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At a time when home prices nationally are, if anything, showing signs of being too strong, the picture in Baltimore is the opposite. According to CoreLogic, prices in the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson metro area were down 8% in the year ending June, the worst showing of the 100 biggest metro areas. Nationally, prices rose 6.5% in the 12 months ending June, CoreLogic says. What’s driven that is a huge rise in foreclosure sales. Foreclosures — known in the business as real estate owned — accounted for 52% of all transactions in Baltimore in May — dwarfing the national average in the low...

OBAMA COMPARES KENYA’S ANTI-GAY LAWS TO JIM CROW President Obama and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta clashed at a joint press conference in the African state during his official visit on Sunday: Obama harshly criticized Kenya’s record on issues related to homosexuality. “When you start treating people differently not because of any harm they are doing to anybody, but because they are different, that’s the path whereby freedoms begin to erode,” he said. “Bad things start to happen.” The President also compared Kenya’s laws to Jim Crow-era segregationist policies.

The union representing state transit police in Baltimore says commanders and agency administrators made "detrimental and disturbing" decisions that endangered officers during April's riots — adding another layer of criticism to the response by law enforcement leaders. In a letter, AFSCME Local 1859 President Jerome Damon called on the Maryland Transit Administration to investigate the agency's handling of the April 27 unrest, noting that four officers dispatched without protective gear to a West Baltimore subway station had to be rescued by an armored vehicle after crowds set two MTA police vehicles and the nearby CVS pharmacy ablaze. The concerns —...

Baltimore’s hotel business is slumping this summer, just a year removed from a banner season for tourism and reflecting the lingering impact of April’s riots. Hotels in downtown’s central business district posted an average occupancy rate of 73.3 percent in June, down from 82.5 percent in the year-ago month, according to data from travel research firm STR Inc. The occupancy rate in May dropped 17.1 percent to 64.7 percent. As colleague Camille Harrison and myself reported in Friday’s cover story of the BBJ, hotels aren’t the only businesses feeling the sting from the riots. Museums and attractions are struggling, and...

Rachel Dolezal, the local NAACP president who resigned after it was revealed that she is white and not black, is now braiding hair to make ends meet after also losing a part-time university teaching job. Dolezal told Vanity Fair magazine that her last check from Eastern Washington University in June and she now sees several clients a week for braids and weaves to support herself and her 13-year-old son. Dolezal, 37, told the magazine she still identifies as a black woman - despite the fallout that drew national attention when her estranged parents outed her as Caucasian - and that...

St. Louis County prosecutors will soon decide whether to bring trespassing charges against two journalists arrested while covering demonstrations last summer in Ferguson, Missouri. The Huffington Post’s Ryan Reilly and The Washington Post’s Wesley Lowery recently learned that there are open investigations related to their Aug. 13, 2014, arrests. The Police Department filed incident reports in late April of this year describing the reporters as trespassing when they were seized at a McDonald's restaurant. A conviction on trespassing in St. Louis County can result in a jail sentence of up to one year, a fine up to $1,000, or both....

An older couple walking on Sawyer Avenue in the Little Village neighborhood slowed as they approached the red police tape, and their eyes met those of two young officers standing inside the crime scene. "Pasale, pasale," the officers said to the couple. "Pass." They ducked under the tape and stayed on the sidewalk, away from a cluster of shell casings and shattered glass. A 21-year-old man had been gunned down there. He was the 32nd person shot -- and the sixth killed -- over the weekend. In all, 10 were shot between Sunday afternoon and early Monday morning, nine more...

It was a deadly weekend on the streets of Baltimore City, with police investigating four homicides and ten shootings. Police say two people died of shootings Saturday: a 40-year-old found suffering from gunshot wounds in the 1800 block of N. Durham Street and an 18-year-old found in the 4300 block of East Wabash Avenue. Police say two more people died Sunday. There were five shootings on Saturday. Baltimore City Police also say two men shot on Friday have died.

The new owners of a 21-unit, low-rent apartment complex in Healdsburg are evicting all the mostly Latino tenants with plans to fix it up and in some cases more than double the rents, prompting a community outcry as well as highlighting the challenge of providing affordable housing in a hot real estate market. “This town is built on the backs of those people, and those people who trusted me for 30 years to teach their children,” said Judy Sanderson, a retired teacher and self-described “privileged white woman” who said it feels like the new owners are “targeting Hispanic families.” Laura...

Eleven people were shot Monday in Baltimore following a Sunday that saw two shot dead in the city. At 11:07 p.m. Monday, police found a 22-year-old man shot in the buttock in the 2900 block of Mosher Street in the Franklintown Road neighborhood. At 11:35 p.m., police found a 26-year-old man shot multiple times in both arms. At 6:59 p.m. police officers responded to a report of a walk-in shooting victim at an area hospital, police said. There they found two victims being treated by staff. A 30-year-old woman was shot in the face and a 15-year-old male was shot...

FERGUSON, Mo -- An effort to recall the mayor of Ferguson in the wake of last summer's shooting death of Michael Brown has fallen short. County Board of Elections says Ground Level Support was 27 votes short of the required 1,814 valid signatures needed to force an election to recall Mayor James Knowles III. Knowles, who's white, was criticized for comments he made after last August's shooting death of Brown by white police officer Darren Wilson.

By charging six police officers in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray, State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby restored order to Baltimore "before the entire city became an armed camp or was burned to the ground," her office argues in a new court filing. Attorneys for the officers say Mosby's public announcement of the charges tainted the pool of potential jurors for their trial. They have asked a judge to throw the charges out. But Michael Schatzow, Mosby's top deputy, said her announcement from the steps of Baltimore's War Memorial was appropriate in a city still reeling from a night...

First the flag, now monuments honoring the Confederacy may be coming down. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is pushing for the name of a park in the city to be changed. The park is named after Robert E. Lee and it is the latest push to erase history related to the Confederacy in the wake of the deadly church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina last week. A member of the Baltimore chapter of the Sons of the Confederate Veterans said the hatred of the flag is an attempt to hide history. Elliot Cummings told WBAL, "We are becoming like the Taliban....

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Dozens of looters and thousands of dollars worth of drugs stolen. The DEA launches billboards to find those who wreaked havoc on Baltimore pharmacies during the Freddie Gray riots. The billboards are along I-83 and I-95, including one near Hanover Street. Agents say 30 pharmacies were ransacked and close to 300,000 doses of drugs were stolen. The DEA is desperate to put the thieves behind bars. One pharmacy after the other—bizarre surveillance video from April 27 shows looters grabbing every drug they can get their hands on. Some communities were left with no medication. “Everyone came in...

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, addressing an alleged slowdown in police activity since six officers were charged in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray, said Wednesday that she had told police to do their jobs. Rawlings-Blake said Wednesday that she has told the Fraternal Order of Police — the police union — that officers need to do their jobs or face internal discipline. "We know there are some officers who we have some concerns about," Rawlings-Blake told reporters at City Hall. "I've been very clear with the FOP that their officers, as long as they plan to cash their paycheck, my...

NEWARK, NJ — The Rev. Al Sharpton was honored for his civil rights and social justice work during a special ceremony in Newark. “We believe that Rev. Al Sharpton deserves recognition. We want to give him his roses while he’s still alive,” Baraka said. “We don’t want to wait until he’s long gone before we say thank you for standing in the gap. When people keep their mouths shut, his is open.” Sharpton was also presented with keys to four other New Jersey cities: Hillside, Irvington, East Orange and Orange.

Controversy is swirling around one of the region’s most prominent civil rights activists, with family members saying the local leader of the NAACP has falsely portrayed herself as black for years. Rachel Dolezal is president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, chair of the city’s Office of Police Ombudsman Commission, and an adjunct professor at Eastern Washington University. Dolezal’s mother says the family’s ancestry is Czech, Swedish and German, with a touch of Native American heritage. Dolezal has identified herself in application materials as white, black and Native American. Police say they have also found little evidence to back...

The Drug Enforcement Administration on Thursday released nearly 40 more photos of suspects caught looting pharmacies during the rioting last month. Some suspects are smiling, some are clutching merchandise. Some of the photographs appear to be taken from surveillance cameras at the entrance to the stores, while others show people standing among shelves of prescriptions. Authorities said they have received credible information in response to some of the earlier released photographs but have not yet made any arrests. Anyone with information about the people in the photos is asked to call police or Metro Crime Stoppers, at 1-866-7-LOCKUP.

One in four Baltimore residents lives in a "food desert," according to a new study released Wednesday by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who pledged to improve access to affordable and healthy food. In the 2015 Food Environment Map Report, researchers defined food deserts as areas where distance to a supermarket exceeds a quarter-mile; the median household income is at or below 185 percent of the federal poverty level; more than 30 percent of households lack a vehicle; and there's a low score on the so-called healthy food availability index. "We've never analyzed the food environment at this level before," Rawlings-Blake said,...

A group that wants to recall the mayor needs to try again, after more than half the signatures on the recall petition were declared invalid, an official said on Tuesday. The group of activists pushing for the recall of Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III submitted 1,008 valid signatures - 806 short of the 1,814 needed to get a recall on a city ballot. A total of 1,125 signatures were declared invalid for various reasons - 562 were not registered voters in St. Louis County, and 366 were not registered voters in Ferguson. An organizer known as "Ferguson Activist Phil" said...