Local Leads: 3/18/10

News you need to know

The following stories have been hand-selected by the Assignment Desk at News4:

CHELTENHAM YOUTH CENTER INVESTIGATION           
State juvenile authorities are expected to announce today that they disciplined one or more employees at the troubled Cheltenham youth detention center in Prince George's County, where a 65-year-old teacher from Bel Air was killed in February.Department of Juvenile Services Secretary Donald W. DeVore has scheduled a news conference in Baltimore, and a statement sent to the news media Wednesday said he will discuss "employee discipline" and the results of a preliminary inquiry into how Hannah E. Wheeling was killed. (Baltimore Sun)

DONATED EGGS 
A Virginia infertility clinic sparked an international ethical controversy Wednesday by sponsoring a seminar in London that gave away an attempt to get pregnant using an American woman's eggs.  More than 100 people attended the 90-minute session at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel, which was organized by the Fairfax City-based Genetics & IVF Institute, one of the United States' largest infertility clinics. As organizers had promised, one of the attendees learned at the end of the seminar that she had won a free cycle of in vitro fertilization using the eggs of a woman from the Washington area, worth about $23,000. (Washington Post)

MAN FREED FROM BURMESE JAIL
A Montgomery County activist was released from prison in his native Myanmar on Thursday after serving part of a three-year sentence for subversion and is set to be deported.  The aunt of Kyaw Zaw Lwin, also known as Nyi Nyi Aung, said he was released after 6 1/2 months in prison and taken to Yangon's international airport to catch a flight to Thailand. (Washington Post)

FREDERICK "DECK" PARTY SAFETY
Frederick city officials will hire an outside engineering firm to determine if it is safe to continue holding parties that attract as many as 1,000 people on the upper level of the Carroll Creek public parking garage. The study will be the fourth one conducted in the last 12 years to determine whether the deck can safely hold crowds of people, and will particularly focus on "deck parties" that are part of the annual In the Street celebration. (Frederick News Post) http://www.gazette.net/stories/03182010/frednew144438_32547.php

TRANSGENDER SUING MONTGOMERY COUNTY                   
A transgender aide to a Montgomery County councilwoman is suing the county for $5 million, saying it broke the anti-discrimination law she helped write. Now she said the county's ethics commission broke that law in its investigation of Beyer's opposition to a citizens group that tried to overturn the same law. Beyer already filed a complaint with the county's human rights office, but she said that complaint is being ignored, prompting her to file a lawsuit.  (Examiner)

MANURE TO ELECTRICITY
A bill sponsored by a Frederick County delegate would make it more economically feasible for farmers produce electricity from manure. Delegate Joseph Bartlett, a Republican, is proposing a measure that would allow energy generated on a farm to be used at every building on a farm -- not just one meter. That will allow farmers to use all of the electricity they generate. (Frederick News Post

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