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A Baltimore detective was fatally shot with his own gun just one day before he was set to testify before a federal grand jury in a case involving other officers, the city’s police commissioner said Wednesday. “Detective Suiter was going to offer federal grand jury testimony about an incident that occurred several years ago that included officers who are now federally indicted back in March,” Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said of Sean Suiter. “He was scheduled to offer grand jury testimony the day after he was murdered,” he added.

OAKLAND — For everyone who has ever passed one of this city’s sprawling homeless encampments and wondered how to help, Mayor Libby Schaaf has an answer — open your door to someone in need of shelter. The Oakland mayor is asking residents to offer their spare rooms, Airbnb units and rental properties to the city’s homeless, a radical proposition that has prompted both cautious optimism and scathing criticism from her constituents. In her annual “State of the City” speech, Schaaf challenged Oakland residents to “give up that Airbnb. Fix up that back unit,” and offer the space to people in...

FULL TITLE: 'I have been hit, kicked and restrained from behind - by FIRST-GRADERS': At least 45 Pennsylvania teachers resign in just three months due to student violence and those that remain are 'begging' for help from school board Dozens of teachers have quit their jobs in Pennsylvania's capital city amid a wave of violence from students as early as the first grade, it has emerged. The Harrisburg Education Association (HEA) said that at least 45 teachers resigned between July and October, and more have followed since. Those who remain are now demanding more help from administrators. 'I have been...

Just a decade ago, in the midst of the financial crisis, suburbia’s future seemed perilous, with experts claiming that many suburban tracks were about to become “the next slums.” The head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development proclaimed that “sprawl” was now doomed, and people were “headed back to the city.” This story reflected strong revivals of many core cities, and deep-seated pain in many suburban markets. Yet today, less than a decade later, as we argue in the new book that we co-edited, “Infinite Suburbia,” the periphery remains the dominant, and fastest growing, part of the American...

It appears that crime is so low in Detroit that police are left trying to arrest each other. On the East side of Detroit, the 12th Precinct sent in a team of special ops officers to pretend to be drug dealers. At the same time, the 11th Precinct sent in officers pretending to a drug buyers. The rest will long be the subject of law enforcement legend. Sources say that both undercover teams pulled their guns in attempting to arrest the other and ordered the other team to drop to the ground. That is when the rest of the special...

A Baltimore homicide detective was pronounced dead Thursday as cops continued a dragnet for his “cold, callous killer.” The slain officer was Detective Sean Suiter, an 18-year veteran of the Baltimore police force who had been investigating homicides for the past two years, the Baltimore Sun reported. He was shot around 4:30 p.m. by a man who approached him while engaging in “suspicious behavior," according to Fox 45 Baltimore. The shooting happened in a troubled area of Baltimore that is grappling with high crime rates. Little is known about the officer, but Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said he had a...

Editor's note: This column was co-authored by Om Narayanan.  During a CNN health-care debate on September 25, 2017 Sen. Bill Cassidy stated, “You know, first, most Planned Parenthood settings are in urban areas, urban areas that have lots of OB/GYNs…Now, as it turns out, the folks who don’t have access to those cancer screenings live in rural areas. They live in areas where there are not enough physicians. So the idea is that we want someone to have to drive — a lower-income person drive — three hours to a Planned Parenthood facility there to get her screening, or would...

ANNAPOLIS — In 2009, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley closed the visitor center at the Sideling Hill cut, the symbolic gateway to Western Maryland, as a cost-saving effort. Some saw the move as personal, or at least confirmation of how the former governor felt about the state’s rural counties. “We had only two visitor centers that were closed in the entire state under O’Malley,” said William Valentine, an Allegany County commissioner. “It wasn’t too hard to figure out what happened.” Current Gov. Larry Hogan reopened the Sideling Hill Visitor Center in 2015. Earlier this year when Hogan took the stage...

"The common greeting will be replaced with "non-gendered terms," such as "passengers," "riders," or "everyone." MTA spokesman Jon Weinstein said banning "ladies and gentlemen" would provide riders with "clearer information." "We're fundamentally changing the way we talk with riders to give them better and clearer information," he said."

An alarming discovery coming out of City Schools. Project Baltimore analyzed 2017 state testing data and found one-third of High Schools in Baltimore, last year, had zero students proficient in math. But that’s not all we found. In the midst of that troubling number, there are some bright spots. Most mornings, at Baltimore Collegiate School for Boys, start the same way – with students chanting the school’s motto in the gym. “There’s an urgency about the work we’re doing,” said Jack Pannell, the school’s founder. That urgency was born out of need. “Nine out of ten black boys in Baltimore...

During her annual State of the City address on Thursday, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf called on her constituents to open their doors and residences to the city’s homeless, as union workers picketed against her for her administration’s handling of the city’s rampant housing problem. “Give up that Airbnb. Fix up that back unit,” Schaff said, encouraging property owners to lease apartments at more affordable rates to recently homeless individuals, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “In Oakland, we don’t step over the homeless we step toward them,” Schaaf said. The city’s uptick in vagrants is tied to a general gentrification...

A woman has been savagely assaulted by teenagers wielding bats and wooden planks, amid a rash of similar attacks in Baltimore on Halloween night. Baltimore officials say there were at least four similar attacks in the city's upscale Federal Hill neighborhood on Tuesday night, involving a group of around a dozen young males and females. Cops have not released any description of the suspects, except to say that some appeared as young as 13.  'I feel lucky to be alive. It could have been a lot worse,' the female victim who was beaten and robbed told WMTW.

At least six people were killed and 15 were injured when a truck driver deliberately mowed down people in lower Manhattan Tuesday afternoon, officials tell News 4 New York. Sources initially said they were responding to a report of at least five people shot near West and Chambers streets in Tribeca, but officials say their investigation now shows the injuries may have come from the truck crash. Police sources tell News 4 that a box truck driver was traveling the wrong way down a bicycle path, injuring several people. The box truck then collided with a Home Deport rental truck,...

PATHS TO PROGRESS   Residents, who include formerly homeless people and those who were in foster care, pay low rent on houses that range from 250 to 400 square feet. After paying rent for seven years, they will be given the deeds to their homes. DETROIT—In 2013, when Keith McElvee got out of prison after a 12-year stint for a drug conviction, he returned to a neighborhood in northwest Detroit that he didn’t recognize. “This is like Beirut,” he thought. “Like a war zone.” Mr. McElvee is naturally gregarious and social-minded. Out of prison he struggled, but then found work...

There were warnings Friday about a possible upsurge in knockout attacks in which people are sucker punched for no good reason. Video of one such incident shows a woman being suddenly kicked and then punched by a man. She was knocked out cold on the ground, but rather than help her several people took out phones to take pictures. Nobody called the police. It happened in Pittsburgh more than a month ago, and something similar happened in Brooklyn on Thursday night. “As he went to tie up his dogs to confront these kids, the group distracted him from the front...

Following the removal of historical monuments across the country and the summer violence in nearby Charlottesville, Virginia Commonwealth University has said it will audit “exclusionary” symbols and monuments on campus. How will it evaluate what is exclusionary? The public university in Richmond has declined to specify for the past two months.

Fall temperatures are on the way and so are the rodents. Orkin released its Top 50 Rattiest Cities list today. For the third consecutive ranking, Chicago takes the top spot. The metro regions are ranked by the number of rodent treatments the company performed from September 15th, 2016 – September 15th, 2017. This ranking includes both residential and commercial treatments. 1. Chicago 2. New York 3. Los Angeles (+1) 4. San Francisco – Oakland (+1) 5. Washington, DC (-2) 6. Philadelphia (+1) 7. Detroit (+2) 8. Baltimore (-2) 9. Seattle – Tacoma 10. Dallas – Ft. Worth (+4) 11. Denver...

Among the 23 shot in Chicago over the weekend: a 64-year-old teacher, a young mother and a 15-year-old boy. The nearly two dozen shootings from Friday afternoon to Monday morning included nine people who were killed, two of whom were teenagers. An unintended target of a drive-by in Rogers Park, Cynthia Trevillion was killed by a stray bullet Friday night while she waited for a train at the CTA Morse stop. She was a teacher at the Chicago Waldorf School in Rogers Park. Simone D. McKay, a 26-year-old mother of two, was fatally shot in front of her Rosemoor home...

The evidence piles up that in our largest city, charter schools can help the poor, even while the city's traditional public schools continue to pile up an abysmal record. Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes found that in New York City public schools: • "The new results for charter students represent an increase of 22 days of learning in reading compared to their results four years ago. Results for math have remained the same. • "For Black and Hispanic students, the analysis indicates a significant academic advantage from charter school enrollment. • "Hispanic charter school students perform at...

A Detroit firefighter was fired before he officially began his first day on the job for bringing a watermelon to work. Robert Pattison, 41, introduced himself to his fellow firefighters at Engine 55 at the corner of Joy and Southfield in Detroit by bringing a welcome gift, WJBK reported. Second Battalion Chief Shawn McCarty calls this welcome gift “a tradition” for Engine 55’s firefighters. “It’s not mandatory, it’s voluntary,” he said. “You come in bearing gifts. The usual gift is doughnuts, but you are allowed to bring whatever you want to bring in.” Pattison, who was a probationary firefighter, decided...