Coming to Prince George’s County, Maryland: A medical facility doing more to keep moms-to-be and their babies alive, healthy and close to home. When it comes to having babies, many women in Prince George’s County have to go out of the county to get the medical care they need. “Eight out of 10 moms who live in the county deliver their babies outside of the county,” said Deneen Richmond, president of Luminis Health Doctors Community Medical Center in a news release.
The U.S. Senate, in a bipartisan vote, overwhelmingly approved former Baltimore Mayor and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley to lead the Social Security Administration Monday. O’Malley, a Democrat, will replace Kilolo Kijakazi, the acting commissioner of the Woodlawn-based agency. She has run the agency since Democratic President Joe Biden dismissed Andrew Saul, an appointee of former Republican President Donald Trump, in 2021, after Saul refused to resign.
When it truly mattered, Gov. Wes Moore sat himself on the right side of the negotiation table. We’ll all remember two distinct images from the Great Orioles Lease Saga of 2023, both with Moore front and center. The difference between them spells out how much the first-year elected official evolved in just three months. In September, Moore was hopping with raised arms in the owner’s suite at Camden Yards, with team chairman and CEO John Angelos clapping just over his shoulder — celebrating a deal that did not actually have any binding effect.
Mark Bedell wants a conversation about youth violence in Annapolis. The superintendent of Anne Arundel County Public Schools, he started it off last week, talking about nine homicides in the city this year — some of them involving teenage boys — and recent fights at Annapolis High. “We can’t be the greatest educational institution and the greatest social services institution. You can’t be great at both of them,” Bedell said.
Recently, about 75 irate people packed a meeting at Bel Air Town Hall to give some public officials a piece of their minds. Many had seen the future of this town of roughly 11,000 souls, and they did not like it. What had caused such concern? Was it the return of COVID? No. A spike in the crime rate? Not that either. No, they dreaded the possibility, as voiced by a local small business owner, that Bel Air was destined into something almost unspeakable. Something far different from the Harford County seat they knew and loved.
It’s arguably Baltimore’s largest health crisis: Drug overdoses have taken the lives of 6,360 people in the city since 2010. An even larger number of deaths — more than 17,000— have involved drugs in some way. Reporters working for The Baltimore Banner and The New York Times are investigating the problem and we want to hear from people who have personal experience. We are especially interested in talking to older Black Baltimoreans, or their families, who have struggled with drug use.
Baltimore’s 2024 summer season is going to be packed with music, diversity, fun and a lot of heat. Mayor Brandon Scott announced the official dates for the AFRAM, Artscape and Charm City Live festivals during a press conference Monday. AFRAM is a celebration of African American culture, honoring food, music, art and crafts that debuted in 1976. After celebrating the history of Baltimore club music at the 2023 festival, it will return on June 22 and 23 in 2024.
A bill that would require most new residential buildings in Anne Arundel to include affordable units failed to pass the Anne Arundel County Council on Monday night. The bill, which was voted down by the three Republicans and council member Allison Pickard, a Glen Burnie Democrat, would have mandated developers to allocate 15% of units in each large-scale building project to be affordable for renters earning around $62,000 or less and buyers earning about $83,000 or less.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Monday endorsed Rep. David Trone (D-Md.) in the sharply contested Democratic primary race to be Maryland’s next senator, along with two other top Democrats in the House of Representatives. The campaign for the open Senate seat in deep-blue Maryland has largely become a two-person race between Trone, who has already spent nearly $10 million of his fortune blanketing the state with ads, and Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks and her supporting phalanx of Maryland politicians.
Community colleges and four-year universities can work together to improve the transfer student experience, a data report from the U.S. Department of Education suggests. The U.S. Department of Education released data about the institutions where transfer students have the highest graduation rates in each state, with New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Maryland and Virginia doing the best. At the other end were South Dakota, Delaware, Indiana, New Mexico and Louisiana.