The Humane Society of Harford County is over capacity and needs dogs to be fostered or adopted. Nicole Van Valkenburgh is becoming a first-time foster mom to Maya. “After knowing that all of the shelter space here is getting taken up, I decided that I would bite the bullet and foster this sweet dog here,” Van Valkenburgh said. The facility in Fallston has kennel space for 65 dogs. Currently, it has 98.

Workers gave high marks to a handful of companies headquartered in Maryland in a survey for Forbes’ annual lists of America’s Best Large Employers and America’s Best Midsize Employers.

Maryland courts have run out of money to pay for indigent people charged with crimes to be released on home detention pending trial, putting hundreds of such defendants at risk of reincarceration, according to documents obtained by The Baltimore Sun. In 2021, the state sent $5 million to its Administrative Office of the Courts for a program that would pay private home detention companies to monitor defendants pending trial, so long as judges determined they qualified for release and couldn’t afford the service on their own, the documents show. The money came from the state’s allocation from the Congress’ Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

Nearly a year after formerly incarcerated transgender people testified to Maryland lawmakers about the troubling conditions they faced in state prisons and Baltimore jails, the agency in charge of their care continues to violate federal standards in how it houses trans prisoners, according to a coalition of trans rights advocates. The Trans Rights Advocacy Coalition, bolstered by policy experts and attorneys, contends that while the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services has made some strides towards improving conditions, its policy of housing transgender prisoners “according to physical genitalia” violates the federal standard that those individuals should be housed on a case-by-case basis determined by health and safety and any security problems, among other factors.

 

 

The University of Maryland, College Park this month published its first research report on the institution’s connections to slavery, detailing how founder Charles B. Calvert was a descendant of enslavers and owned at least 55 slaves who worked on his Riverside plantation, land that makes up part of UMD’s campus. As part of an international consortium called Universities Studying Slavery, UMD launched The 1856 Project last year, named for the founding year of the university, then called the Maryland Agricultural College. Along with Calvert, who was a descendant of Lord Baltimore George Calvert, several of the college’s 600 initial financers were slaveholders or had ties to the slave economy.

Gaithersburg biotech Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (NYSE: EBS) has tapped pharmaceutical industry veteran Joseph Papa as its new president and CEO. The appointment, effective Wednesday, comes about eight months after Bob Kramer, the company’s leader of four years and a longtime executive with the Gaithersburg firm, stepped down. Haywood Miller, an adviser to Emergent, stepped into the top slot on an interim basis and has occupied the position since then.

A new bill circulating among members of the Baltimore County Council would make it easier to build multiuse buildings in certain business or manufacturing areas, according to a draft obtained by The Baltimore Sun. The Sun reviewed the bill a day after Council Chair Izzy Patoka and County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. said Tuesday that they had reached an agreement for the council to pass its own bill in exchange for Olszewski withdrawing a similar bill that other members had protested. Patoka and Olszewski are Democrats.

 

In response to the increasing demand for mental health services among young people, Luminis Health was awarded a $1.6 million grant from the Maryland Community Health Resources Commission. The nonprofit regional health system will collaborate with Prince George’s County Public Schools by implementing comprehensive support services at six high schools. As part of the grant, Luminis Health will hire and deploy mental health providers directly to the schools, collaborating with school counselors to offer vital support to students and parents.

The White House is considering executive action to restrict migrants’ ability to seek asylum at the US-Mexico border if they crossed illegally – a maneuver reminiscent of controversial action from the Donald Trump era and is sure to invite fierce backlash from immigration advocates and progressives. The handling of the US-Mexico border has dogged President Joe Biden for years as migration across the Western hemisphere reached record levels and resulted in thousands of migrants arriving at the border.

 

As a native Baltimorean, I long for a catalyst project and/or investment that jumpstarts the journey of Baltimore reaching her potential. History tells us that my beloved city once had a population of 949,000 in 1950, and has seen a precipitous drop in population over the last 70 years. Today, our population hovers around 575,000. Given this, we need big ideas to excite and entice prospective residents to call Baltimore home and legacy residents to decide to remain.