Buzz

Baltimore is one of 17 cities to receive a recent urban revitalization grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

"The money will go to Jubilee Inc., which plans to redevelop Pedestal Gardens, a 203-unit, federally subsidized housing complex.

Cummings will join Sen. Ben Cardin and other officials to detail the grant Friday morning. West Baltimore is part of the Democratic congressman's district."

Full story here.

Ravens safety Tom Zbikowski isn't taking the NFL Lockout without a fight. Several fights, actually.

With football on the back burner for now, Zbikowski's boxing career is in full swing.

"I want to be taken serious," the 193-pound Zbikowski said by phone from his home in Arlington Heights, Ill. "The caliber of opponents that I'm facing, people who don't know boxing will think that it's not serious."

Though Zbikowski is a fourth-year safety in the NFL, he is a raw prospect as a boxer. He made his pro debut five years ago on the undercard of the Cotto-Paulie Malignaggi fight at Madison Square Garden. Because of his NFL career, he hasn't been able to devote any time to advancing his boxing career.

While some of his fellow NFL players may like to try their hand (and fists) at boxing, Carl Moretti, the chief of boxing operations for Top Rank, Zbikowski's promoter, says it's not as easy as it looks.

"This guy is light years ahead of everybody in the league," Moretti said. "He had an extensive and solid amateur background. He had 90 fights in the Chicago Golden Gloves. That's pretty good stuff whether you're a football player or a kid looking to turn pro. He knows what he's looking at in the ring. He's followed the sport and he's passionate about it."

Get the rest of the story here.

Though only a sophomore at Patterson High, Aquille Carr is quickly making a name for himself in the basketball world.

"He has a bunch of nicknames: The Computer, Aquille the Deal and, most notably, The Crime Stopper.

Why Crime Stopper? Because when Carr is on the court, crime comes to a halt around Baltimore as everyone flocks to see him play.

"I don't even remember all the nicknames, they call me so much stuff," said Carr, something of a YouTube sensation � one video of his highlights has registered nearly a half-million hits.

Eight times this season, Patterson Coach Harry Martin said, the Clippers moved home games from their smallish gymnasium to Morgan State University to accommodate larger crowds. When the team plays at its school, fans start lining up early in the afternoon to get a seat.

Then you watch Carr play, and it becomes quickly apparent that he's a player whose substance meets the hype.

"We talked about trying to ignore a lot of the show," Eleanor Roosevelt Coach Brendan O'Connell said Thursday night after the Raiders lost to Patterson, 67-59, in a Maryland 4A semifinal. "But he's really good."

Read the full story at the Washington Post.

BWI has joined a select list of airports approved to provide charter flights to Cuba.

"Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport, Dallas/Fort Worth, New Orleans, Pittsburgh and San Juan all announced Wednesday they had been cleared by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Travel to the island, which is just 90 miles from the southern coast of Florida, has been barred since shortly after Fidel Castro came to power. However, President Obama has eased travel restrictions to Cuba, allowing passengers with close relatives on the island or traveling for educational or religious purposes to go."

Full story from The Hill.

Despite what appeared to be solid momentum early in the legislative session, a bill that would have legalized same-sex marriage in Maryland failed to pass.

"When the state Senate passed a bill to legalize same-sex marriage last month, supporters and some opponents believed the controversial legislation had cleared its highest hurdle, and had the momentum to reach the governor's desk.

The failure of the measure to find the necessary support in the traditionally more liberal House of Delegates caught both sides by surprise � and sets up the lower chamber as the new battleground."

The full story is over at the Baltimore Sun.

Years of tradition will soon come to an end in Maryland as Verizon plans to discontinue its weather and time services.

"The last telephone-based time and weather services in the Unites States are getting the ax, telephone company officials say.

Verizon says its telephone dial-in weather and time services in the Washington, D.C., and Maryland area codes -- the last such surviving services in the nation -- will end this summer.

Callers to the weather line are hearing a terse announcement: "Effective June 1, 2011, Verizon will no longer offer time-of-day and weather forecast services."

A spokeswoman for Verizon said the end of call-in services, with a history going back to the days of rotary dial telephones in the 1930s, has been coming for a long time."

Read more at UPI.

Most folks in Baltimore probably know Tom Zbikowski as a safety on the Ravens. What you may not know is that football isn't his only sporting passion. He's also a fairly accomplished boxer.

"Zbikowski played college football at Notre Dame from 2003 to 2007. He went by the name "Tommy Z" during the build up to his lone pro fight, coming into the ring to the Notre Dame fight song. He needed just 49 seconds to knock out Robert Bell at Madison Square Garden in New York in June 2006 on the undercard of another Cotto fight -- a junior welterweight title defense against Paulie Malignaggi.

It was a one-shot deal for Zbikowski, who played the next season for the Fighting Irish and was eventually selected by the Ravens in the third round of the 2008 NFL Draft.

For the fight against Bell, Zbikowski fought as a heavyweight, weighing 214 pounds. For the fight next week, he plans to fight slightly below 200 pounds in the cruiserweight division, Moretti said"

Read the whole story at ESPN. To watch Zbikowski's first (and so far only) pro fight, see below.

Camera crews took to the streets last week to shoot the pilot for VEEP, an HBO series starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Over at Radar Redux, Juliette Eisner wonders what it might mean for the local film industry.

"HBO and the Baltimore film production community have a long standing, amicable relationship, playing a large part in VEEP's interest in coming to Charm City. In a statement announcing the show's production, Governor O'Malley declared, "Maryland has had a long and successful relationship with HBO. We are pleased to welcome HBO back to our state for another first-class filming experience." In reality, however, even if the city does provide a dynamic environment for certain productions, the Baltimore film industry has been having a hard time as of late."

Head over to Radar Redux to read more.

Over at Voice of America, the folks behind their "Learning English" series have become the latest national journalists to take note of Baltimore's quirky linguistic habits.

"Baltimore is the home of a quirky, accented English spoken in some neighborhoods. Bawlmerese is a strong regional dialect that can be difficult to understand, even for native English speakers.

In some areas of Baltimore, women call almost everyone "Hon" -- short for Honey. Some Baltimoreans leave out letters in many words, like saying "Bawlmer" instead of Baltimore. And sometimes they add letters. For instance, they might call the nearby Patapsco River the "Patapsico."

Read the story and hear the audio report here.

Francis Scott Key's original Star Spangled Banner was in Annapolis for a spell -- its first known trip outside of Baltimore. Now it's back home and on display.

"It's kept in an argon gas case for preservation. On Tuesday, when caretakers moved it from Baltimore to Annapolis - its first known trip out of the city - they put it in an armored truck followed by two state police cars and a half-dozen Baltimore police officers on motorcycles.

Key wrote the poem in September 1814 during the Battle of Baltimore at Fort McHenry, where it will return Wednesday after the trip to Annapolis for a reception for the General Assembly organized by the National Anthem Celebration Foundation. For three months starting Thursday, the public can view Key's original manuscript at the Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine."

Get the full story here.

Abraham Lincoln made a secret visit to Baltimore 150 years ago, and last week an actor rode into town to recreate it. A blogger at CNN took note:

"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."

Read the full post here.

A staff writer for the Washington Post took in the BSO's performance of "Magic Flute" and liked what she saw.

"Thus Marin Alsop took the podium for a semi-staged "Magic Flute," performed with an energetic narrator in lieu of the spoken dialogue, and featuring - in another community-building move - several members and alumni of Washington National Opera's Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program. The result (which comes to Baltimore for two more performances Saturday and Sunday) was perfectly credible, and reasonably enjoyable."

Full review here.

Heisman Trophy winner and NFL prospect Cam Newton has signed with Baltimore's Under Armour.

From Business Insider:

"Cam Newton spent the entire 2010 season as both a Heisman Trophy winning quarterback and as a throwing, walking, and running billboard for Under Armour.

But while Auburn University took in nearly $11 million for those uniform advertisements, Newton got a scholarship and expenses.

Fair deal? Maybe, maybe not. But now Newton will finally get his slice of the Under Armour pie."

Read more.

A Johns Hopkins University program providing grants to folks who live near their work earned a favorable mention from the Detroit Free Press.

"While Baltimore has a Live Near Your Work Program that provides up to $2,000 for settlement and closing costs for employees of participating companies, those who work for Johns Hopkins University or Johns Hopkins' various health facilities can receive up to $17,000.

There are three levels of grants -- $17,000, $10,000 and $6,000 -- available to all of the institutions' 45,000 employees, with the higher amounts going to home buyers in those areas where purchases could have the biggest effect."

Full story here.

Baltimore native Matt Porterfield's name continues to grow. His most recent work, "Putty Hill," just received a favorable review in the New York Times:

"'Putty Hill' doesn't strive for overt social commentary. It drops you into a world that the director, who grew up in the area, knows firsthand: a suburban fringe of stasis, downward mobility and lowered expectations. The karaoke memorial is a low-key, almost perfunctory affair whose dominant mood is a sad sense of shared community."

Read the full review here.