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BALTIMORE - Machine gunfire broke out during a birthday party at a downtown Baltimore hotel, critically injuring three people. Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi (goo-lee-EL'-mee) says police were called to the Sheraton hotel around 3:15 a.m. Sunday because of a report of a shooting. Guglielmi says a fight broke out at the party and then someone began shooting. Police found the Uzi submachine gun in one of the two adjoining rooms where the party was held.

Jurors in the theft trial of Sheila Dixon convicted the Baltimore mayor Tuesday on a single charge of taking gift cards intended for the city's poor. Although Dixon was acquitted of a felony theft charge, her conviction could force her from office. The jury found Dixon not guilty of the most serious crime, felony theft. The jury decided that Dixon did not knowingly steal about $530 in Target and Best Buy gift cards purchased in December 2005 by developer Patrick Turner, who testified they were intended for "the children of Baltimore." Dixon was City Council president at the time. The...

This month, the USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) held their fall meeting in Baltimore. On the agenda was family, reproduction, the healthcare reform bill and sex abuse scandals. The meetings ran from November 16-18. The mission of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is to support the ministry of bishops with an emphasis on evangelization, by which the bishops exercise in a communal and collegial manner certain pastoral functions entrusted to them by the Lord Jesus of sanctifying, teaching, and governing.

An unlikely trio explored several Baltimore schools Friday as part of an effort to highlight education reform and challenges, and called on Maryland to give charter schools more autonomy. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich repeatedly emphasized the need for changes to the state's charter school law, which he called "too restrictive," as he, the Rev. Al Sharpton and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan toured three city schools and spoke with students, administrators and others about their schools -- and what sets them apart. "I hope that everybody in Maryland will call the governor, will call the legislators, and will let...

Baltimore City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and 10 members of the council are sponsoring a bill that Catholic leaders believe harasses pro-life pregnancy support centers. City Council Bill 09-0406, “Limited-Service Pregnancy Centers –Disclaimers,” would require pregnancy support centers to post a disclaimer noting that they do not provide abortion or contraceptive services. Centers that do not comply would be fined $500 per day. In an Oct. 16 letter to Rawlings-Blake, Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien said the bill targets non-profit organizations whose mission is to help women carry pregnancies to term. He said it is “well-known” that pregnancy support centers are...

"Leaders of the Maryland NAACP, worried that a Baltimore mayor's criminal conviction could result in the appointment of a white or Republican leader who may not fully represent the majority black and Democratic city, are asking state lawmakers to strip the governor of authority to permanently fill the office. The request, made in a resolution adopted at a state meeting of the civil rights group last weekend, marks the first time a mainstream organization has raised questions about succession should Baltimore Mayor Dixon be convicted of any of the nine charges she faces. Dixon has been indicted for theft and...

BALTIMORE — It's been a good 200th anniversary year for Edgar Allan Poe. The master of gothic horror has been celebrated at events in several cities to mark the bicentennial of his birth. And on Sunday in Baltimore, he'll get the funeral he never had. Fewer than 10 people attended Poe's funeral when he died in October 1849 at age 40. His cousin, Neilson Poe, never announced the great writer's death publicly. Because of intense interest, Baltimore will host two funerals. Each is expected to draw about 350 people to Westminster Hall, the former church adjacent to Poe's grave. Actors...

When 87-year-old Alice Jadwigia Armstrong looked up from her hospital bed and saw the smiling face of Sister Lourdes Miranda, she was visibly buoyed by the nun’s presence. Clasping the hand of the Little Sister of the Poor, the white-haired woman seemed transported to the security of her youth. “I like her because she reminds me of my mother,” Armstrong said with a laugh. “You can depend on her.” Sister Lourdes, one of 17 Little Sisters who minister at St. Martin’s Home for the Aged in Catonsville, laughed warmly. The Cuba native reached out and tenderly brushed Armstrong’s cheek with...

Posted by Jason Here is the lawsuit Acorn filed, “Brown Goldstein, and Levy” is the main law firm defending Acorn. They don’t want to put the news of their new client, on their website for obvious reasons. Please do me a huge favor and post this Blog all over the Baltimore Craigslist, lets make sure that law firm’s community knows what they support. http://baltimore.craigslist.org/ [the document is posted at the link]

<p>BALTIMORE — Community activist group ACORN is suing the makers of a hidden-camera video that showed employees of its Baltimore office giving tax advice to a man posing as a pimp and a woman posing as a prostitute.</p> <p>The liberal group contends that the audio portion of the video was obtained illegally because Maryland requires two-party consent to create sound recordings.</p>

The Washington Post today published on page A2 a correction to a September 18 article on James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, the duo behind "The $1,300 Mission to Fell ACORN" (h/t NewsBusters tipster Sean O'Brien): A Sept. 18 Page One article about the community organizing group ACORN incorrectly said that a conservative journalist targeted the organization for hidden-camera videos partly becase its voter-registration drives bring Latinos and African Americans to the polls. Although ACORN registers people mostly from those groups, the maker of the videos, James E. O'Keefe, did not specifically mention them. In other words: sorry we tagged you...

A woman carrying a clipboard knocks on a door in Park Heights. Her pitch is direct: "I'm Michelle from ACORN. We're fighting for change in the neighborhood. I wanted to know what you want to see changed." The owner, who has lived in this well-worn rowhouse on Shirley Avenue for 50 years, lets her inside. Soon, Michelle Moore is talking rapid-fire about trash piles and abandoned properties and how elected officials would never allow this sort of thing to happen in stately Roland Park. SNIP Katzenberg and state officials say Maryland ACORN has never received state funding. The bulk of...

As the housing market began booming in mid-2000, Wells Fargo & Co. teamed up with prominent African American commentator and PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley and financial author Kelvin Boston, the host of “Moneywise,”...to host something called “Wealth Building” seminars in black neighborhoods. Smiley was the keynote speaker, and the big draw...Smiley would charge up the audience — and rattle the Wells Fargo executives in attendance — by launching into a story about how he hated banks, and how they used to refuse to lend him money for his real estate projects in Compton, Calif., and elsewhere. After Hurricane...

WBAL.comFormer ACORN workers in the city are planning to file a civil complaint against the makers of the video, according to the website Investigative Voice. City state's attorney Patricia Jessamy said on WBAL's Shari Elicker Show that she could not prosecute based on restrictions for evidence obtained illegally. Maryland law requires two party consent to be recorded. Investigative VoiceFormer employees of the beleaguered community activist group ACORN are planning to file a criiminal complaint in Baltimore against the creators of the series of videos that have spurred outrage against the organization, knowledgable sources have told Investigative Voice. The filing could...

Liberal Benefactors in Baltimore gave recommendations to establish a brothel В СШ� опубликован видеоролик � уча�тием �отрудников либеральной некоммерче�кой организации, которые � �нтузиазмом дают �оветы по организации противозаконного бизне�а - дет�кой про�титуции. In the United States published a video with the participation of staff of the liberal non-profit organization, who enthusiastically give advice on the organization of an illegal business - child prostitution. Как передает CNN, запи�ь �делана двум� кон�ервативными активи�тами, один из которых изображал �утенера, а друга� - про�титутку. According to CNN, entry was made by two conservative activist, one of which depicted the pimp and the other...

Ho, no! A tag team pair of undercover activists, posing as a pimp and prostitute, has exposed the Brooklyn office of the left-leaning organization ACORN as the latest branch of the embattled group to be caught up in a housing scandal, the New York Post reported. "Honesty is not going to get you the house," a loan counselor at the officers told the conservative activists turned faux flesh-peddlers who were posing as a couple seeking a mortgage, according to the Post. The Brooklyn office was the latest branch of the organization exposed in a hidden-camera operation. Four ACORN employees have...

Group once linked to Barack Obama taped giving advice to 'brothel owners'By Toby Harnden in Washington Published: 9:19PM BST 13 Sep 2009 Acorn employees were taped giving advice on tax avoidance and employment of 13-year-old illegal immigrants to Right-wing activists posing as brothel owners. "It is clear that Acorn's affiliation with the 2010 census promotion has caused sufficient concern in the general public, has indeed become a distraction from our mission, and may even become a discouragement to public cooperation, negatively impacting 2010 census efforts," said Robert Groves, the census director. Acorn - the Association of Community Organisations for Reform...

The independent filmmaker whose hidden-camera videos prompted the firing of four ACORN workers is demanding an apology from ACORN for calling his work a fabricated "scam" and daring the activist group to take legal action against him. "Bring it on," filmmaker James O'Keefe said Sunday on FOX News. That was after ACORN lashed out at O'Keefe, who with his friend Hannah Giles posed as a pimp and prostitute looking to evade the IRS and apply for an illegal housing loan for a brothel. The sting operation caught four ACORN workers in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., offices appearing to offer...

Amid all the conflicting reports on cable TV and the Internet as to whether or not the filmmakers who secretly taped two ACORN employees in Baltimore violated any law, let me add one historical fact that might bring a bit of clarity and context to the discusssion. The Baltimore State's Attorney's office has brought felony charges in the past for what was alleged to be essentially the same act as that committed by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, the two who did the secret taping at ACORN.

Dozens of US cities may have entire neighbourhoods bulldozed as part of drastic "shrink to survive" proposals being considered by the Obama administration to tackle economic decline... Having outlined his strategy to Barack Obama during the election campaign, Mr Kildee has now been approached by the US government and a group of charities who want him to apply what he has learnt to the rest of the country. Mr Kildee said he will concentrate on 50 cities, identified in a recent study by the Brookings Institution, an influential Washington think-tank, as potentially needing to shrink substantially to cope with their...

Each week we look forward to the Friday News Dump, that special time when the Government "dumps" a news story that will be unfavorable to them should it be well publicized. The theory being the public will be too busy to pay attention to the news during the busy weekend and when the news cycle begins on Monday, the "dropped" story will be old news. Yesterday, Obama Administration literally dropped one of its biggest supporters: ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) Read more at The Hippos Ass Blog

You would think videos exposing representatives of the controversial organization ACORN giving advice on how a couple can get a loan to set up a brothel would be BIG NEWS.

Before we answer that question, we first have to know the person making the decisions about prosecutions in Maryland. Who exactly is Patricia Jessamy, the Baltimore City State’s Attorney whose office threatened to prosecute the undercover reporters that exposed ACORN’s pimp-protecting and tax-evasion operation? Chris at HAP does a lot of legwork on Jessamy — and finds a partisan Democrat who has invested both time and money in supporting Barack Obama: Chris also has links to Jessamy’s personal contribution to Obama’s campaign, as well as her position on a steering committee for his campaign. Jessamy isn’t exactly an uninterested party...

Baltimore, MD – September 11, 2009 – We have received inquiries from citizens and the media asking whether the Baltimore City State’s Attorneys Office would initiate a criminal investigation for acts allegedly committed at ACORN offices located in Baltimore. The only information received in reference to this alleged criminal behavior was a YouTube video. Upon review by this office, the video appears to be incomplete. In addition, the audio portion could possibly have been obtained in violation of Maryland Law, Annotated Code of Maryland Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article §10-402, which requires two party consent. If it is determined that...

The Baltimore adventure with ACORN started off as a silly idea, both absurd and incredible by all accounts. But it stuck, and quickly escalated into a full blown operation with scripts, method acting, undercover gear, scandalous outfits, fast minds, good hearts, plenty of humor and healthy homemade blueberry muffins. When I pitched the “prostitute goes into ACORN seeking housing” idea to James O’Keefe at the beginning of the summer, I had absolutely no idea how he would respond. He came back with, “Would you be willing to portray the prostitute? And if so, when can you do this?” Needless to...

The community organizing group ACORN has fired two employees at its Baltimore office who were seen on hidden-camera video giving advice to a man posing as a pimp and a woman pretending to be a prostitute, as some legal experts raise questions over whether the employees broke the law. The staffers appeared to commit federal tax fraud by offering to help them — for a fee — to establish a child brothel, legal experts say. In a video made public Thursday, two visitors to an ACORN office in Baltimore told staffers they needed assistance securing housing where the woman, a...

BALTIMORE (AP) — The nonprofit housing group ACORN has fired two employees at its Baltimore office who were seen on hidden-camera video giving advice to a man posing as a pimp and a woman pretending to be a prostitute. Fox News Channel broadcast excerpts from the video Thursday. Those excerpts showed a man and woman asking about buying a house and how to account on tax forms for the woman's income. An ACORN employee advises the woman to list her occupation as "performance artist." Maryland ACORN board member Margaret Williams says in a statement the employees "did not meet ACORN's...

I do not understand how a gun buy-back (CR, Aug. 27) “paves the way to peace.” Five previous efforts offer no indication of doing so. Would not putting easy gun buy-back money in the hands of criminals that have guns just encourage them to steal guns? We can blame guns for a lack of peace, but if we want to respect humanity’s dignity we have to blame criminals. Crime is a choice. I do not know how to cure criminals. I do know that we need to protect ourselves from them and that a gun is a reasonable thing to...

A spiritual journey that began seven years ago ended in the sanctuary of a Catonsville convent Sept. 3 when 10 Episcopal nuns and their priest chaplain were received into full communion with the Catholic Church. In administering the sacrament of confirmation, Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien traced a cross on the foreheads of each candidate as he anointed them with sacred chrism oil and called on them to be sealed with the Holy Spirit. The sisters then renewed their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience as some 120 worshipers looked on.

Father Leo Patalinghug is not the kind of guy who steps down from a challenge. The 39-year-old priest is a former national full-contact stick fighting champion, a black belt in tae kwon do and an 80s break dancer who can still bust the moves with the best of them. So when Bobby Flay, a world-class celebrity chef, recently showed up in Frederick County and challenged the well-known “cooking priest” to a “throwdown” on the Food Network, Father Patalinghug’s response was simple: bring it on.

In a story in this week’s issue of The Catholic Review, Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien talked about the violence plaguing Baltimore City. Here is the full transcript of that conversation. Catholic Review: When the summer began, you had a peace summit with other religious leaders and you were hoping this would be a summer of peace. How frustrating has it been to watch everything that’s transpired? Archbishop O’Brien: I hope some of it helped. It’s safer in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think, sometimes. Still, there are good people out there patrolling the streets and taking an interest in the neighborhoods...

After seven years of prayer and discernment, a community of Episcopal nuns and their chaplain will be received into the Roman Catholic Church during a Sept. 3 Mass celebrated by Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien. The archbishop will welcome 10 sisters from the Society of All Saints’ Sisters of the Poor when he administers the sacrament of confirmation and the sisters renew their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in the chapel of their Catonsville convent. Episcopal Father Warren Tanghe will also be received into the church and is discerning the possibility of becoming a Catholic priest. Mother Christina Christie, superior...

also Howard and Carroll Counties

<p>Baltimore police say they've arrested one of three white men who beat an elderly black fisherman in a city park, and the attack is being investigated as a hate crime.</p> <p>Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi (goo-lee-EL-mee) says the men shouted racial slurs during the unprovoked attack on the 76-year-old victim, which happened early Tuesday.</p>

BALTIMORE — Baltimore police say a burglary suspect mistakenly declared dead by medics after he was shot by an officer lay on a convenience store floor for half an hour before anyone noticed he was still alive. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi (goo-lee-EL-mee) says 51-year-old Michael Quarles was shot early Saturday when he lunged at an officer with a long screwdriver. Guglielmi says the officer thought Quarles had a knife. Guglielmi says emergency medical technicians pronounced Quarles dead at the scene, then left. But officers noticed about 30 minutes later that Quarles was moving and called the medics back to the...

To celebrate the 175th birthday of Stateside Catholicism's home-grown "pontifex maximus," the 15th archbishop of Baltimore led a noontime Mass Thursday in the cathedral church where James Gibbons was baptized and said his first Mass, was made a bishop and installed as head of the nation's "Premier See," where he received the red hat and, after 44 years as the faith's "unchallenged" face and voice on these shores, was laid to rest.

Worse than Afghanistan? Strong words from Baltimore's archbishop on the unprecedented drug-fueled violence in east Baltimore. Bullets wounded 18 people and Mike Hellgren reports on the search for the shooters and the show of force on the streets. Police are everywhere along Ashland Avenue after a mass shooting, part of a bloody battle over drug money and turf. It prompted strong reaction from the archbishop. "Parts of the city are very violent. Parts of the city are as bad as Afghanistan, if not worse, as we saw this weekend," said Archbishop Edwin O'Brien. "This time, it was just pure carnage...

SNIPPET: “WASHINGTON - Last week, German authorities discovered that groups of terrorists may have been dispatched from training bases in Pakistan to launch crippling attacks.” SNIPPET: “They say as a minimum of 12 al-Qaida operatives who were trained in the tribal region of Pakistan have left the training camps and are headed back to their home countries. Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Egypt are just some of those countries. According to the source, the threat levels also were raised for many other Western European countries to include concerns for “Turkish Airlines flying passengers from Istanbul to the...

The treatment for terminal cancer that Annapolis resident Mary Ellen Heibel took at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2004 and early 2005 worked beyond anyone's wildest hopes, wiping out malignant tumors in her lungs, liver, stomach and chest. Her doctor did not expect it, nor could he explain it. Surely the outcome was remarkable, but was it - in the sense applied by the Roman Catholic Church in such cases - a miracle? In a few weeks, a committee appointed by the Archdiocese of Baltimore will begin exploring that question, examining 11 witnesses, including Heibel, pressing her doctors, nurses and friends...

The Baltimore mayor's chief of staff and two other government officials sued an Ocean City Domino's pizza and related businesses for $30 million after employees at the beachfront pizzeria refused to serve them and allegedly imprisoned them in the restaurant for five to 10 minutes about 1:30 a.m. Aug. 15. The owner of the Ocean City restaurant, John S. Basil, said service was refused because the three were "uncooperative," "belligerent" and "intoxicated," and denies that the three were held against their will, according to court papers. A Worcester County Circuit Court judge ruled that most of the business entities connected...

WASHINGTON—Two Baltimore businessmen were indicted today for conspiring to rig bids at tax lien auctions in Maryland for more than five years, the Department of Justice announced today. The one-count felony indictment filed today in the U.S. District Court in Baltimore alleges that Harvey M. Nusbaum and his business partner, Jack W. Stollof, participated in a conspiracy to rig bids in tax lien auctions conducted by the city of Baltimore and various counties in the state of Maryland beginning in or around the Spring of 2002 and continuing until at least Aug. 9, 2007. The indictment alleges that Nusbaum, Stollof...

Baltimore, Maryland - U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett sentenced James Francis Gobble, age 55, of Baltimore, today to 10 years in prison, followed by supervised release for life, for using a computer to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity, announced United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein. According to Gobble’s plea agreement, on November 21, 2008 an undercover Baltimore County detective posted an ad in an online publicly-available service indicating he was a school girl out of school for the day. Gobble e-mailed the detective, and the detective responded that he was a...

Brian D. Morris, who resigned as Baltimore City school board chairman this week to accept a six-figure job overseeing school operations, has been the subject of dozens of lawsuits and bad-debt claims the past 15 years, including foreclosures, garnisheed wages, unpaid taxes and other cases involving his personal finances and business ventures, according to city court records. The city school board hired Morris, 38, as a deputy CEO on Tuesday, giving him a $175,000 annual salary and oversight of all the school system's central operations, including finance. Yet a review of dozens of court records by The Baltimore Sun shows...

Here is the column that was submitted by Ron Smith, a weekly Baltimore Sun columnist, to the newspaper. However, The Sun decided not to run the piece today for various reasons. Decide for yourself whether the decision makers at The Sun made the right decision. Because of all the reports I've read and conversations I've had on the radio this week about Baltimore's notorious violence being directed these days randomly at people going about their daily business even in the supposedly safe "touristy" areas of the city, I reached for my copy of Anthropologist Jack Weatherford's book, "Savages and Civilization:...

Baltimore, Md., Jun 5, 2009 / 02:30 pm (CNA).- Pat Evans had big dreams when she helped coordinate a rosary-making campaign for U.S. servicemen six years ago at St. Mary in Annapolis. Still, she can hardly believe the effort has blossomed to 25 nationwide parishes and Catholic institutions and is nearing the 300,000th crafted “ranger rosary.” Evans sees the work as a mission and a way of letting the troops know they aren’t forgotten. It provides soldiers, sailors and airmen a means of holding onto their Catholic faith as they serve far from home. “It’s amazing,” Evans said. “This just...

Circuit Court Judge Dennis M. Sweeney on Thursday dismissed four perjury charges and one misconduct charge against Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon. Seven other criminal charges against the mayor, including accusations that she stole gift cards intended for the needy, still stand. The judge also dismissed the entire bribery case against City Councilwoman Helen L. Holton. The councilwoman responded in an e-mail to her supporters: "God that can do anything but fail has found favor with this child of his ... HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH!"

Go home and prepare to die. That’s what Mary Ellen Heibel’s doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington told her May 11, 2004, after they discovered that the cancer that had attacked Heibel’s esophagus in 2003 and then a lymph node later that year had spread throughout her body. Given about six months, the longtime parishioner of St. Mary in Annapolis underwent a new form of chemotherapy at The John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore as a palliative treatment to extend her life. But doctors warned it would only postpone the inevitable. At the suggestion of a Pittsburgh priest,...

The cliffhangers include 3 Sun staffers fired by phone as they covered an Orioles game -- to be blogged live by fellow reporters right there in the press booth. Oy vey.

Maryland health officials have identified six probable cases of swine flu in the state. Three affected individuals reside in Baltimore County and three in Anne Arundel County. A probable case is defined as someone who has flu-like symptoms who has traveled to an area that is affected by the swine flu. Maryland officials made the announcement Wednesday afternoon. In neighboring Delaware, health officials identified four University of Delaware students who probably have the swine flu. As of Wednesday, there were 91 cases of the swine flu in 10 states, including one death. Mexico, Canada, Spain and New Zealand have also...

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