NEED-TO-KNOW NEWS — For Friday Oct. 25

[Scroll down for full week’s compendia]
 

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:

Alice B. Toklas, lover of Gertrude Stein, was famous for her brownies and cookies, plus other foods — laced with marijuana.

They weren’t “Alice B. Toklas brownies” nor were the expected results achieved:  The students at a Northeast Baltimore middle/high school got sick.

Read More at:  Baltimore Sun

•  UNDER ARMOUR PROFITS UP, STOCK DOWN

Under Armour’s profits jumped 27 percent in the third quarter as the Baltimore-based athletic apparel and footwear brand reported income of $73 million for the three months ended Sept. 30, up from $57 million a year earlier. However on Thursday the com- pany’s stock fell $4 a share, to close at $79.98.

Read More at:  Baltimore Business Journal

•  ROYAL FARMS TO REPLACE TOWSON FIRE STATION

The 55-year-old fire station in Towson will be replaced by a large Royal Farms complex with extra restaurant and retail space if plans by Baltimore County officials to sell the site to a private developer are adopted.

Read More at:  Maryland Daily Record

•  ARUNDEL SCHOOLS’ CHIEF OF STAFF GOING TO PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY

After luring former Anne Arundel County School Superintendent Kevin Maxwell, Prince George’s County is now getting his former chief of staff. George Margolies is leaving his post in Anne Arundel Nov. 15 for a similar job in P.G. County under Maxwell.

Read More at:  Baltimore Sun

•  DEVELOPER DROPS PLANS FOR ‘ACADEMIC VILLAGE’ ON COLLEGE PARK GOLF COURSE

University of Maryland’s golf course was spared the wrecking ball Thursday as a developer abandoned his proposal to build a mixed-use “academic village” on part of the College Park property.

Read More at:  Washington Post
 

Read more »

If ‘Kicking the Can Down the Road’ ever becomes an Olympic sport, the U.S. will win a gold medal for sure.

O’Malley’s  negative  rhetoric
promises more-of-the-same
ill  will  in  national  politics

USE OF ‘ENTITLEMENTS’ TERM
DOES LITTLE TO FIX BUDGET
 
By David Maril
 
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley was mocking Republi- cans after the news that Congress had finally come to an agreement to halt the government shutdown and avoid the country’s defaulting on its loans.

His reaction to the first semblance of a bipartisan deal was to compare Republicans to cartoon characters Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner in their dealings with the Senate Democrats and the White House.

If O’Malley succeeds in getting elected U.S. President or serves as Vice President to Hillary Clinton, this negative tone won’t improve the uncivilized and hostile environment that dominates Washington.

There’s already too much finger-pointing and a refusal to deal responsibly with the pertinent issues.

While all rational U.S. citizens are breathing a sigh of relief that we have taken a step back from the economic disaster of having a financial default, all our elected officials did was sweep the problem under the rug until after the holiday season and New Year.

In a few months we’ll be going through this same nonsense again.

If “Kicking the Can Down the Road” ever becomes an Olympic sport, you can be sure Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, Barack Obama, and John Boehner will earn a gold medal for the U.S.

The moderate, mainstream politicians who used to have enough guts to take a stand and seek common ground, have become subservient to the well-financed extremists and one-issue zealots in both political parties.

Intolerance has replaced realism and getting things done. Diplomacy and class have disappeared.

Often you can even find yourself getting irritated by elected officials who are expressing a point of view you agree with because of their abrasive and confrontational over-the-top style.

Read more »

 
NEED-TO-KNOW NEWS — For Friday Oct. 18

[Scroll down for previous days’ compendia]
 

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:

Santoni’s Highlandtown Super Market, which is shutting down by the end of the month, may have its assets frozen Friday for $200,000 debt.

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 »

Washington Redskins’ owner Daniel Sny- der says neither fans nor Native Ameri- cans want the team’s name changed.

Boehner held prisoner by Tea Party;
Is Ted Cruz running for president?
Reid uses ‘rope-a-dope’ strategy

The last politician to give a direct answer
 
By David Maril
 
While wondering how many people outside of the Land of Pleasant Living realize the Edgar Allen Poe Baltimore connection with the Ravens’ team name, it’s interesting to note the following:

  It’s hard to feel a lot of sympathy for Washington, D.C. football fans if their team eventually does lose its “Redskins” name. Pressure is being put on the team and the NFL to change the name because it is considered by some people to be offensive to Native Americans.

What would be the big deal if the team does come up with another name? Fans will adjust.

Look at Baltimore. Fans here lost not only their team but the much loved franchise name of “Colts” to Indianapolis. Although it was 12 years before they regained a team with a new name, the diehard Baltimore pro-football fans adjusted and survived.

No matter what happens in the nation’s capital, Washington fans will keep their team. And as far as the warnings of economic damage to the team that could come with a name switch, consider all the marketing money that will be made selling new team regalia with a different logo.

A name change might even divert attention from the fact that the team has been a flop (1-3 so far this year) on the playing field. Perhaps Dan Snyder, the team’s billionaire owner, should be more adamant about building a winner than keeping the team’s name.

However, in an emotional letter to fans, sent to season-ticket holders Wednesday, Snyder noted that four Native Americans were on the inaugural Redskins team in 1932 with the name “Boston Braves” and that neither name was ever “a label.

“It was, and continues to be, a badge of honor,” he argued.

Read more »

 
FYI:   NEED-TO-KNOW NEWS  is a weekday/workday service.
 There will be no compendium Mon. Oct. 14 (Columbus Day).

 
NEED-TO-KNOW NEWS — For Friday Oct. 11

[Scroll down for previous days’ compendia]
 

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:

Baltimore’s historic Senator Theatre, seen here in 2005 photo, reopened Thursday evening with a showing of John Waters’ iconic 1988 Charm City film ‘Hairspray.’

After a year-and-a-half-long $3.5 million renovation, Baltimore’s historic Senator movie theater reopened Thursday with a sold-out showing of local filmmaker John Waters’ 1988 film “Hairspray.”

Read More at:  WJZ-TV (Channel 13) | Baltimore Sun

•  FORMER NAVY FOOTBALL PLAYERS FACE TRIAL IN SEXUAL ASSAULT CASE

Two former members of the U.S. Naval Academy’s football team will be court-martialed on charges that they sexually assaulted a fellow midshipman while she was allegedly incapacitated at an off-campus party in Annapolis in April 2012, the academy announced Thursday. The judge in an eight-day hearing last summer recommended that no one be court-martialed.

Read More at:  Baltimore Sun

•  URBAN PANEL REJECTS WALMART’S REMINGTON PLAN

Calling revised plans for a Walmart in Remington “a utilitarian solution without any grace to it,” Baltimore’s Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel rejected a set of drawings Thursday for the proposed project.

Read More at:  Maryland Daily Record

•  MD. PANEL FINDS 3 APPLICANTS SUITABLE FOR STATE CASINO LICENSE IN D.C. SUBURBS

Three applicants — Prince George’s Racing Ventures, LLC, a subsidiary of Penn National; Maryland Casino, LLC, a subsidiary of Greenwood Racing, and MGM National Harbor, LLC, a subsidiary of MGM — were found suitable Thursday by the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Commission to pursue a license to open a casino near Washington, D.C.

Read More at:  Maryland Daily Record

•  CITY PANEL OK’S APARTMENTS FOR EXELON’S HARBOR POINT TOWER

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