SNOW HILL – Just hours after being sentenced to life in prison, convicted murderer Roberto Antonio Murillo, was served with a battery of new charges alleging sexual assault and abuse on his 16-year-old niece over a two-year period.On Monday morning, Worcester County Circuit Court Judge Theodore Eschenberg sentenced Murillo, 29, a Honduran native living illegally… Read more »

FENWICK – Tragedy struck early this week when a local woman perished in a fire early Monday evening at her home in Fenwick Island, just across the bay from north Ocean City.Shortly before 6 p.m. on Monday, Ocean City Fire Company units responded to a reported house fire on Jefferson Ave. in Fenwick Island just… Read more »

BERLIN – Shrinking “help wanted” columns in local newspapers and “closed for the winter” signs outside of businesses are normal for Worcester County in the fall, but no one expected to see Worcester’s unemployment rate hit 11.2 percent in November.The November rate is 4 percentage points higher than the 7.2 percent unemployment rate posted in… Read more »

BERLIN – With most of the communities likely to be impacted by the arrival of slots in Worcester County already jockeying for their slice of the pie, tensions are growing before a plan has been announced and it will likely fall on the local delegation in Annapolis to sort out the mess.Two months after voters… Read more »

OCEAN CITY – The devil might be in the details about whether the City Council will approve the proposed $5 million upgrade to the Convention Center, but there seems to be one facet that has been overlooked until now.City Solicitor Guy Ayres recently sent a letter to the Mayor and City Council informing them that… Read more »

BERLIN – With the calendar flipping over to 2009 this week, it isn’t too early to take at look at some of the issues facing the Maryland General Assembly when it convenes in two weeks, and with a staggering state and national economy, huge budget deficits, layoffs and furloughs, state lawmakers will certainly have a… Read more »

BERLIN – Worcester County will face hard economic times in 2009, but the budget stresses are not the only issues facing the county, with the comprehensive rezoning to complete, preparations to make for slot machine gambling and a flat real estate market sending a ripple effect throughout the local economy.The County Commissioners have been predicting… Read more »

BERLIN – While some in Berlin are worried that their property may be assessed this year at a lower value than previous years, local experts say the market is actually returning to a normal level after a price boom and that recent higher prices were anomalies.“In the boom, that was not a normal market,” said… Read more »

BERLIN – Berlin should see a draft of the new town comprehensive plan in February after waiting years for a viable version of the new document.Consultant Tim Bourcier, of engineers Davis Bowen and Friedel, who is writing the plan, said this week that the draft of the entire plan would be turned in to the… Read more »

OCEAN CITY – Despite mild weather in the resort earlier this week, winter’s cold blast is still causing problems in some areas, including a high-rise condominium in downtown Ocean City where a pipe froze and burst last week causing serious damage to dozens of units.On Dec. 23, the Ocean City Fire Company responded to the… Read more »