a phone call late Friday evening, sources familiar with the conversation added.

After his strong criticism of the Obama administration's plans to return thousands of young undocumented migrants back to Central America, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley asked a top White House official that the children not be sent to a site that was under consideration in his home state, sources familiar with the conversation said. "He privately said 'please don't send these kids to Western Maryland,'" a Democratic source told CNN. The heated discussion between O'Malley and White House domestic policy adviser Cecilia Munoz occurred during a phone call late Friday evening, sources familiar with the conversation added.

After Criticizing White House Over Unaccompanied Minors, Martin O'Malley Said Don't Send Them to Maryland Site After his strong criticism of the Obama administration's plans to return thousands of young undocumented migrants back to Central America, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley asked a top White House official that the children not be sent to a site that was under consideration in his home state, sources familiar with the conversation said. "He privately said 'please don't send these kids to Western Maryland,'" a Democratic source told CNN. The heated discussion between O'Malley and White House domestic policy adviser Cecilia Munoz occurred during...

Maryland State Police have classified anti-immigration graffiti spray painted on the former Army Reserve Center in Westminster as a hate crime. The graffiti was sprayed sometime Saturday night or early Sunday morning, according to Lt. Patrick McCrory, commander of the state police Westminster barracks. The graffiti said "NO ILLEAGLES [sic] HERE NO UNDOCUMENTED DEMOCRATS." It was spray-painted on the front of the Army Reserve Center, which recently became embroiled in controversy when the Obama administration considered using the facility to house immigrant children caught crossing the US-Mexico border illegally. The Carroll County Board of Commissioners spoke out against the federal government's plan on Friday during an emergency...

Protests from local elected officials in Maryland this weekend forced the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) to cancel its plans to send illegal immigrant children to an Army Reserve center in Westminster, which is about 35 miles from Baltimore. Maryland Democrat Gov. Martin O'Malley said illegal immigrant children flooding across the border should be considered "refugees" and all be given asylum status, but after Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) publicized the federal government's last-minute plans to sneak illegal immigrant children into Maryland, there was considerable blowback. HHS backed off, citing things like insufficient access to drinking water at the facility....

Carroll County officials swiftly voiced opposition Friday to news that the federal government is eyeing a former military property near Westminster as a potential shelter for immigrant children — underscoring the challenge the Obama administration faces as it tries to manage a surge of new arrivals. A day after federal officials notified local leaders it would conduct a preliminary assessment of the vacant Army Reserve Center, the Carroll County Board of Commissioners convened an emergency meeting and, along with Republican Rep. Andy Harris, pledged to resist efforts to use the site. "Carroll County will not become a repository for Obama's...

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley advocated for sympathy for the surge of young Central American immigrants flooding the U.S. southern border, arguing that to turn the children away without due process would be un-American given what violence awaits in their home countries. "We are not a country that should turn children away and send them back to certain death," he told reporters Friday at a National Governors Association meeting in Nashville. .... O'Malley said the children deserve due process under U.S. law. "They should have their ability to make their case for protection and asylum in the United States," he said....

WESTMINSTER, Md. - The Obama administration is eyeing a vacant Army reserve facility in Westminster as a possible shelter for illegal immigrant children, and it's meeting strong opposition from local officials and at least one member of Congress. Three were no demonstrations yet in Westminster, but the opposition is just as strong as elsewhere in the country. Elected officials in Carroll County vehemently oppose using a vacant Army reserve building on Malcolm Drive to house the children, even temporarily. The Department of Health and Human Services would handle the operation. "I don't think it's the right place. I don't think...

Starting next year, Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis will require potential employees to pass a drug test–detecting nicotine. This so-called “job screening” will bar any applicants who smoke cigarettes, cigars, pipes, snuff, hookah, and even e-cigarettes from being eligible for employment. While the hospital already has a smoking ban on the premises and surrounding sidewalks, this policy forbids new employees from consuming tobacco anywhere, at any time.

The National Institutes of Health announced today that vials of the virus that causes smallpox were found in a laboratory on its Bethesda, Maryland, campus, which was unequipped and unapproved to handle the deadly pathogen. Because it’s so infectious, the smallpox virus is considered a bioterrorism threat and is only permitted in two labs in the world: One at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Atlanta headquarters and another at the VECTOR Institute in Russia. The newly discovered vials violate an international agreement reached in 1979 aimed at keeping the virus eradicated while allowing some scientists to continue...

With students running a higher risk of obesity and hunger during their summer break, Prince George’s County schools have joined an effort to provide the youngsters with free breakfast and lunch. More than 60 schools throughout the county will serve the meals until Aug. 1. “Providing continuous meals throughout the summer helps children receive the nutrition they need to learn, play and grow,” Kevin M. Maxwell, Chief Executive Officer for Prince George’s County Public Schools said in a statement.

July 05--Anyone who wants a job next year at Anne Arundel Medical Center -- whether as a surgeon or security guard -- will have to prove they don't smoke or use tobacco. The Annapolis hospital's new hiring policy might be controversial, but it is legal in Maryland and more than half of the United States. And it's a type of job screening that is gaining favor with employers -- from hospitals to companies such as Alaska Airlines -- trying to control rising health costs and cultivate a healthier, more productive workforce. Anne Arundel Medical Center, like a growing number of...

Former FCC chairman Reed Hundt is suggesting the FCC may want to strip Redskins owner Dan Snyder of his radio station licenses if he does not change the name of the team. According to an interview on Indian Country Today Media Network, Hundt said that the FCC should "reevaluate" whether Snyder is fit to be a licensee, by which Hundt meant "a person of appropriate character," he said. “The FCC should consider whether Mr. Snyder is fit to own radio station licenses given that he uses radio stations to broadcast an ethnic slur,” he said. “These licenses are owned by...

If you’re a District resident planning to vacation in the Maryland havens of Ocean City or St. Michaels this summer, Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) and some D.C. activists would prefer you choose Rehoboth Beach, Del., or Chincoteague Island, Va., instead. A week after Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) successfully attached an amendment to a House budget bill that would overturn the city’s marijuana decriminalization law, Gray and the District’s largest voting-rights advocacy group said city residents would be better off vacationing somewhere besides Harris’s district, which includes all of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. “I don’t think we should support someone who...