The University System of Maryland is asking faculty, staff, students and parents to contact their state legislators to encourage them to keep supporting public higher education in Maryland. You can learn more about the USM effort here.

The USM Student Council also has produced a video, asking lawmakers to keep public higher education in Maryland affordable.

Craig Saper, associate professor of Language, Literacy and Culture, has published a new book under his alter-ego ofdj readies.

Intimate Bureaucracies is a history from the future looking backward at our present moment as a turning point. Our systems of organization and control appear unsustainable and brutal, and we are feeling around in the dark for alternatives. Using experiments in social organization in downtown New York City, and other models of potential alternative social organizations, this manifesto makes a call to action to study and build sociopoetic systems. It is published by Punctum Books.

The book is also a part of the AK Press Tactical Media Project, which makes short, timely political interventions freely available in download and zine form.  More information about the book, including a link where it can be downloaded for free, is available here.

Police have praised a woman who saved her family from being slaughtered by beating her husband to the draw in a shootout at their family home.

Troy Christoff threatened to kill his wife, two children and two other family members after waking them up in the early hours of the morning.

As he stood loading his handgun he called out their names as he placed a bullet into the gun's chamber.

But his wife Dawn managed to grab her own gun and as he raised his weapon to fire she reacted quicker and shot him several times.

The 35-year-old and her children were unharmed during the terrifying incident at their home in Winter Haven, Florida.

Christoff, 34, suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the chest from a 9mm pistol.

He was airlifted to hospital by helicopter and later transferred to Polk County jail where he was charged with attempted murder.

According to the arrest warrant Troy had announced to his family that he wanted them dead.

As he stood loading his gun his wife reached for her own pistol and fired first.

The arrest warrant said: 'Prior to the shooting, he armed himself with a handgun and began to load the weapon, stating which member of his family each bullet was intended for.'

Police spokesman Sgt Brad Coleman said Mrs Christoff had acted in self-defence and will not be charged.

Her husband has prior convictions for assault and drug possession.