NEED-TO-KNOW NEWS — For Friday Oct. 18
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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY — IN BRIEF
A Voice of Baltimore compendium, local and beyond. Your weekday morning look (with links) at late-breaking news, current events, and what will be talked about wherever you may go on Friday:
After beginning the week by announcing Santoni’s Super Market would shut its doors by the end of the month for good, owner Robert N. Santoni Jr. will end the week Friday afternoon with a federal court appearance in a lawsuit filed by a produce vendor charging that the 83- year-old grocery business owes more than $200,000 for produce sold and delivered between June 1 and Sept. 23.
A federal judge has set the hearing to determine why she should not freeze Santoni’s assets pending payment of the money owed.
Asked by the Maryland Daily Record Thursday afternoon how he was doing, Rob Santoni replied: “I’ve had better weeks.”
Read More at: Maryland Daily Record
• BROWN LEADS GANSLER 2-1 IN EARLY POLL
One of the first independent polls of the 2014 gubernatorial race — conducted by Annapolis-based Gonzales Research & Marketing Strategies — shows Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown leading Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler by a margin of 41-21 percent.
Read More at: Baltimore Sun
• T. BOONE PICKENS PLANS $20M GIFT TO JOHNS HOPKINS
Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens, who suffers from macular degeneration, said Thursday he plans to give Johns Hopkins’ Wilmer Eye Institute $20 milllion, one of the largest gifts ever for the Hopkins program. Wilmer has already received about $8 million from Pickens and has named its five-story atrium for the 85-year-oil oilman.
Read More at: Baltimore Sun
• HOUSING AGENCY MOVE FROM CROWNSVILLE TO P.G. COUNTY TO COST $6M
When the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development moves next June from Crownsville, in Anne Arundel County, to New Carrollton, in Prince George’s County, it will cost the state $6 million.
Read More at: The (Annapolis) Capital
• MD.-BASED AIR MARSHAL ADMITS TAKING PHOTOS UNDER WOMEN’S SKIRTS
A federal air marshal who lives and is based in Maryland was arrested Thursday and accused of taking cellphone photographs underneath women’s skirts as they boarded a Southwest Airlines plane at Nashville International Airport. Adam J. Bartsch, 28, admitted to taking 10-12 upskirt photos of women passengers and said he’s done it more than a dozen times before.
Read More at: Associated Press
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NEED-TO-KNOW NEWS — For Thursday Oct. 17
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY — IN BRIEF
A Voice of Baltimore compendium, local and beyond. Your weekday morning look (with links) at late-breaking news, current events, and what will be talked about wherever you may go on Thursday:
• LONGSHORE STRIKE SHUTS DOWN PORT OF BALTIMORE
Launched early Wednesday morning after International Longshoremen’s Association Local 333 voted Tuesday night to reject a new contract with the Steamship Trade Association of Balti- more, which represents employers of the port’s dock workers, a strike by hundreds of local longshoremen shut down the fourth largest seaport on the U.S. East Coast.
Read More at: WJZ-TV (Channel 13) | Baltimore Sun
• U.S. SHUTDOWN ENDS AS GOP BACKS DOWN; OBAMA SIGNS BILL AFTER MIDNIGHT
After shutting down the government for more than two weeks, Congress voted late Wednesday to return hundreds of thousands of civil servants to work, reopen federal agencies, and raise the $16.7 trillion debt limit, giving President Obama almost exactly what he requested months ago. Obama signed the measure into law shortly after midnight.
Read More at: New York Times
• RUPPERSBERGER EYES MD. GOVERNOR’S RACE
Former Baltimore County Executive, Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), told the Washington Post he’ll decide next month whether to seek the Democratic nomination for governor next spring. If he runs, he’ll join Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler and State Del. Heather Mizeur in what is already a hotly contested Democratic primary race.
Read More at: Washington Post
• CAROLINE KENNEDY CONFIRMED AS AMBASSADOR TO JAPAN
The 55-year-old daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, an early Obama supporter in 2008, becomes the country’s first female ambassador to Japan.
Read More at: Reuters
• DOOBY’S SETS MOUNT VERNON OPENING NEXT WEEK
After operating a “preview space” restaurant — something of a novelty for Baltimore — in the restored Park Plaza building since July, Dooby’s will open a full-fledged cafe-restaurant at the Mount Vernon location at the end of next week.
Read More at: Baltimore Sun
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NEED-TO-KNOW NEWS — For Wednesday Oct. 16
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY — IN BRIEF
A Voice of Baltimore compendium, local and beyond. Your weekday morning look (with links) at late-
breaking news, current events, and what will be talked about wherever you may go on Wednesday:
• NAVAL ACADEMY GRAD ATTACKS WORKERS AT DISNEY WORLD; MICKEY MOUSE SPARED
The Navy pilot, a former Academy football player who graduated in 2012 and was on the Dean’s List, was apparently drunk when he attacked three Walt Disney World cast members at the Epcot theme park in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
Fortunately Mickey Mouse was spared from the aggravated sailor’s wrath.
The 23-year-old Pensacola native was charged with aggravated battery after he punched two male workers in the head and struck a female with a plastic pipe in an area off-limits to guests, according to an arrest report, which also indicated that the suspect, Austin DeVan Hill, resisted efforts to restrain him, yelled and made incoherent statements while causing a major disturbance during Epcot’s annual International Food and Wine Festival, which attracted thousands of guests.
Read More at: Orlando Sentinel
• GANSLER DENIES RECKLESS DRIVING
The Maryland attorney general told Washington TV station WJLA on Tuesday he never did any of the things State Police are accusing him of doing on the road. The State Police disagree and stand by their accusations.
Read More at: WJLA-TV (Channel 7)
• VI RIPKEN VICTIM OF ATTEMPTED CARJACKING
Cal Ripken Jr.’s mother, who a year ago was abducted at gunpoint from her home, tied up, forced into her car and driven around for 24 hours before being released unharmed, was the victim Tuesday of an attempted carjacking in Aberdeen, where she lives. She was able to foil the attack and escape unharmed. The police have a suspect in custody.
Read More at: WJZ-TV (Channel 13)
• HENSON RUNNING FOR STATE SENATE
Convicted political consultant Julius Henson, who was jailed for 30 days last year in connection with a scheme designed to keep blacks away from the polls in the 2010 gubernatorial election, is running for the Maryland State Senate against incumbent Sen. Nathaniel McFadden (D-District 45). Henson, a Republican, announced his candidacy Tuesday in an interview with Baltimore’s AFRO-American newspaper.
Read More at: Baltimore AFRO-American
• VAN HOLLEN HOUSE-RULES VIDEO GOES VIRAL
The Montgomery County Democrat’s “debate” with Republicans regarding a House of Representatives rule prohibiting Members of Congress from introducing certain legislation to reopen the federal government has been seen on YouTube by more than 1.7 million viewers.
Read More at: Baltimore Sun
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NEED-TO-KNOW NEWS — For Tuesday Oct. 15
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY — IN BRIEF
A Voice of Baltimore compendium, local and beyond. Your weekday morning look (with links) at late-breaking news, current events, and what will be talked about wherever you may go on Tuesday:
• SANTONI’S BLAMES CLOSING ON ‘STUBBORN’ MAYOR, CITY BOTTLE TAX
Baltimore’s “stubborn” Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and the city’s five-cent bottle tax have put Santoni’s Super Market out of business, the owner of the 83-year-old Highlandtown grocery store said Monday in announcing that the family-owned business would shut its doors for good by the end of the month, laying off 80 workers.
Rawlings-Blake “is stubborn,” current owner Robert N. Santoni Jr. charged, “and will not admit that the beverage tax was a wrong decision on her part.” Santoni’s grandfather and granduncle founded the business in 1930 as a “mom and pop” store in the back of their East Baltimore home. Soon to be “retired,” the younger Santoni, 48, has said he is considering a run for the Maryland House of Delegates in next June’s Democratic primary.
Read More at: WBAL-Radio (1090AM) | Baltimore Sun
• GANSLER NAMES P.G. COUNTY’S JOLENE IVEY AS LT. GOV. RUNNING MATE
In the wake of charges over the weekend that he ordered his State Police security detail to regularly break traffic laws, Maryland Attorney General and gubernatorial hopeful Douglas F. Gansler named Prince George’s County State Del. Jolene Ivey as his running mate for lieutenant governor Monday at a campaign event at a Beltsville high school. If elected, Ivey would become the first Democratic female African-American lieutenant governor in the nation.
Read More at: Washington Post
• SENATE LEADERS SAID TO BE WITHIN STRIKING DISTANCE OF DEAL TO END SHUTDOWN
Citing “tremendous progress” toward an agreement Monday to reopen the federal government, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Senate Democrats were within striking distance of a deal to end the two-week-long crisis that began Oct. 1.
Read More at: Wall Street Journal
• SAMOS OPENS AT CANTON CROSSING
The son and daughter-in-law of Greektown’s popular Samos Restaurant owners opened a new fast-casual eatery Monday at the Shops at Canton Crossing, joining three other restaurants already operating at the new 325,000-square-foot retail center on Boston Street.
Read More at: Baltimore Sun
• MUSLIM FAMILIES PUSH FOR MONTGOMERY CO. SCHOOL HOLIDAY
Citing the fact that public schools are closed for Christmas, Good Friday, Easter Monday and the Jewish holidays Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Muslim families in the county want the Islamic holy day Eid al-Adha to be made a full-fledged school holiday.
Read More at: Associated Press
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