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Four sources close to Ray Rice have told ESPN [link at URL] that the former Ravens running back acknowledged to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell during the league's investigation that he punched Janay Rice in an Atlantic city elevator, knocking her unconscious. If that is the case, it would seem to contradict Goodell's statement to CBS this week that Rice's account of the February assault in the Revel casino to investigators was 'ambiguous'. "Ray didn't lie to the commissioner," one of the sources said on ESPN's "outside the Lines." "He told the full truth to Goodell - he made it clear...

The Maryland Democratic Party filed a complaint late Tuesday alleging that the campaign of Republican gubernatorial nominee Larry Hogan is, in effect, not paying full fare for its campaign bus. For the past three months, as he pursues an upset victory over Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown (D), Hogan has been traveling the state in a rock-star-sized recreational vehicle adorned with his campaign logo. The vehicle was purchased personally by Hogan, an Anne Arundel County businessman, and his campaign is reimbursing the candidate $683.77 a month for its use, according to Hogan spokesman Adam Dubitsky. That’s the equivalent of Hogan’s...

About 50 miles outside Washington D.C. is a nuclear power plant that sits on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. It’s the sort of place the government has warned is vulnerable to a terrorist attack.But an investigation conducted by The Daily Caller found that anybody can enter the property of the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, drive through the front gates, park not far from a nuclear reactor and have no contact of any kind with security.A reporter and videographer drove from the nation’s capital last Friday to Calvert Cliffs and twice accessed the power plant site. No one...

Football's Ray Rice will probably get to keep about $25 million that he's been paid, even after he was cut by the Baltimore Ravens in the wake of domestic abuse revelationssnip ... Rice signed a 5-year, $35 million deal in 2012, $15 million of which was a signing bonus. He got another $7 million bonus in 2013, and also collected $3 million in salary over the first two years of the contract. But almost none of that $25 million can be clawed back by the Ravens or the NFL, according to Mike Ginnitti, managing editor of Spotrac, a Web site...

The Baltimore Ravens have terminated the contract of running back Ray Rice, the team announced Monday, the same day a shocking video surfaced showing the NFL star punching his then-fiancee in February. The news release from the NFL team was terse. "The Baltimore Ravens terminated the contract of RB Ray Rice this afternoon," it read. Rice had been suspended by the league for the first two games of the season, a controversial move that led to widespread criticism and to the league re-evaluating the punishment for domestic violence cases.

In wake of Ferguson shooting, leaders of black student organizations hope to raise awareness on unwarranted gun use, police brutality. Racial tensions reached a boiling point last month when police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Among the protests, rallies, police activity and arrests, students at this university — more than 800 miles from Ferguson — have been touched by the issue and are heading to the nation’s capital to work toward change. The Black Alliance Network, a group of presidents and vice presidents from every black student organization on the campus,...

Patrick Mclaw, 23, an eighth grade language arts teacher at Maryland's Mace Lane Middle School, has been placed on leave after authoring "The Insurrectionist," a fictional book that chronicles "the largest school massacre in history."

EPA would regulate most Md waters . A new rule proposal by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ... The proposed Waters of the United States rule, which would give the EPA jurisdiction over millions of miles of streams across the United States under the Clean Water Act, has generated bipartisan backlash in both chambers of Congress. A letter to the EPA from Democratic and Republican House members stated, “Although your agencies have maintained that the rule is narrow and clarifies CWA jurisdiction, it in face aggressively expands federal authority under the CWA while bypassing Congress and creating unnecessary ambiguity.” The...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US lawmakers on Friday "strongly condemned" what they called Beijing's harsh pre-Olympic crackdown in China's Muslim-populated far northwest Xinjiang region. The bipartisan leadership of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in a statement cited "credible" reports about a July 9 conviction in a closed trial of 15 minority Muslim Uighurs on terrorism charges that led to "the immediate execution of two" of them. Three others were given suspended death sentences and the remaining 10 received life imprisonment, it said. These are "abuses of due process and rule of law," said caucus co-chairmen Democrat Jim McGovern and Republican Frank...

State Has Awarded $5.5 Million in Grants for Celebrations, Research and Education A historian gives cutlass lessons to children at Fort McHenry in Baltimore on Thursday. Melissa Golden for The Wall Street Journal BALTIMORE—Maryland officials are on a campaign to elevate the profile of the War of 1812, a historically unpopular conflict that ended in a draw with Britain and has long been overshadowed by the Revolutionary and Civil wars. The state is planning a weeklong festival next month to mark the 200th anniversary of the city's defense in 1814, which inspired Francis Scott Key to pen the poem that...

Gambling might join the list of Baltimore City's problems after Horseshoe Casino opens Aug. 26. As the city touts 1,700 new jobs, millions in education funding and an expected economic boost, new billboards advertise hotlines for gambling addiction, a dark side to Horseshoe’s shiny exterior. A moral gamble? With a median household income of $35,000, Park Heights is among Baltimore City’s poorest ZIP codes. In 2012, however, it led state lottery ticket sales, with a total of $34 million, according to a Capital News Service analysis. Father Zaborowski compares gambling spending to alcohol and drug addiction, which plague the neighborhood,...

On Aug. 24, 1814, the British started a fire — and ultimately kindled a capital’s future. The day began like so many days in Washington, with a painfully long meeting marked by confusion, misinformation and indecision. The British were coming. They were on the march in the general direction of Washington. The precise target of the invaders remained unclear, but their intentions were surely malign. James Madison, the fourth president of these young United States, had raced to a private home near the Navy Yard for an emergency war council with top generals and members of his Cabinet. The secretary...

THIS PAGE has for many years urged the local football team to change its name. The term “Redskins,” we wrote in 1992, “is really pretty offensive.” The team owner then, Jack Kent Cooke, disagreed, and the owner now, Daniel M. Snyder, disagrees, too. But the matter seems clearer to us now than ever, and while we wait for the National Football League to catch up with thoughtful opinion and common decency, we have decided that, except when it is essential for clarity or effect, we will no longer use the slur ourselves. That’s the standard we apply to all offensive...

The Endangered Species Act has wreaked havoc for decades on rural communities, but a newly filed lawsuit could force San Francisco urbanites like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to share their pain. A federal complaint filed this week contends that the Hetch Hetchy Project, which supplies water to San Francisco and the Bay Area, has unfairly enjoyed an exemption from the “severe cutbacks” required in rural California in order to save endangered fish species. Craig Manson, who heads the Center for Environmental Science, Accuracy and Reliability (CESAR) in Fresno, said the lawsuit is aimed at addressing the “double standard” that...

From nearly 1,000 miles away, several Redskins players used the Monday Night Football stage to draw attention to the situation that has been unfolding in Ferguson, Missouri by running onto FedExField with their hands up in the air.

A 3-year-old girl was killed by a stray bullet Friday after a gunman opened fire in North Baltimore's Waverly neighborhood, the latest shooting in a spike in gun violence.

In what looks to be a terrible ruling for Maryland gun owners a federal judge has essentially ruled that guns that were regulated by the state of Maryland last year, including AR-15 and AK style rifles (as well as other magazine fed, semi-auto rifles with certain features), “fall outside Second Amendment protection as dangerous and unusual arms,” according to a 47 page opinion by U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake. The case in question is Kolbe et al v. O’Malley et al which named numerous plaintiffs including the Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore, Maryland Licensed Firearms Dealers Association, Maryland State...

Before Maryland’s largest casino opened less than two miles away, convenience store manager Chirag Patel was hoping to sell more lottery tickets than he was already moving. “We were doing very good business with scratch-off games,” he said. “I was trying to get another terminal” from the Maryland lottery commission. Then the massive Maryland Live opened near his Dash In gas station, and in the two years since, he estimated, his lottery ticket sales have gone down by 25 percent. And so has his commission, which used to be about $3,000 a month. Maryland lottery commission officials can commiserate. On...

A former Prince George’s County teacher won a $350,000 jury award after accusing the school system of discriminating against him because he is white. Jon Everhart alleged in his lawsuit against the Prince George’s County school board that a black principal forced him out of his job because of his race. “Justice was served,” Everhart said. “I do feel as though I have been vindicated.” Everhart, 65, speaking by phone from Ohio after the verdict in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, said he faced years of racial harassment from the Largo High School principal, who he...

EASTON — U.S. Rep. Andy Harris hosted a town hall at the Easton firehouse Wednesday night, Aug. 6, covering a wide range of topics including U.S. foreign policy, energy and immigration. Harris said that for the past six years, Congress has been focused on the economy, which was appropriate. But, over the last six years, Harris said he’s also been warning that the U.S. should be careful not to get into some kind of foreign policy disaster. Now, he said, the U.S. is in multiple foreign policy disasters — Eastern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and the South China...