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(snip)For an hour and a half, a moderator pulls questions from the audience of maybe 50 people, who fill the folding chairs with their nods, stares and half-hearted applause. Krish Vignarajah, tries to inject some enthusiasm into the quiet crowd on a Sunday in April. “The orthodoxy out there is that no man can beat Larry Hogan,” she says, pausing for emphasis. “Well, I am no man,” she rallies, her black slacks and gold-buttoned, white jacket looking every bit like a military uniform — as if to say, yes, this daughter of Sri Lankan immigrant teachers will wage the necessary...

The best way to move Baltimore forward from its blight, unemployment and horrific three-year cycle of violent crime and record homicide rates is to stand up to it with gusto. "Stop whining and start winning," retired U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski told a group of about 75 business leaders at an informal panel Wednesday afternoon downtown. The event was sponsored by the Baltimore Efficiency and Economy Foundation, a nonprofit centered on civic advocacy, and held at 750 E. Pratt St. Mikulski took the microphone after nearly an hour and a half discussion about how the city could turn itself around and...

BALTIMORE — Former Gun Trace Task Force Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, perhaps the most corrupt officer uncovered in Baltimore Police Department history, was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in federal prison for his role in a stunning range of crimes. The sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake was five years below the maximum possible term under his plea agreement. Prosecutors had asked that Jenkins receive the maximum sentence. Assistant U.S. Attorney Leo Wise said the harm inflicted by Jenkins was “immeasurable,” walking through how he stole drugs on a “near-daily basis” for years and encouraged and helped...

It's hard to think of a more volatile mix: Four young black males from Baltimore City, accused in the death of a white female police officer in Baltimore County. Authorities say three of the teenagers were breaking into homes when the fourth ran the officer over in a stolen Jeep. Predictably enough, social media, call-in radio and other forums blew up. A sampling from the Baltimore County Police & Fire Facebook page: "I was hoping they'd kill him during apprehension. What a waste of life. He's currently breathing air some decent person could be breathing." "I personally am tired of...

Three more teenage boys have been charged in Baltimore County police Officer Amy Caprio’s death Monday. Darrell Jaymar Ward, 15, of the 2300 block of Ashland Avenue; Derrick Eugene Matthews, 16, of the 200 block of Dallas Court; and Eugene Robert Genuis IV, 17, of the 400 block of Lakewood Road, were each charged with first-degree murder in Caprio’s killing. All three were charged as adults, and also face first-degree burglary charges. None of the teens had an attorney listed in court records. They are scheduled for a bail review hearing at 1 p.m. today. Dawnta Anthony Harris, 16, was...

A Baltimore County police officer was fatally shot in Perry Hall Monday afternoon during a traffic stop. Police said the shooting happened in a residential neighborhood near Belair and Klausmier roads, after the officer responded about a suspicious vehicles in the unit-block of Linwen Way. The officer, who would have been a 4-year veteran in July, was shot in the head just after 2 p.m. and was taken to Medstar Franklin Square hospital nearby where she was pronounced dead at 2:50 p.m.

**SNIP** The U.S. Attorney's office announced last week that De Sousa "willfully failed to file a federal return for tax years 2013, 2014, and 2015, despite having been a salaried employee of the Baltimore Police Department in each of those years." If proven, each of three misdemeanor counts carries up to one year in prison and a $25,000 fine. But his ongoing case has the potential to get a whole lot worse for De Sousa: Federal prosecutors have issued grand jury subpoenas to the city's finance and police departments, seeking specifics about his pay, taxes, travel, and second jobs dating...

Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz — a Democratic candidate for governor and a fixture in state and local politics for nearly a quarter-century — died Thursday morning of cardiac arrest, officials said. Kamenetz, 60, was awakened by chest pains around 2 a.m. Thursday, county officials said. Kamenetz and his wife, Jill, drove less than two miles from their Owings Mills home to the Chestnut Ridge Volunteer Fire Company where the county executive called 911 from the parking lot. Chestnut Ridge medical personnel escorted Kamenetz and his wife into the station. As Kamenetz was explaining his symptoms, he lost consciousness. Fire...

Jean Duley testified that she was "scared to death" of Bruce Ivins after he left her a string of harassing phone messages, according to an audio recording taken during a July 24 peace order hearing. Duley, 45, told Judge Milnor Roberts that Ivins planned to "go out in a blaze of glory," had bought a bulletproof vest and a gun and planned to kill his co-workers. The audio recording was obtained by The Frederick News-Post on Monday. Duley told the court she got to know Ivins while running group and individual counseling sessions at the Comprehensive Counseling Associates in Frederick...

(snip) This month, the city has seen at least 29 murders as the violence surged yet again. This led Mayor Catherine E. Pugh to take to the streets to visit some local businesses. One of the exchanges recorded by the Baltimore Sun was a little concerning, though. You see, Pugh stood inside of an area convenience store and asked what time the store closed. When the owner responded that they closed at 11:30, that wasn't good enough for Pugh. "Isn’t that late?" the mayor reportedly responded. "That’s a little late. It keeps the crowds around here. Nine o’clock is nice....

Former MSNBC host Ed Schultz opened up in a recent interview about why he believes he was fired in 2015. Schultz, who’s now anchor of a show on RT, told National Review‘s Jamie Weinstein that he believes it was because he supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), which was problematic, he charged, because the network was “in the tank for Hillary Clinton.”He described how MSNBC chief Phil Griffin was a "watchdog" who closely managed which stories were covered, and relayed one incident where his story about Sanders’s launch of his campaign was bumped in favor of other news. Sanders gave his official campaign...

Baltimore’s new Mayor Catherine Pugh is sending public school students to the “March for Our Lives” event in Washington, DC. The event has been organized for the students of Parkland who have been repeatedly exploited by the left to push gun control. Pugh is charging the taxpayers of Baltimore for the trip. Philip Wegmann reports at the Washington Examiner: Baltimore mayor promises taxpayer money to high school students playing hooky and protesting gun violence To succeed in life, stay in school … unless you’re cutting class for the sake of progressive politics. That’s the message Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh delivered...

Baltimore City students scored near the bottom in reading and math compared to children in other cities and large urban areas on an important national assessment given in 2017. In fourth- and eighth-grade reading, only 13 percent of city students are considered proficient or advanced. In fourth-grade math, 14 percent were proficient and in eighth-grade math 11 percent met the mark, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federally mandated test from the U.S. Department of Education... That put the Baltimore ahead of only Detroit and Cleveland, and sometimes ahead of Milwaukee and Fresno, Calif. — areas of...

A grant went to the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund — but the group had only an office address in Washington, D.C. So what happened to the money? Here’s a question for which Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, special counsel Robert Mueller, and former FBI Director James Comey may well know the answer to — but aren’t likely to want to talk about in public, under oath: Why did the Clinton Foundation send a $37 million grant for the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund in 2010 to a Baltimore post office box when the CBHF told federal tax authorities that its only office...

Baltimore’s top elected officials expressed frustration Wednesday that city government agencies have failed — yet again — to properly account for how they spent grant dollars. A new audit of how the city manages millions of dollars in state and federal grants has come to the same conclusion that previous examinations have: Grant money coming into government coffers is not balancing out with what city agencies are spending. “The city is not able to establish accurate balances of grant accounts,” city Auditor Audrey Askew told Baltimore’s spending panel Wednesday. One possible result, Askew said: “The city could lose its much-needed...

Truth in Accounting .. based on fiscal year 2016 comprehensive annual financial reports .. found that 64 cities do not have enough money to pay all of their bills, and in total, the cities have racked up $335.4 billion in unfunded municipal debt. ... Government reports are lengthy, cumbersome, and sometimes misleading documents ... taxpayers and citizens deserve easy-to-understand, truthful, and transparent financial information from their governments. ... to balance the budget, elected officials have not included the true costs of the government in their budget calculations and have pushed costs onto future taxpayers. ... TIA was unable to rank...

Parkland Update: Broward County Sheriff’s Office Training Materials Say First Officers Should ‘Confront the Shooter’ Judicial Watch Files Two Lawsuits against DOJ for Documents on Top Officials’ Ties to Clinton Dossier Creator Fusion GPS Charm City Corruption: City with Highest Murder Rate Starts Defense Fund for Illegal Aliens Parkland Update: Broward County Sheriff’s Office Training Materials Say First Officers Should ‘Confront the Shooter’ The school shooting in Parkland, Florida, just becomes more tragic as we learn new details of the local sheriff’s department response – actually, its lack of response. This week, Judicial Watch released Broward County Sheriff’s Office...

UMBC made sports history on Friday night by becoming the first No. 16 seed to beat a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. The America East champions pulled off a shocking 74-54 upset over No. 1 seed Virginia in the South Region.

Before Friday, a No. 16 seed had never beaten a No. 1 seed, much less a No. 1 overall seed. They were 0-135. But the University of Maryland-Baltimore County -- yes, the little-known UMBC Retrievers -- proved even the longest of odds aren't totally insurmountable.

Yesterday we had students walking out of school all over the country to protest gun violence. Now, in Baltimore and some other cities, there may be a different type of walkout. Teachers are objecting to the idea of any of them being trained and armed, so much so that if there are any armed teachers in the school they will walk out as well. (CBS Baltimore)