Media briefing by U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) from Gaithersburg, Maryland, August 21, 2008 at 11 a.m. on the release of the "Final Report of the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7" (WTC 7). Ben Stein (Director of Media Relations, NIST) introduces presenter S. Shyam Sunder, Sc.D. (Director, Building and Fire Research Lab (BFRL) and NIST's lead investigator for the WTC disaster). After Sunder's presentation he responds to questions from Daphne Retter (New York Post), Devlin Barrett (Associated Press (AP)), Farren Shoaf (The Real News Radio (via the Web)), Arianne Cohen (Popular Mechanics), Christoph Röckerath (ZDF German Television), Bill Jenkins (Building Safety Journal (via the Web)), Mike Shea (Baltimore Grassroots Media), Eric Lipton (The New York Times) and Shane Geiger (InfoWars.com).

Representatives of citizen activist groups held a press conference Tuesday, August 12, 2008 at the Maryland State Police Headquarters announcing a letter they are sending to Governor Martin O'Malley that details specific demands on the investigation his administration is undertaking of the police surveillance and infiltration of their groups.

Speakers were Max Obuszewski (Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore), Terry Fitzgerald, M.D. (Baltimore Coalition Against the Death Penalty), Ellen Barfield (Veterans for Peace, Baltimore Phil Berrigan Memorial Chapter #105), Rev. Pierre Williams (Baltimore United for Peace and Justice and Communist Party of Maryland), Mike Stark (Campaign to End the Death Penalty), Maria Allwine (Co-chair, Maryland Green Party and Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore), Lawrence Egbert, M.D. (Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility and ACLU), Ben Dalby (International Socialist Organization), C. (Chuck) William Michaels, Esq. (Pax Christi-Baltimore), and Brendan Walsh (Co-founder, Viva House Catholic Worker).

On July 2, 2007 activists from the coalition “Maryland Got Democracy” held a press conference to publicize the “Voting Registration Protection Act of 2007” that restores voting rights to 52,000 state ex-offenders — before seven of these newly eligible citizens entered the Baltimore City Board of Elections and registered to vote. Press conference speakers include Kimberly Haven (Executive Director, Justice Maryland), Marlo Hargrove (Director, Freedom Advocates Celebrating Ex-offenders), David Waller (a newly eligible voter) and Millie Tyssowski (League of Women Voters of Baltimore City). After the newly eligible voters register to vote, brief interviews are conducted with Haven, Anthony Harrison (Executive Director, Changing Directions, LLD), Walter Lomax (a newly registered voter), Chris Montague (who registered to vote along with his father), Meredith Curtis (Director of Public Outreach, ACLU of Maryland) and Kara Gotsch (Director of Advocacy, The Sentencing Project).