What in Baltimore is made of glass and cast iron, opened in 1888, and has two palm trees growing through its roof? Where in Baltimore can you immerse yourself in the South Pacific, the Sonoran Desert, the African savannah or the Mediterranean without virtual reality or catching a flight? The answer — the Howard P. Rawlings Conservatory, named in honor of longtime legislator Howard “Pete” Rawlings.

When President Joe Biden came to Baltimore to survey the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, he made a promise all of Baltimore and the region desperately needed to hear. “We’re going to move heaven and earth to rebuild this bridge as rapidly as humanly possible. And we’re going to do so with union labor and American steel,” Biden said, adding that he had a “simple reason: They’re the best workers in the world, and that’s not hyperbole.”

It doesn’t take an ancient mariner or even an engineer third class to recognize something is seriously amiss when FBI agents show up at the site of a devastating maritime collision. That’s what happened Monday when federal authorities raided the Dali, the giant container ship that struck and quickly collapsed the Francis Scott Key Bridge last month.

Big institutions in Maryland are joining forces to enhance community-based lung cancer screenings for those at high risk. On Tuesday, experts representing the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca said early detection can have a bigger impact on a patient’s chances of survival than chemotherapy and immunotherapy.

As officials touted Maryland’s efforts over the past year to reduce work zone crashes, new reports from a federal probe of the crash that killed six highway workers on Interstate 695 have shed light on what happened last year on the Baltimore Beltway. The National Transportation Safety Board recently opened its public docket, releasing reports that say one of the drivers charged in the March 22, 2023, crash in Woodlawn claimed she had a seizure and blacked out during the collision at about 12:40 p.m. that day in a median construction zone.

On the morning of Tuesday, March 26, Jonathan Daniels grabbed the first available suit in his closet, skipped his coffee and started the longest 30-minute drive of his life. For most of the commute from his home in Pikesville to an office tower in downtown Baltimore, his staff was explaining the unexplainable: A container ship had struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge, toppling it into the Patapsco River and plunging a construction crew into the frigid water below.

Crime is the dominant issue for Baltimore residents, according to a survey from Goucher College Poll and The Baltimore Banner, despite a decline in homicides and some other violent crimes since the start of 2023. Nearly every respondent — 98% — said crime was a major or minor issue in the city, eclipsing litter, taxes and affordable housing.

 

The latest development in the fallout from the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse traces its roots back millennia. It also could contribute to litigation about who’s paying for what that’s expected to take years. The owner of the Dali, the massive cargo ship that lost power and knocked down the Key Bridge on March 26, killing six men, has declared “general average,” according to Darrell Wilson, a spokesperson for the ship’s owner, Grace Ocean Private Ltd.

Less than two weeks after Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge was destroyed by an out-of-control cargo ship, another huge container ship passed beneath a busy bridge connecting New York and New Jersey and then suddenly decelerated in a narrow artery of one of the nation’s largest ports. “We’re a dead ship,” said a voice over the maritime radio a short time later, invoking an industry term that often refers to a ship that is unable to move on it own.

 

The Brew has learned that Mayor Brandon Scott will tap a cabinet officer and veteran attorney to head the city’s response to the collapse and reconstruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Dana P. Moore, currently the director of the Office of Equity and Civil Rights, will start Monday as Senior Advisor for Key Bridge Response and Recovery, aiding port workers, business owners and others, and coordinating with the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Unified Command and private groups engaged in the recovery effort.