The Frederick County Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to confirm the appointment of Anthony Rosano to lead the county’s Division of Emergency Management. Rosano, who previously served as the division’s deputy director, was named acting director of the Emergency Management Division in January following the retirement of former director Jack Markey in December 2023.

Chuck and JoAnn Anderika were up before dawn Tuesday to bring their sailboat back home. The Anderikas set out around 6 a.m. from Solomons Island, headed for Baltimore. The couple wanted to ensure they made it in time to take advantage of a one-hour window for recreational boats to pass by the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and into the harbor, where they have a slip.

Dozens of residents turned out for a community walk Wednesday evening with Baltimore County leaders. Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough and Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski took part in the walk. NAACP leaders said they helped organize it because they don’t want people who live and work in the community to feel forgotten.

Howard County Executive Calvin Ball’s proposed fiscal 2025 operating budget provides the school system with $47 million above its required minimum funding level, and would supply $5 million in one-time funding to schools, Ball told the County Council Tuesday evening. The $5 million in “pay-as-you-go” spending, which funds capital projects with money from the county’s rainy-day fund, will “support one-time school transportation needs,” according to the proposed budget.

Earlier this month, I went down for an obligatory day of jury duty, expecting to be sent home at the end of another eight-ish hour experience that gives new meaning to tedium. I’ve been doing this every few years for 40 years, and my previous experiences were always the same. I was never selected, which was the only part of it that ever made me happy.

You don’t need a flooded basement to be concerned about the growing impact of climate change these days. Maryland’s winters have gotten milder, the heat waves more intense. There’s worsening coastal flooding and saltwater intrusion into freshwater aquifers around the Chesapeake Bay. On the other hand, the state isn’t exactly a hotbed for climate deniers either.

U.S. standards for keeping bridges from collapsing when hit by ships hail from a different era. They rely on half-century-old West German experiments on model ships for a key mathematical formula. Their minimum specifications cite the danger of empty 195-foot barges breaking loose from their moorings and drifting into bridges, a threat that seems quaint compared with the hulking 985-foot container ship that strayed off course after an electrical failure and toppled the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore last month. (Photo: Jonathan Newton/for The Washington Post)

 

In the week since Gov. Wes Moore enacted emergency legislation to prop up the Port of Baltimore economy, Maryland has approved more than $1 million in grant funding to help roughly 300 people remain in their jobs as crews race to clear the port’s main channel following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March.

The top candidates for Baltimore mayor broke little new ground during the season’s first televised debate Wednesday. Mayor Brandon Scott and former Mayor Sheila Dixon — the front-runners — were joined by attorney Thiru Vignarajah and businessman Bob Wallace. The Democrats took the stage at Morgan State University’s Murphy Fine Arts Center for a panel hosted by WBAL-TV, WBAL Radio and Maryland Public Television.

A Downtown Baltimore tower with a large state office lease has sold for $23 million, about two-thirds of what it sold for five years ago. Baltimore Tower Properties LLC, an entity of Indianapolis-based KennMar, recently purchased the 24-story building at 7 St. Paul St., according to state records. The seller was California-based Hertz Investment Group, which bought the building at St. Paul and Fayette streets in 2018 for $35 million.