Hurricane Irene has put all sorts of end-of-summer festivities on hold. Here's a rundown of some plans that have had to be reworked ahead of this weekend's hurricane:
– The dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial in Washington has been postponed until September or October.
– Amtrak canceled service in parts of the Northeast for the weekend.
– Several colleges have had to make scheduling changes. New York University pushed back the beginning of move-in week for incoming freshmen to Monday, and Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut, moved its day to Tuesday. Rutgers University has changed its move-in date for residence halls on the New Brunswick/Piscataway campus to Saturday.
– The New York Jets will start a pre-season game against the Giants earlier Saturday due to the approaching storm. Kickoff has been changed from 7 p.m. ET to 2 p.m. Saturday.
– The Hampton Classic announced on its website that the event, which was supposed to start Sunday, will be postponed since horses cannot be transported and stabled this weekend. The show will begin on Wednesday instead.
– B.B. King was supposed to play at Jones Beach on Saturday. The event has been canceled.
– The U.S. Open, which is scheduled to begin Monday, is thus far going ahead with those plans. The hurricane is forecast to have passed Flushing Meadows, New York at that point.
– Airlines are waiving cancellation and change fees because of the hurricane.
A judge ruled Monday that there was enough evidence to continue holding a U.S. man in connection with the case of a missing American woman, Aruba's solicitor general said.
Gary Giordano, 50, was arrested by Aruban police on August 5, three days after Robyn Gardner, 35, was last seen.
The decision to hold Giordano for 16 more days was issued after a jailhouse hearing Monday afternoon, Aruban Solicitor General Taco Stein said.
FULL STORYThe lawyer for a U.S. man being held in Aruba in connection with the case of a missing American woman urged authorities on Sunday to release his client.
Gary Giordano, 50, was arrested by Aruban police on August 5, three days after Robyn Gardner, 35, was last seen.
This weekend, authorities said that crews searching for the missing woman have looked in Aruban phosphate mines.
FULL STORYFBI agents on Friday night searched the Maryland home of the suspect in the recent disappearance of an American woman in Aruba, an agent said.
The search is occurring in the Gaithersburg residence of Gary Giordano, who is currently being held in an Aruban jail, FBI Special Agent Rich Wolf told CNN.
Agents, wearing vests that said FBI and carrying empty cardboard and plastic boxes, arrived about 8:40 p.m. Friday. About 15 unmarked cars could be seen on the street, as well as a Montgomery County police vehicle.
Supervisory Special Agent Philip Celestini, who was at the residence, declined to comment further on the search, citing the active investigation.
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Maryland State Police have closed Interstate 295 in Anne Arundel County in both directions after receiving multiple reports of a man armed with a rifle or shotgun along the highway.
Police say the suspect is a white male between 50 and 60 years old and wearing a black-and-red flannel shirt and blue jeans.
The suspect may have been using a hammer to break into a parked vehicle near the intersection of I-295 and Route 195, police said.
New York's, Washington's and Atlanta's federally designated drug-trafficking zones just got a little bigger.
They're called High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, to be exact, and they're designed to regionally coordinate law enforcement efforts to tackle issues such as drug production, distribution, chronic use and money laundering. Local, state and federal agencies operating in HIDTAs receive extra equipment, technology and other resources to combat drug trafficking.
Approximately 16% of the nation's counties - encompassing a whopping 60% of the population - fall within one of the 28 HIDTAs, according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
You can now add the following to the list: Orange County, New York; Mendocino County, California; Porter County, Indiana; Harford County, Maryland; Lexington and Richland counties, South Carolina; and Putnam and Mercer counties, West Virginia.
The brood is back, and it's gonna be noisy.
Trees, posts, walls and other vertical surfaces throughout the American South are being covered this spring with billions of periodical cicadas: red-eyed insects that emerge, like Chicago Cubs fans' pennant hopes, for a few weeks just once every 13 years.
The bugs are perfectly harmless to humans, unless you count annoyance caused by the remarkable amount of noise the love-starved little critters make. The male cicada's mating call has been compared to a circular saw, only more shrill - and that's just the way the lady cicadas like it. FULL POST
Shackleford won the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, edging Animal Kingdom to take the crown.
A full field of 14 horses competed in the 136th Preakness at the track at Pimlico in Baltimore, Maryland.
Animal Kingdom was favored to win after finishing first in the Kentucky Derby a couple weeks ago. It was the horse’s fourth start of the year.
The Preakness is one-third of thoroughbred horseracing’s Triple Crown, (Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes).
The body of a 17-year-old honor student from North Carolina - missing since December - has been found in a Maryland river, her father said Thursday.
Russel Barnes said that a female body found Wednesday in the Susquehanna River in Maryland is that of his daughter, Phylicia Barnes (pictured). The father said he'd learned as much after talking with authorities.
The teenage girl said she was going out to get something to eat and maybe a haircut when she left a residence in Baltimore where she'd been staying with her half-sister, according to that city's police.
Later, authorities said they feared that Barnes - who is from Charlotte - had been abducted or otherwise harmed. She'd left her debit card where she was staying, and hadn't answered her cell phone since her disappearance, her mother, Janice Sallis, told HLN's "Nancy Grace."
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When she was 14, Pearson shot and killed a 15-year-old girl, her autobiography says. Pearson served time in prison and was eventually cast in the HBO drama “The Wire.” She played “Snoop,” an assassin. In a 2007 Washington Post profile, Pearson said her experience in the streets helped her be more authentic in the show, which she said saved her life. Horror writer Stephen King once called her "perhaps the most terrifying female villain to ever appear in a television series." On Thursday, WBAL-TV reported that Pearson, now 30, was arrested with about 30 other people in an early-morning drug raid conducted by hundreds of police and federal agents.
Seventeen Baltimore police officers are accused of receiving $300 for each vehicle they steered to a repair shop not authorized to tow vehicles from accident scenes, authorities said Wednesday.
The shop's two owners, also charged, allegedly paid officers to arrange for their company, rather than a city-authorized firm, to tow damaged vehicles to their shop, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Baltimore.
"The criminal complaint alleges that the officers were secretly working for a private auto repair business when they were supposed to be working for the police department and the citizens of Baltimore," said U.S. Attorney Rod J.
Rosenstein in a statement. "Police officers cross a bright line when they take payments from private citizens in connection with their official duties."
The defendants are charged with conspiracy to commit extortion, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.
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Folks in Baltimore, Maryland, could be forgiven for doing a few double-takes at the tall stranger who rode into town Wednesday morning.
A man who looked an awful lot like the guy on the $5 bill arrived by carriage at Camden Station in a re-enactment of a secret transit by President-elect Abraham Lincoln exactly 150 years earlier.
Following his election in November 1860, Lincoln was making his way to Washington for his March 1861 inauguration when he learned of a possible assassination plot.
Editor's note: Nancy Grace's new show on HLN, "Nancy Grace: America's Missing," is dedicated to finding 50 people in 50 days. As part of the effort, which relies heavily on audience participation, CNN.com's news blog This Just In will feature the stories of the missing.
This was the 10th case, and it aired Friday night on HLN.
Phylicia Barnes, a 17-year-old honors student from Charlotte, North Carolina, disappeared in Baltimore, Maryland, on December 28 while visiting her sister. She told an acquaintance that she was hungry and might have left her sister's apartment to get something to eat. Barnes' coat and purse were gone, but her credit card was left behind.
Police are focusing on a dozen people who saw the teenager shortly before she vanished. No one has been identified as a suspect or person of interest in the case.
Forecasts show a strong snowstorm may hit major metropolitan areas in the eastern United States on Wednesday night into Thursday morning, and snow and mixed precipitation also could complicate travel in parts of the South.
Winter storm watches are in effect for southern New England (including the Boston area), all of the New York city area, and the Philadelphia and Washington areas.
Winter storm watches for Wednesday/Thursday weather also were in effect for parts of western Virginia, eastern West Virginia and Kentucky. Further south, a winter storm watch was in effect for western North Carolina, and winter storm warnings have been issued for much of Tennessee and parts of northern Mississippi and northern Alabama.
In the New York City area, 4 to 8 inches of snow will be possible Wednesday night into Thursday morning, with isolated amounts of 10 inches or more in some locations, CNN Meteorologist Sean Morris said.
Almost 50 years to the day that President John F. Kennedy in his inaugural address asked Americans to get involved by doing good, family and friends bade farewell Saturday to R. Sargent Shriver, who helped lead the way.
Former President Bill Clinton referred to Kennedy's famous line, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
Shriver, Clinton said at a funeral Mass in Potomac, Maryland, gave the perfect example of public service, both at the bright-eyed beginning of the 1960s and the cynical end of the decade and in the early 1970s.
"He showed up every day and found joy in life," Clinton said of Shriver, first director of the Peace Corps, and a force – with his late wife – behind the Special Olympics. Shriver was Kennedy's brother-in-law.
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How appropriate for the creator of the mystery novel.
The shadowy visitor who left roses and a half-full bottle of cognac at Edgar Allan Poe's Baltimore grave on the writer's birthday, every year for 60 years, has failed to appear for the second year in a row. And no one knows why.
The tradition began on January 19, 1949, according to the Edgar Allan Poe Society. The last visitation came two years ago, on the 200th anniversary of the birth of Poe, the author of such dark classics as "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Telltale Heart," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and the poem "The Raven."
Editor's note: CNN anchor Don Lemon talks about how the mother of missing 17-year-old Phylicia Barnes made an emotional plea for her daughter's safe return.
I first heard about Phylicia Barnes on Twitter and Facebook over the holidays. The North Carolina high school honor student had gone to visit her half sister in Baltimore and disappeared three days after Christmas.
Viewers were asking why they hadn't seen her story on CNN. I didn't have an answer for them. Unfortunately, I was on vacation and spending time with my family. But I immediately began to research her story. I found a few articles in the Baltimore papers but not much else.
In those reports, police speculated that the lack of national media response was because the 17-year-old is African-American. They were calling it Baltimore's version of Natalee Holloway, the Alabama teenager who disappeared in Aruba. But still not much national attention was given.
Case of missing N.C. honor student still a mystery
So, when I returned to work, I asked my producers to reach out to Barnes' family and police in Baltimore. Both agreed to appear on CNN to answer questions.
I met Barnes' mother, Janice Sallis, shortly before we went on air. She gave me a long hug and thanked me for covering her daughter's disappearance on CNN. Her grief was palpable. I couldn't imagine how she was even able to get out of bed and travel to CNN and appear on national television. She said it was only through the grace of God that she was able to make it through the past few weeks, not knowing where her child was and whether she was even alive.
Sallis told me and anyone listening that she believes her daughter is still "with us." Sallis said she believes her daughter is alive but fears she is being tortured somewhere.
And in a surprising moment, Sallis turned to the camera and made a direct and emotional plea to anyone with information on her daughter's disappearance. It was stunning and sad to watch. But I'm glad she did it.
Although police suspect the teenager would have received more coverage if she were white, her mother didn't want to dwell on that aspect. She said at this point race and social issues weren't important to her. She just "wants her baby back."
Let's hope that happens.
Maryland is poised to become the sixth state to recognize same-sex marriage as proponents say they believe they have enough support to pass such a measure in the upcoming legislative session.
The expansion of gay rights appears to have gained significant traction as Maryland's General Assembly begins its 90-day session Wednesday. Not only are Democrats optimistic about their chances of approving same-sex marriage, but a leading Republican, sensing momentum on the issue, has instead countered with a proposal to grant civil unions to gay couples.
Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley has publicly stated that he would sign a marriage bill into law. Maryland then would join Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington, D.C., in sanctioning same-sex marriages.
Maryland has been inching toward granting greater rights and protections for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Last year Democratic state Attorney General Doug Gansler offered a legal opinion recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions. "We've been marching in this direction for a while now," said Democratic state Delegate Heather Mizeur.
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[Updated at 5:45 p.m. ET] Two Maryland state employees suffered slightly burned fingers when they opened packages containing incendiary devices that set off a flash of fire, smoke and a sulfur smell, authorities said.
The packages were sent through the mail to two state office buildings. One was addressed to Gov. Martin O'Malley, said Maryland State Police spokesman Greg Shipley. The other was addressed to the Maryland Department of Transportation, officials said.
One of the packages had holiday stamps and both resembled the shape of a book, police said.
[Posted at 2:15 p.m. ET] Two Maryland state government office buildings were evacuated Thursday after small explosions left one person with minor injuries, a Maryland state government official with knowledge of the situation told CNN.
Authorities responded to devices found in the mailroom of a state House office building in Annapolis, Maryland, and at the Maryland Department of Transportation headquarters in Hanover, Maryland, said Philip McGowan, a spokesman for Annapolis Mayor Joshua Cohen.
CNN affiliate WTOP reported that two packages "gave off a small explosion or flare-up when they were opened" at two Maryland state government buildings. One package was at the Jeffrey Building on Francis Street in Annapolis and another was at the Department of Transportation building in Hanover, the station said. Hanover is southwest of Baltimore.
The Jeffrey Building in Annapolis houses the state Homeland Security office, the Secretary of State and Veterans Affairs offices and some divisions of the governor's office, according to state property managers.
The Annapolis police bomb squad and firefighters are responding, McGowan told CNN. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the state bomb squad are also rushing to the buildings, he said.
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A fire killed six people in Baltimore, Maryland, Tuesday morning, authorities said.
The blaze at a two-story home in East Baltimore was reported just before 5 a.m., said Kevin Cartwright, a Baltimore Fire Department spokesman.
Firefighters entered the home but had to evacuate because of the fast-moving fire. After extinguishing the blaze, firefighters entered the home again and found five bodies. A sixth victim was found later, Cartwright said. Some of the victims were children, he said, but did not give a number. The relationship between the victims was unknown.
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