Free Republic

Yesterday, the Baltimore Police Department confirmed that another body dropped on the streets of Charm City had brought their 2018 murder total to 297. The unnamed victim was a known gang member, described by police as “a former Public Enemy No. 1” and had been acquitted of a firebombing over the summer. Given the city’s recent history, the odds of there not being at least three more killings over the next sixteen days are not encouraging, to put it mildly. If this plays out as expected, it will represent four years running where the death toll has exceeded 300, and...

WASHINGTON — Toll lanes around the Capital Beltway and I-270 in Maryland could be built in several separate phases and even operated by different companies under the latest plans released to industry insiders. It indicates Beltway construction could last for years. The first phase would include fixes for the Legion Bridge.A new document sent last week ahead of the next forum for private companies that could design, build and operate the lanes said that while Maryland eventually plans more than 70 miles of toll lanes from Frederick to Bethesda and from the Legion Bridge to near Oxon Hill, building out...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren sought to solidify her connection with African-American voters Friday as she prepares to launch a potential presidential campaign amid criticism of her approach to race and identity. The Massachusetts Democrat visited Morgan State University in Baltimore, marking her third trip this year to a historically black college or university. It follows her widely panned October release of a DNA test meant to bolster her claim to Native American heritage. Her speech Friday offered an opportunity to regain her footing. “I’m not a person of color,” Warren said. “And I haven’t lived your life or experienced anything like...

*snip* near the end of the article On Monday, Alexis Rohde, a lawyer representing the grievance commission, said she was bound by confidentiality rules that prevented her from explaining why the panel had determined the complaint was frivolous. “Because all these complaints are confidential, I’m unable to put that before the court,” she said. Judge Harris rejected that explanation, saying it was the first time the commission had used the term “frivolous” to explain a decision. He also said the rules were clear that the commission needed to investigate.

A woman trying to help what she thought was a needy mother and her baby has been fatally stabbed in Baltimore. The good Samaritan was identified by police as 52-year-old Jacquelyn Smith, who was riding in a car with relatives Saturday when they saw a woman carrying what appeared to be a baby. The woman was holding a sign that read, "Please Help me feed my Baby."

Back on October 19, 2017, I raised the question of just how much Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Deputy AG actually knew about Hillary Clinton and Uranium One since it had been reported that the FBI was aware before the deal was approved in 2010 that Russia was engaging in criminal activity to penetrate our nuclear industry and gain access to chunks of our uranium reserves. Earlier, in July, I called for a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s collusion with Russia to turn over control of 20 percent of our uranium supplies to Russian interests in return for some $145...

The Iowa Republican sent a separate letter to Horowitz on Nov. 30 seeking Cain’s documents and citing TheDCNF’s reporting. .... Grassley in his letter, which also cites TheDCNF’s reporting, asked Wray if “the FBI consider[s] Mr. Cain’s disclosures to be protected.” The whistleblower act protects federal employees who disclose classified documents to the proper authorities, which includes the IG. Grassley further asked Wray if the FBI was “aware at the time of the raid that Mr. Cain had made what appeared to be lawful disclosures to the Inspector General? If so, was the FBI aware that these disclosures were passed...

For some reason, students at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland are drawing a perverse conclusion from the arrest of a black student there for faking a hate crime with racist graffiti.  The U.K. Daily Mail reports: Fynn Ajani Arthur, a 21-year-old from Brunswick, Maine, was charged with two counts of malicious destruction of property on Thursday night in Baltimore County.   His arrest came after graffiti aimed at black and Latino students was found on the second floor of a campus dorm[.] ... Thursday's graffiti depicted swastikas, the letters 'KKK' and appeared to include the last names of four black students, including Arthur....

A black college lacrosse player has been arrested in connection with two incidents of racist graffiti found in a dorm on the Goucher College campus in Maryland. Fynn Ajani Arthur, a 21-year-old from Brunswick, Maine, was charged with two counts of malicious destruction of property on Thursday night in Baltimore County. His arrest came after graffiti aimed at black and Latino students was found on the second floor of a campus dorm, one floor above where similar graffiti had been found on November 14, Goucher College administrators said in a statement. Both incidents that shook the Towson campus involved backward...

The FBI raided the home of a whistleblower who was in possession of documents regarding the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One, according to the whistleblower’s lawyer, Michael Socarras. The whistleblower, Dennis Nathan Cain, had turned the documents over to the Department of Justice’s inspector general and both the House and Senate Intelligence committees, according to the lawyer. The FBI rummaged through Cain’s home for six hours, even after the whistleblower handed over the documents, according to Socarras.

The man who shouted “Heil Hitler, heil Trump” at a Baltimore performance of “Fiddler on the Roof” apologized Friday for his outburst, saying he chose the wrong words when he was attempting to compare President Donald Trump to the Nazi leader. Anthony M. Derlunas II, 58, said the play, which tells the story of a Jewish family facing persecution in tsarist Russia, reminded him of Trump’s immigration policies. His comparison “came out wrong” and was “beyond a mistake” he said during an interview at his home in Joppa. “Instantly it was like, ‘Oh my God, what did you do?’ ”...

Well, it’s happening in more places than just Baltimore, but they probably need the help more than most cities. The subject at hand is the trend of police departments solving crimes in greater numbers because of the increasing number of home and business owners who have external security cameras monitoring their property… and the street beyond. As this report from CBS Baltimore indicates, some cases which might otherwise have gone cold wound up being solved in short order. When police needed a break to solve a high-profile murder in Federal Hill this year, they turned to neighbors who protect their...

The video appears to show two students bickering while standing close to the teacher, and one student backs away while the other hits the teacher. The teacher recoils and the student who hit her leaves the classroom. She doesn’t retaliate, but follows him out the door. City Public Schools spokeswoman Edie House Foster says in a statement that the student struck the teacher following a verbal exchange. She says administrators are investigating and will apply disciplinary action in accordance with the school system’s code of conduct.

The commutes of tens of thousands of people will be disrupted for the next few years as Maryland replaces the Interstate 895 bridge north of the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel. The Maryland Transportation Authority plans to limit that part of the expressway to one lane in each direction starting later this month for the $189 million project to replace the 60-year-old bridge. The northbound lanes of I-895 will close from the tunnel to O’Donnell Street on Nov. 27 — the Tuesday after Thanksgiving — and the two southbound lanes will be converted to two-way traffic through spring 2020. Once the northbound...

FULL TITLE: Horrifying moment Baltimore teacher gets punched in the face by student on her first day back after cancer treatment A viral video of a Baltimore teaching getting punched in the face by a student has sparked an investigation by the school district. Posted on Wednesday, the video shows a teacher and a student engaged in a vicious argument at Frederick Douglass High School in Gwynns Falls Parkway. According to the user who shared the video, the teacher had just returned to the classroom after recovering from cancer surgery. In the clip, a fellow classmate can be seen holding...

Baltimore construction firms are training and hiring hundreds of ex-convicts because they cannot hire enough migrants in President Donald Trump’s “Hire American” economy. Project Jumpstart “is a training program that prepares Baltimore residents for work in construction,” says a CNBC report: It’s a 90-hour course designed to get workers ready for the realities of the construction job site. Classes are held twice a week and students receive a $25 stipend for each class. If they are late, however, they lose the stipend, and on the third absence they are out of the program, according to placement director Kate McShane. …...

Baltimore rapper Nick Breed — whose lyrics often reflected the pain and trauma he’d seen in the city — was fatally shot Sunday in the Allendale neighborhood. The rapper, whose real name is Dominic Grant, according to friends and family, was found with gunshot wounds in the 500 block of Normandy Ave. around 7:30 p.m. Sunday, police said. The 24-year-old was taken to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center and was pronounced dead soon after arriving, officials said. Grant, whose music videos garnered thousands of views online, collaborated with some of the city’s biggest names, including YBS Skola and...

Maryland voters narrowly oppose adding express toll lanes to widen three of the state’s most congested highways, a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll finds, highlighting public skepticism about one of Gov. Larry Hogan’s signature transportation plans. The centerpiece of the Republican governor’s proposal — a $9 billion project to add four lanes apiece to the Capital Beltway, Interstate 270 and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway — is even opposed by voters in the Washington suburbs, whom the plan is supposed to help. More than half of voters in the D.C. suburbs prefer to invest in public transit rather than building more roads....

The squeegee kids are going to have some company starting as early as next week. After concerns moving around Baltimore, the Downtown Partnership will begin placing unarmed security guards at busy intersections as early as next week to calm interactions between “squeegee kids” and drivers, according to our media partners The Baltimore Sun.

Only 32 of the 273 officers who took the test passed, according to the city’s Department of Human Resources, which oversees the exam. The passing rate of 11.7 percent is far lower than the last three sergeant exams, which have been given every two years. In 2016, 176 of the 290 officers who took the exam passed, for a rate of 60.7 percent. In 2014, 171 of 330 officers passed, for a rate of 51.8 percent. And in 2012, 218 of the 412 officers passed, for a rate of 52.9 percent.