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Gaithersburg city leaders are gearing up to review a municipal growth plan that projects job, housing and population increases and identifies opportunities to expand city limits.

Like any other morning, Gil Genn went outside his Gaithersburg home Thursday to walk his Chocolate Labrador Yuffie.

But by day’s end, Genn, an Annapolis lobbyist and former Democratic state delegate from Montgomery County, would spend six hours in the emergency room and was fortunate to be alive.

Montgomery County riders of the MARC train protested this week the state’s plan to eliminate the 1:45 p.m. Brunswick Line train out of Washington except on Fridays, curtail rail service on holidays and eliminate the 10-trip tickets favored by frequent commuters to Washington, D.C.

The county school system can come up with $3 million in savings as a midyear target, said Superintendent Jerry D. Weast, falling far short of a $19 million figure issued by County Executive Isiah Leggett.

As Maryland State Police recover from the Sept. 27 crash of one of their helicopters, Montgomery County is lacking its own helicopter to fly trauma patients from accident scenes.

Memo to Clark Griswald: Don’t bother. Gaithersburg’s 13th annual Winter Lights Festival features more tiny bulbs, more extension cords and more toothy grins from furry animals, herald angels, carolers, Santas and snowmen than can be matched, no matter how obsessed the homeowner.

The 18-year-old illegal immigrant from Honduras charged with killing a beloved waiter in Montgomery Village pleaded guilty to second-degree murder Monday during a hearing marked at times by his apparent confusion and reluctance to agree to the plea.

Manuel Antonio Barahona of Gaithersburg, who has a second-grade education, told the judge through a translator that he did not understand the proceedings of the plea hearing and that he needed more time to speak to his lawyer.

A grand jury ruled Thursday that a Montgomery County police officer was justified in his use of deadly force June 6 when he shot and killed a Gaithersburg man inside a Silver Spring apartment building.

Third District Officer Nathan Kane, who had been on administrative leave during the investigation, will not be indicted on criminal charges in the death of 25-year-old Hector Jose Marinero of the 18700 block of Walkers Choice Road. Kane will return to duty “as soon as possible,” said his attorney, Jim Shalleck.

All charges have been dropped against a man accused of manufacturing explosives in the basement of his Gaithersburg townhouse, but prosecutors will continue to investigate the case.

Prosecutors dropped 17 of the 23 charges filed against James L. Boka, 48, in August, and dismissed the remaining charges on Nov. 10 in Montgomery County District Court, according to an online state court records database.

A 74-year-old man died Friday in a three-car collision in rush hour traffic at the intersection of Route 355 and Montgomery Village Avenue, but police are calling on witnesses to help sort out the sequence of events.

The man, Mohamed Aboul-Enein of the 800 block of Trotters Ridge Lane in Gaithersburg, was riding in a 2003 Volkswagen Golf driven by his son, Ibrahim Aboul-Enein, 44, of the same address just before 4 p.m. when they collided with a 1999 Volkswagen Passat traveling south on Route 355, according to county police.

The Rockville man accused of murdering a local athletic trainer took the witness stand Wednesday morning in his own defense and said he remembers holding the gun and the gun firing in his hand, but that he did not want to kill his friend, Jason David Hadeed.

David Shayt, the longtime Gaithersburg volunteer and museum curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., died Nov. 4 of multiple myeloma at his Olde Towne home on DeSellum Avenue. He was 56.