The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • A1

THE SUN BALTIMORE LIGHT FOR ALL Informing more than 1 million Maryland readers weekly in print and online TUESDAY Price $2. Our 178th year, No. 195 July 14, 2015 j' Skepticism, despair as killing's continue Residents question city response; four-day death toll stands at 12 EVAN VUCCI ASSOCIATED PRESS President Barack Obama said of the inmates whose sentences he commuted, "Their punishments didn't fit the crime." Obama commutes 46 drug sentences Move is part of drive to reform criminal justice By Timothy M. Phelps and Colin Diersing Tribune Washington Bureau WASHINGTON President Barack Obama commuted the sentences of 46 nonviolent drug offenders Monday, doubling the total number of clemencies he has granted as the administration seeks to correct what many see as the wrongs inflicted by mandatory-minimum prison sentences. They included Norman O'Neal Brown, a Prince George's County man who was sentenced to life in prison in 1993 on charges of possessing and distributing crack cocaine.

The latest clemencies brought Obama's total commutations to the largest figure of any president since Lyndon B. Johnson. Decades after the tough-on-crime era of the 1980s and 1990s, the Obama administration is hoping to combine the president's commutation powers with reforms to Justice Department sentencing policies and support from sympathetic Republicans in Congress to change sentencing policies that have had a disproportionate effect on See SENTENCES, page 7 LLOYD FOX BALTIMORE SUN City police officers and detectives canvass the scene of a fatal shooting Monday in the 800 block of N. Belnord Ave. in East Baltimore.

Video online Go to baltimoresun.com for video on the violence that spilled over from the weekend into Monday. Baltimore this month, putting the city on pace to eclipse the number of 42 killed in May the deadliest month in 25 years. City and police officials offered few new details Monday about the 24-hour "war room" they announced Sunday. They said police, prosecutors and federal law enforcement partners are working together to target and build cases against violent repeat offenders. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and interim Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said they would schedule community meetings to address violence soon, but answered questions about the war room's first day of operations Monday only in See KILLINGS, page 8 By Kevin Rector and Justin Fenton The Baltimore Sun A day after city and law enforcement leaders announced a new plan to combat a surge in violent crime, die killings and shootings continued Monday, leaving residents skeptical that anything they do will turn the tide.

"It's a war zone down here," said Thomas Ferguson, 26, a lifelong resident of North Belnord Avenue, where a man was shot in the head in broad daylight Monday. The violent weekend spilled into the new week with the killing on North Belnord in the Madison-Eastend neigh- borhood and another on Cardenas Avenue in Belair-Edison, where police said a man was shot several times. That brought the number of shootings since Friday to 25 and homicides to 12, as of early Monday evening. Police have not identified any of the victims from the weekend or announced any arrests. Twenty-four people have been killed in Nick Mosby abruptly cancels Phila.

fbndraiser SUMMARY OF THE NEWS Against trend earlier high school start times WALKER'S IN: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's announcement Monday makes him the 15th Republican to enter the 2016 presidential race. Walker, 47, said he is a warrior for conservative causes and a winner who By Yvonne Wenger The Baltimore Sun City Councilman Nick Mosby abruptly canceled a fundraiser scheduled for tonight in Philadelphia that used images of his wife, Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby, to market the event Mosby said Monday he didn't know the event organizers had been promoting the event with his wife's photo or that the fundraiser was being billed as supporting "this political power couple that has been recently catapulted onto a National stage." Within an hour of being asked about the event, Mosby said, he canceled it. A spokeswoman for Marilyn Mosby said the state's attorney never approved the language used in the promotional material and didn't know where the organizer got her photo.

"We didn't provide any images," Nick Mosby told The Baltimore Sun. "None of the wording was ever approved by the campaign. The event is canceled. I feel very strongly that this isn't shaping up to be the original event that was communicated." See MOSBY, page 11 can turn them into policy. NEWS PG 7 CLOSE ENCOUNTER: The New Horizons spacecraft meets Pluto today.

NEWS PG 2 11 Balto. Co. buildings to move up opening times By Christina Jedra The Baltimore Sun While parents, educators and researchers are lobbying school administrators across the state and nationwide to set later start times for high school students, one area district is going in the other direction. When classes resume in Baltimore County in August, several schools will start five to 15 minutes earlier than last year. The county board of education approved new hours at 18 schools last month to accommodate changes to bus schedules.

Seven schools will start later, but 11 most of them in the northwestern part of the county are set to begin five to 15 minutes earlier. Those changes buck a national movement to promote later school start times for teenage students. The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended that middle and high schools push their first classes of the day back to 8:30 am. or later. The academy warns that adolescent sleep deprivation can hurt academic performance, cause physical and mental health problems, and increase the risk of car accidents involving drowsy drivers.

The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reiterated those concerns in a report to state officials in December, and recommended schools begin classes no earlier than 8 am. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has also backed later start times. Several Maryland districts are studying See SCHOOLS, page 11 SOME STORMS 85 70 HIGH LOW More storms Wednesday SPORTS PG 8 bridge sports 7 lottery news 4 movie directory news 9 horoscopes news 9 obituaries news 10 opinion news 12 puzzles md. business 5, sports 7 tonight on tv md.

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