At a time of increased concern about campus violence, the Maryland Higher Education Commission has awarded $18.75 million in safety grants to 36 universities across the state. The grants will help create on-campus public safety improvements such as campus security assessments, enhanced security operations and emergency management planning, according to a news release from the governor’s office.

The money allowed one mother in California to say “yes” instead of her usual “no” when her child asked for ice cream. In New York, it gave a minimum-wage worker the freedom to quit and focus on nursing school. For others, it covered the unexpected car repair or sudden medical expense that instead might have cascaded into losing a job or falling behind on the rent. Across the country, an experiment has been underway to answer the question: Can a regular, no-strings-attached infusion of cash help alleviate, if not poverty itself, then some of its grinding effects?

 

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott married fiancee Hana Pugh in a surprise ceremony Sunday at Walther Gardens. The nuptials were posted to the social media platform X by Scott’s chief of staff, Marvin James, and earlier reported by The Baltimore Sun. Afro News shared photos of the wedding in a post on Facebook. Spokesperson Bryan Doherty said Scott and Pugh exchanged vows in a small, private ceremony officiated by Circuit Court Judge Lynn Stewart Mays.

Jeff Sessions, then Donald Trump’s attorney general, had faced only about three minutes of a freshman senator’s fusillade of questions before he began to crack. Testifying in front of his former colleagues on the Senate Intelligence Committee as they investigated Russia’s influence on the 2016 election, Sessions fiercely pushed back on criticism that he had failed to disclose his earlier interactions with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Lottery, casino and sports gambling generated nearly $1.6 billion in state revenue in fiscal year 2024, a minimal decline from last year’s total. The amount represented Maryland’s second-highest revenue total from gambling, even as overall Lottery sales and casino revenue both declined year-over-year. Bolstering the state’s proceeds were the continued growth of the state’s nearly-two-year-old mobile sports betting market and a new daily game in the Maryland Lottery, according to the state agency that oversees the Lottery, six casinos and sports betting.

Alvin Scott made a habit of covering the shifts of fellow solid waste workers who were struck down by summer heat. The former Department of Public Works employee said he watched people suffer strokes, fainting, vomiting and severe dehydration — all to survive a day of tossing trash in the back of a truck. In Scott’s six years picking up waste for the Eastern Sanitation Yard on Bowleys Lane, he said he could not recall his employer providing water or time for breaks on hot days.

Jeffrey Barner has opened doors for guests at Baltimore’s Hilton Inner Harbor for the past 16 years — since the hotel opened after the city spent millions to finance its design and construction. It’s become increasingly hard for the bellman to offer a warm greeting, he said, when others doing the same job in nearby cities make at least $10 more per hour. Dozens of the hotel’s roughly 200 unionized workers gathered Friday and voted not to extend their contract with the city-owned Hilton as they push for wage increases and better working conditions.

The National Aquarium opened its 10,000-square-foot Harbor Wetlands exhibit this week, creating a first-of-its-kind hybrid experience where native animals can flourish in a free, outdoor, hands-on classroom and park setting. “It is the product of about 14 years of work that the National Aquarium has done,” said Charmaine Dahlenburg, the director of field conservation at the Aquarium.

Jerk At Nite built a following in Washington, D.C., with two restaurants but its path to establishing a presence up the road in Baltimore has seen its share of detours. The Jamaican restaurant first ventured into the city in 2021 with a location in the Rosemont neighborhood. Owners Kadeem Todd and Denville Myrie decided to close the location after about a year and move to another spot in Pigtown.

The time of villains has come. Disney’s classic baddies are getting their own theme park land at the Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida. The company first teased the potential for a villainous takeover at the last D23 Expo in 2022 as part of a series of “blue sky” projects that it was contemplating, but not sure would come to fruition.