An amazing rescue has been caught on tape. A Gaithersburg police officer grabbed a man’s wrist just as he tried to jump to his death and held on until back-up arrived.

A police officer’s dash cam caught it all go down Tuesday afternoon. A man scaled the eight-foot fence, and then tried to jump into oncoming traffic from an overpass. You see the guy struggling to break free so he can fall some 40 feet to the pavement.

A 72-year-old Waldorf man suffered burns on 50 percent of his body Thursday after his clothes accidentally ignited as he was using an accelerant to get a fire going in his front yard, according to authorities.

Fifteen firefighters from the Hughesville Volunteer Fire Department and Rescue Squad went to the Bassford Road address at about 12:40 p.m.

The St. Mary’s County Welcome Center, located on South Rte. 5 in Charlotte Hall, will be open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. beginning on Thursday, March 25.

The Center’s trained staff can provide information on accommodations and destinations and answer questions. The Welcome Center also serves as a welcome respite for business and vacationing travelers to the County.

The Maryland Budget and Tax Policy Institute has updated its on-line “Maryland Budget Game.” State lawmakers in Annapolis have completed their hearings on the budget and are making their final budget decisions. The budget options available to players in the Maryland Budget Game now include proposals actually made by Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley in his proposed budget, and alternatives suggested by GOP legislators.

For example, players may choose to fund a $5000-per job tax credit for employers, impose furlough days for state employees, or a transfer funds out of a reserve out of local income tax revenues, all features of the Governor’s proposed budget: all features of O’Malley’s budget plan.

The Charles County Sheriff’s Office today released the following incident and arrest reports.

THIRD-DEGREE SEX OFFENSE: On March 17 at 7:53 p.m., officers responded to the 3300 block of Western Parkway in Waldorf for the report of a sexual assault. A preliminary investigation revealed the victim was walking on Western Parkway when an unknown male approached, pulled her into a wooded area and sexually assaulted her. The victim struggled with the suspect who then fled. K-9 officers and detectives responded to the area and processed the scene for evidence. The victim was transported to the hospital where she was treated for an injury. The suspect is described as a black male in his early to mid-thirties, 6’2” - 6’3”, 230 pounds, wearing blue jeans and a tan hat. Anyone with information is asked to call Detective K. Klezia at (301) 609-6479. Callers wishing to remain anonymous may call Crime Solvers at 1-866-411-TIPS. The Charles County Sheriff’s Office and Charles County Crime Solvers is offering a cash reward for the tip that leads to the arrest and indictment of the suspect. There have been no other similar reports in the county.

In the first federal appeals court opinion dealing with “sexting” — the transmission of sexually explicit photographs by cellphone — a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled Wednesday that parents could block the prosecution of their children on child pornography charges for appearing in photographs found on some classmates’ cellphones.

“It does not resolve all of the constitutional issues implicated in sexting prosecutions, but it’s a terrific start for civil liberties,” said Witold Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, who represented the parents.

Generating 20 percent of America’s electricity with wind, as recent studies proposed, would require building up to 22,000 miles of new high-voltage transmission lines. But the huge towers and unsightly tree-cutting that these projects require have provoked intense public opposition.

Recently, though, some companies are finding a remarkably simple answer to that political problem. They are putting power lines under water, in a string of projects that has so far provoked only token opposition from environmentalists and virtually no reaction from the larger public.

“The fish don’t vote,” said Edward M. Stern, president of PowerBridge, a company that built a 65-mile offshore cable from New Jersey to Long Island and is working on two more.

One local family is pushing for information on dating violence to become part of lesson plans at area schools.

Bill and Michelle Mitchell testified in Annapolis in support of a bill that would require information on violence and healthy relationships to be part of Maryland’s state curriculum.

Their daughter, 21-year-old Kristin Marie Mitchell was killed in 2005 when she broke up with a boyfriend of four months.

Time to fess up, Halliburton: What chemicals are you putting into water supplies across the country?

The Obama Administration is urging natural gas drilling companies like Halliburton to willingly disclose what chemicals they inject into the ground during hydraulic fracturing – or be hit with state laws that will compel disclosure.
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Across the Marcellus shale region of Pennsylvania and surrounding states, drillers increasingly use the process called “fracking,” in which millions of gallons of water, mixed with chemicals, is injected into the ground at high pressure to fracture rock and release gas.

States Attorney Richard Fritz announces that the Grand Jury of St. Mary’s County on March 17, returned 35 criminal indictments against 18 individuals from Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s Counties for drug related offenses.

On March 8 at 6:30 p.m., two vehicles, a red Dodge 3500 dually pickup truck and a black Toyota Prius, were involved in an apparent road rage incident on S/B Route 5 at the Charles/St. Mary’s County line.

During the road rage incident, the male driver of the Dodge pickup exited his vehicle and approached the black Toyota. The driver of the black Toyota then accelerated and struck the other driver with his vehicle. The black Toyota fled the scene S/B MD Route 5 into St. Mary’s County.

A State Department plan to build a major new diplomatic security facility on Maryland’s Eastern Shore may have hit a serious snag after the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency raised questions about possible environmental damage.

The federal government’s real estate arm chose a 2,000-acre farm site in Ruthsburg, in rural Queen Anne’s County, last year as the preferred site for the training center. The campus-like facility, to be built with millions in stimulus dollars, attracted intense local opposition that forced state and federal elected officials to back off from their previous support for the project.

Now a caution flag raised by the regional office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could signal major new delays.

The Charles County Sheriff’s Office has received numerous complaints reference stolen automobile tires and / or wheels. Unknown suspects are targeting vehicles with expensive rims. Suspects are believed to be following vehicles to ascertain locations of targeted vehicles, then returning in the night to steal the tires off the vehicles. Citizens should be aware of suspicious activity and /or vehicles during night time hours and report relevant information to the Sheriff’s Office at 301.932.2222.

In an effort to assist with the identification of stolen rims, the Sheriff’s Office suggest if you have expensive / popular brand rims that you:

Photograph wheels / rims
Record any identifying marks, defects and/or damage on the rims
If possible tag rims with some type of identifying mark

It nearly took until spring to tally up this winter’s snowfall.

It was the snowiest winter ever recorded at all three of our area’s major airports.

The military is about to launch a new technology that it says will dramatically improve the way troops in Afghanistan use massive stores of video surveillance footage collected around the clock in combat zones.

Dubbed “Valiant Angel,” the new capability employs several advances already in use in the civilian world by TV broadcasters and Google. It’s made up of a system of computer servers that will allow the military to store far more photographs and video footage than before, as well as software that will give intelligence analysts and troops in the field far greater access to the footage.