Putting away your cellphone for six hours a day turns out to be a wonderful thing — even in the eyes of middle schoolers who were forced to give up their devices for an entire school year. Locking up their cellphones, the Hampstead Hill Academy students said, unlocked their brains. With their phones stored in pouches only an administrator can open, they no longer feel that constant itch to sneak a peek.

Baltimore faces an increasing threat of coastal flooding from rising sea levels, worsened by storms like Debby. To help manage that risk, the U.S. Army of Corps Engineers announced this week it would recommend Congress fund about $77 million to build floodwalls to protect two of the city’s major thoroughfares, the Fort McHenry and Harbor tunnels.

U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, who represents Maryland’s 5th District, is recovering from a “mild ischemic stroke,” according to his spokesperson. The Democrat, who is 85, will likely return to his normal schedule next week and has responded well to treatment. He did not have any lingering symptoms from the stroke on Sunday night, according to Deputy Chief of Staff Margaret Mulkerrin.

 

The United Auto Workers union on Tuesday filed federal labor charges with the National Labor Relations Board against former President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk for publicly applauding the practice of firing employees who threaten to strike. “I look at what you do,” Trump said to Musk during a two-hour interview Monday night on X, the social media platform Musk owns.

 

Ashley McAree isn’t on Facebook, but she doesn’t have to be to keep up-to-date on viral stories about human trafficking spreading on the platform. Her friends often text her posts written by people who think they were the target of a trafficking scheme because they found a zip tie or a pair of sunglasses on their car in a parking lot.

Maryland’s favorite seafood dish may one day help the produce you buy at the grocery store taste better and last longer. New research conducted at the University of Maryland has found a new solution that can get rid of pesticides and functions as a better preservative. The researchers with the A. James Clark School of Engineering at U.Md. designed a food wash that contains chitosan nanocrystals that were derived from Maryland blue crab shells.

 

Another night, another gathering where Maryland property owners were expressing alarm over a proposed 500,000-volt, 70-mile power transmission line that could run through their properties. This was a meeting last week of the Baltimore County Farm Bureau, at the state fairgrounds in Timonium, where dozens of farmers, business operators and homeowners came together to decry a project that hasn’t even been formally proposed yet.

It was nice to read a positive commentary about behavioral health care (“Investing in mental health recovery helps everyone in Baltimore,” Aug. 13). In 1977 when I started a job with the Mental Heath Association of Maryland, 85% of state mental health dollars were spent on state psychiatric institutions. At the same time, a few pioneers were starting programs similar to B’More Clubhouse in counties across the state, often in church basements.

Baltimore City Schools has hired a new police chief away from the city’s force. Jeffrey Shorter, previously of the Baltimore Police Department for 28 years, will take office starting Aug. 26, the district said in a news release Tuesday. “The youth of today are not only our future. They are our now. We must be the guiding light to lead them into a successful and safe tomorrow. If not now then when? If not us, then who?” Shorter said in a news release.

 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that about half of the United States, including Maryland, have “very high” amounts of COVID-19 virus identified in wastewater collections, signals to health officials that viral activity is rising in the community. The report comes as the latest data from the Maryland Department of Health shows that hospitalizations for COVID-19 have been rising steadily since May, when the number stood at 38.