The Maryland Department of Natural Resource is moving forward with its shrimp pilot program that could be a financial boon for the state. The department recently announced it is working with the Tidal Fisheries Advisory Committee’s Shrimp Workgroup to develop a commercial Shrimp Pilot Program in state waters of the Atlantic Ocean using a 16-foot beam trawl.

Wide-eyed piglets rushing to check out the visitors to their unusual barn just might represent the future of organ transplantation – and there’s no rolling around in the mud here. The first gene-edited pig organs ever transplanted into people came from animals born on this special research farm in the Blue Ridge mountains – behind locked gates, where entry requires washing down your vehicle, swapping your clothes for medical scrubs and stepping into tubs of disinfectant to clean your boots between each air-conditioned barn.

Frederick County Executive Jessica Fitzwater said Monday that she intends to fully fund the design and planning for a new elementary school building after not receiving funding from the state for this phase of the project. During a news conference, Fitzwater said she is submitting a budget supplement to the Frederick County Council requesting about $3 million to begin the design process in fiscal year 2025 for Frederick County Public Schools’ 41st elementary school.

A new grant program launched in Frederick, Maryland, aims to support minority and women-owned small businesses. “The program is designed to support and empower,” said Shana Knight, community engagement specialist with the city of Frederick. “The thought process behind it is that the No. 1 issue for minority and women-owned small businesses is access to capital, so we just want to provide opportunities for that, that will allow these businesses to grow,” Knight added.

 

The first humans to lay eyes on what would eventually become Annapolis, more than 10,000 years ago, likely gazed upward and saw it as a ridge above a wide river valley that led out to the Atlantic Ocean. Over millennia, fresh water from the rivers and creeks of the coastal plain and salt water from the sea devoured the shoreline, filled in the valley and created what we know as the Chesapeake Bay.

A total of 50 Baltimore students are participating in the eighth annual Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport Summer Youth Initiative, which kicked off Monday. The students will spend a full week meeting with airport, transportation and business leaders and participating in activities to learn about the wide range of career opportunities in aviation.

Maryland’s 106 delegates to the Democratic National Convention could vote to make Vice President Kamala Harris the party’s presidential nominee as soon as Thursday. While the national convention isn’t set to begin until Aug. 19 in Chicago, party officials believe the presidential roll call may need to be held virtually and earlier, rather than on the convention floor.

It could still be weeks — and a winding journey — before Democrats settle on who will replace President Joe Biden at the top of the 2024 ticket, but state election officials and and legal experts say placing the new candidate on the ballot should be straightforward. Maryland’s top party officials and their convention delegates took one step closer Monday, pledging their unanimous intention to back Vice President Kamala Harris at their party’s national convention next month.

This week, Washington County resident Chris Keane attended his commencement. Not for high school, he’s already done that. Not for college, he’s yet to cross that milestone. But for something more novel, Maryland’s Service Year Option program, which started last year. The Herald-Mail covered the launch event for the program enacted in 2023 for recent high school graduates last October, recording the remarks of Keane, an inaugural year program participant, as he spoke about his early days serving at Horizon Goodwill in Hagerstown to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who backed legislation during his first year in office to create the program.

There is nothing like a snowball to beat the heat on a Baltimore summer day. Handmade snowballs could be readily found around Baltimore as early as the 1850s and 20th century machines helped further popularize the confection of shaved ice and flavored syrup that’s often topped with marshmallow. Not to be confused with other shaved ice treats like Japan’s kakigori, Hawaii’s shave ice, Mexico’s raspados or New Orleans’ sno-balls, which use finer shavings and are more likely to be drizzled with condensed milk than marshmallow, Baltimore’s snowballs have attained a cultural importance that transcends the mere need to beat the heat. So, how did they get so big here?