Sheila Dixon's mink coat, from developer Ronald Lipscomb. (Photo by Doug Donovan)

by DOUG DONOVAN
Political sex scandals always produce items that collectors would surely love to obtain.  For President Clinton, it was Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress (after the Smithsonian turned it down.) For Sen. Larry Craig, it was the bathroom stall door.  For former N.Y. Gov. Eliot Spitzer, it was the receipt for Room 871 at the Mayflower Hotel, booked under the name “George Fox.”

To that distinguished list, add the two fur coats that helped take Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon down, albeit in high style.

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A crowd of over a thousand at Cathederal of Mary Our Queen. Photo by Elizabeth Suman

By FERN SHEN and ELIZABETH SUMAN

What can religion do to fight violence in Baltimore?

An interfaith group of well over a thousand people came together last night to answer that question — an array of religious leaders and citizens of all ages and races, wearing saris and sweatshirts, blowing the shofar and chanting Vedic calls, reading from the Bible and from the Koran.

The size and diversity of the crowd assembled in the cavernous Cathedral of Mary Our Queen for the Baltimore Interfaith Coalition’s “Vigil Against Violence” — among them mayor-to-be- Stephanie Rawlings-Blake — made the moment feel as historic as speakers said it was.

“We have not seen the likes of this size of interfaith gathering since the civil rights movement,” said Eugene Taylor Sutton, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland.

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by ELIZABETH SUMAN and FERN SHEN

With Baltimore’s mayor-in-waiting Stephanie Rawlings-Blake proposing ethics reforms that still allow the mayor to stack the deck in his-or-her favor, here’s a look at five cities whose watchdog panels are set up so they might actually have some independence and backbone.

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