WYPR News

They came in the rain, soaked from head to foot: some with face paint dripping down, some dressed in matching jumpsuits or some,  just in simple t-shirts and shorts. And they came with their toilet bowl race cars - yes, toilet bowl race cars...exquisitely engineered to roll down Chestnut Ave. in Hampden one after another, like a parade displaying Baltimore’s sense of humor.

Twenty-three pilots boarded their homemade toilet bowl vessels and zoomed down the street while crowds dressed in rain gear and carrying umbrellas cheered them on.

Let’s say you buy a new TV for $500 dollars. Maryland’s current 6-percent sales tax would add $30 on top of that.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ben Jealous announced Thursday that if elected, he would cut the state sales tax to 5.75 percent, saving you $1.25 on that TV purchase.

The two candidates running for Baltimore County Executive agree on this: it’s going to cost a lot to modernize the schools. 

There’s another thing they have in common:  Republican Al Redmer and Democrat Johnny Olszewski aren’t providing many details on how to pay for promises they’re making.

Tuesday’s 105-degree heat index kept 10 Baltimore County schools without air conditioning closed on the first day of the school year. In Baltimore City, more than 60 schools dismissed students early — some before noon — as a result of the heat.

The lack of air conditioning is part of a larger political fight over school funding.

Public schools are opening across the state Tuesday.

The academic year begins with Baltimore County officials grappling with how to keep the district’s roughly 114,000 students safe.

An independent panel of experts released the findings from its investigation into the death of Det. Sean Suiter. After hundreds of hours of analysis, they’ve come to the conclusion that the officer died by suicide.

When police found Detective Sean Suiter shot dead in Harlem Park last November, they cordoned off the neighborhood as they searched for the shooter. Residents had to show ID to get in or out.

Hot, sweaty classrooms have been a hot button issue in Baltimore County for years. 

In past years, dozens of schools didn’t have air conditioning. So when the temperature hit 90 degrees, those schools would close. And that would have a ripple effect, closing schools throughout the county.

But starting with the new school year, that will change.

Researchers at the Maryland State Archives rolled out their latest findings on the Maryland 400, the Revolutionary War unit that fought at the Battle of Brooklyn in August 1776, at the State House Sunday.

Their project, called “Finding the Maryland 400,” includes detailed biographies that tell some of the soldiers’ stories for the first time. And they announced it with fanfare, featuring a color guard in revolutionary war uniforms marching into the historic state house.

Fomer Baltimore County School Superintendent Dallas Dance was released from jail Monday after serving four months for perjury.

In a series of tweets Monday morning, Dance apologized. Dance said he is ready to begin a new chapter in the book of life. 

Historians at the Maryland State Archives are piecing together new information on the soldiers of the Maryland 400, the Revolutionary War outfit that fought in the Battle of Brooklyn in August 1776.

They’re learning more about the lives of some of those soldiers whose vastly outnumbered unit took heavy losses in the first and biggest battle of the war holding off the British while the rest of George Washington’s army regrouped at Brooklyn Heights.

In his quest for the Democratic nomination for governor, Ben Jealous raised more than $2 million. Nearly half of his roughly 20,000 donors had addresses in California, Maryland or New York. But several dozen donors listed addresses outside the United States.

Some Baltimore City Council members want fewer police patrolling around Johns Hopkins University and Hospital. But Mayor Catherine Pugh rejected the idea at her Wednesday news conference.

“First of all Hopkins does not exist on an island," she said. "It’s not 20 miles outside of Baltimore.”

Baltimore has abandoned its troubled BikeShare program in favor of electric scooters and bikes. The city is launching a six-month pilot program with the scooters while shutting down the problem plagued BikeShare program after less than two years.

Mayor Catherine Pugh announced the move Wednesday calling it the "wave of the future" in transportation.

Earlier in the day, Interim Police Commissioner Gary Tuggle said he was “disappointed” and “disturbed” by the video of Officer Arthur Williams striking civilian Dashawn McGrier in the head. Then Mayor Catherine Pugh tweeted she was demanding “answers and accountability.”

Monday night, City Council president Jack Young said the incident “causes great concern with the community when we’re trying to rebuild police-community relations.”

“It’s like the officer just lost it,” he said in the monthly meeting of the council’s Public Safety and Budget committees with the police department. “But this is the type of behavior that we can’t have.”

Interim Baltimore Police Commissioner Gary Tuggle said Monday he was “disappointed” and “disturbed” by the viral video of one of his officers beating up a civilian Saturday on Monument Street.

It pointed out, he said, “another deficiency in our training that we can actually learn from.”

Violent crime increased by more than 14 percent in Baltimore County last year. As the general election race for county executive gets under way, both candidates say they have plans to improve public safety in the county.

A new poll of likely Maryland voters shows Democrat Ben Jealous lagging behind Republican Gov. Larry Hogan by nine points. Commissioned by Jealous’s campaign, the poll also shows that about a third of voters don’t know who he is.

Last week, Governor Larry Hogan sharply criticized Pennsylvania and New York for not doing enough to slow pollution and trash flowing down the Susquehanna River into the Chesapeake Bay. Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Environmental Protection fired back, calling the remarks “careless and insensitive.”

But the two were a bit more conciliatory at Tuesday’s Chesapeake Executive Council meeting.

Record rainfall across the Northeast in July has clogged the Chesapeake Bay and its beaches with logs, debris and other trash. And it’s required a herculean effort to clean it up.

Some 50 volunteers showed up at Sandy Point State Park, just north of the Bay Bridge, over the weekend to help park rangers clear those beaches.

Two breweries are opening to the public in the Baltimore area, one Friday and the other several weeks ago. 

One company, an international giant, is opening in Southeast Baltimore County. The other is a relatively small operation, born and bred in Woodberry in Baltimore City.

But despite their differences, both have similar plans on how to get you to buy their beer. And one of them, Dublin-based Guinness, wants you to think of it as a local beer.

The Baltimore County Council was warned Tuesday that it risks losing police and corrections officers and firefighters to nearby counties if it doesn’t give them a tax break. 

The council is weighing whether it’s worth the millions the county would lose in tax money.

Jarrod Ramos, the man charged in the mass shooting at the Annapolis Capital newspaper, was expected to make his first appearance in court Monday. But his appearance was canceled after his lawyer filed papers on his behalf.

Ramos was scheduled to appear before Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge William Mulford, who, under normal circumstances, would read Ramos his rights, explain the charges against him and the maximum penalty for each count and tell him of his need for a lawyer.

Iris is a single mom who worked in a factory in Honduras. She tried twice to get to the United States. She and her son, Edmondson, made it on June 14th, crossing the border at El Paso, Texas.

But the next day, Edmondson’s sixth birthday, they were separated. Immigration officials put Iris in a Texas jail and her son in a facility in Arizona. 

She says she wasn’t able to communicate with him from jail.  Even worse, she didn’t know where he was.