Among the members of the Open Society Institute-Baltimore’s Community Fellowship class of 2012, there are artists, vocational counselors, public and mental health experts, an urban planner, an environmental scientist and a construction foreman.

Each has a plan: partnering with an alcohol and drug center to provide employment preparation services, managing a city neighborhood recycling and trash program, using digital media to engage East Baltimore youth in arts and social justice programs, expanding an existing volunteer-based program that distributes local produce to those without healthy food sources, for example.

All told, a dozen new OSI-Baltimore fellows will receive $720,000, or $60,000 each over the next 18 months, beginning yesterday, Nov.1. The funding will allow the fellows to work fulltime on implementing their ideas....

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said at a press conference Tuesday morning that all travel restrictions in Baltimore City are lifted at noon today.

Parking restrictions in Fells Point are also lifted at noon, except for streets closed due to flooding. The Inner Harbor, pictured above, also took on flood water.

Rawlings-Blake said that Baltimore City government offices will all open beginning Wednesday, operating on normal schedules. The Charm City Circulator will resume regular service tomorrow as well.

According to a statement from the Mayor's office, Hurricane Sandy dropped six and a half inches of rain on the city and brought wind gusts up to 67 miles per hour. As of Tuesday morning, the City has received reports of more than 230 trees down — more than half of which have fallen on local roads. 

The Mayor's office is asking residents to call 311 with reports of downed trees and other storm related damage. Residents can also report downed trees by...

Under a hazy, pre-Frankenstorm moon, the 2012 Halloween Lantern Parade & Festival attracted thousands of costumed kids and families to Patterson Park Saturday night for a parade like none other in the city.

The afternoon included live music, hay rides and a children's lantern-making workshop. The parade included giant white mice on stilts, innumerable ghost and goblins, and several kickin' marching bands from Baltimore that put it all to drumming. 

The band at the start of the above video, the Raya Brass Band, however, is from Brooklyn, New York. They happened to be in town to play the Glow Ball After-Party at the Creative Alliance.

Pigtown, as most Baltimoreans know, got its name from the turn of the century practice of herding pigs from nearby rail cars though the historic neighborhood’s narrow streets — on their way to south Baltimore slaughterhouses.

Saturday’s 11^th Pigtown Festival, in homage and comic parody of neighborhood's heritage, again included its annual “running of the pigs,” which has quickly become a much-anticipated tradition.

There are other attractions at the festival, of course, live music, pie-eating contests, a pumpkin patch for kids, great BBQ, for example, as well as a mix of vendors and artisans. But there’s nothing quite like watching kids cheering on their favorite pink hog and taking a photo with one of the little guys afterwards.