The Frederick Planning Commission approved the Brickworks master plan 3-1 on Monday for the second time, after reconsidering and amending a condition that the developer said would be impossible to meet. Commissioners Barbara Nicklas and Ron Beattie voted in favor, along with Alderman Ben MacShane, the Board of Aldermen’s liaison on the commission.

Montgomery County Councilmember Will Jawando (D-At-large) has launched a new federal political action committee to support progressive candidates, the organization announced Friday. Will of the People PAC was created to support “leaders who will reject the zero-sum politics of today and take real action to build an economy that works for all, protect our community from attacks on our fundamental rights, support our children’s education, and finally fix our broken healthcare system,” according to an email release the group issued Monday morning.

 

I was in downtown Bethesda the other day for the first time in a while and noticed a bunch of building construction on Old Georgetown Road just west of Wisconsin Avenue. It was then that it struck me that all evidence of the old La Madeleine restaurant is now gone. The place has been closed for a few years already, but it still felt like a gut punch.

Every morning before sunrise, thousands of Maryland residents – many of them members of my union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) – drive across the Potomac River into Virginia to work in that state’s thriving data center industry.  Needless to say, these men and women would rather be working closer to home in our state.

It was the morning of May 4, 2020, and attorney Lisa Blatt was about to make history. From a podium that she set up in her Chevy Chase dining room, Blatt was moments away from presenting oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in the first-ever SCOTUS case conducted by telephone. “My [19-year-old] daughter was there keeping time,” she says, “and my husband was in charge of keeping the dog away from the house so he didn’t bark.”

The Baltimore County Police Department is warning Asian American business owners of an increase in burglaries that has become an apparent national trend of targeting. In what appears to be a national trend, organized criminal groups are surveilling Asian-owned businesses to learn the owner’s daily routine. According to the police department, “burglars will sometimes enter the business owner’s car, while the victim is working, in order to learn where the owner lives.

Almost six months since Richard Worley was appointed as Baltimore police commissioner, he has become a city resident. When Mayor Brandon Scott announced Worley as acting commissioner on June 8, a search of public records showed Worley was still living in Anne Arundel County and was not a city resident, WBAL-TV 11 News Investigates was first to report.

Civil rights groups and residents in Wicomico County filed a federal voting rights lawsuit late last week against the county on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, alleging that its system for electing school board and council members is racially discriminatory and unlawful. The Wicomico County NAACP, the Caucus of African American Leaders and the Watchmen With One Voice Ministerial Alliance joined four Wicomico residents in charging the county with violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which the plaintiffs say extends from “a long and disgraceful history of discrimination against Black residents.”

 

Ibrahim Abdus-Sabur may not normally be a teacher, but he feels right at home in Morgan State University classrooms. “I love being on campus with so many people of color, just walking around campus on a normal day; Black people from all types of life,” Abdus-Sabur said. “I went to a PWI (predominantly white institution) and Google isn’t the most diverse place, so it’s really great for me.”

As Baltimore City Public Schools resumed in-person learning after going virtual at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Assistant Public Defender Sherie Scott found herself at the Edward F. Borgerding Court Building on Wabash Avenue in 2022 representing 10 parents whose children had racked up unexcused absences.