The ceiling of this church is the sky. There are no stained-glass windows, just graffiti-covered concrete walls. No pews, only chairs unfolded on a vacant lot in Station North. Church members arrive by motorized wheelchairs, walkers, canes. A few smoke cigarettes or drink out of bottles wrapped in plastic bags. Many have slept on the streets, and some still lack permanent housing.

Candice Bruno was excited when she saw the JumboFresh Supermarket sign on the former Price Rite building in Southwest Baltimore. For nearly a year, the building in the Mount Clare Junction shopping center has been empty, and Bruno and others have had to go outside the neighborhood for groceries. “It was an important force in the neighborhood that took care of many people, especially lower-income and [those with] ethnic backgrounds,” said Bruno, the owner of Old Major bar and event space in Pigtown.

As soon as U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes announced on Thursday afternoon that he won’t run for reelection, cellphones in the political world lit up with texts and calls: Who might run for his seat? Sarbanes is a Democrat serving his ninth term representing the state’s 3rd Congressional District. In its current form, it encompasses all of Howard County, a small bit of Carroll County and a large swath of northern and central Anne Arundel County.

Forty-six hours before his football team kicks off a new era, one that its fans hope will erase a quarter century of miserable memories, Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris—a lifelong fan himself—is sitting in a room on the third floor of Planet Word, the downtown D.C. museum dedicated to language. Hundreds of words, stacked 22 feet high, cover one of the walls. Among them: belief.

In its memorandum of understanding with the Orioles, the state of Maryland has set itself up to receive less revenue from state-owned land near Camden Yards — handing potentially lucrative profits to the team. Revenue that could reach millions of dollars annually from the development of land and real estate, including the Camden Yards warehouse, would flow to the ballclub.

Dear Baltimore: I have loved you and lived with you for the better part of a decade. I love you, I really do, but I think it’s time we have The Talk. You are failing me and your half-a-million residents. What happened? Roughly a week ago, my partner and I were woken by piercing screams directly outside our window near Patterson Park. We ran to the window in time to witness the tail-end of a violent carjacking in the street.

Maryland’s Supreme Court finally righted a historic wrong Thursday, granting posthumous bar admission to the man who might have become Maryland’s first Black lawyer in 1857 if not for the racist attitudes of the era. Edward Garrison Draper is the earliest known individual who was fully qualified to become a lawyer in Maryland but denied admission to the bar because of his race.

At any given moment you’ll find Mya Green having a conversation with hundreds of strangers who’ve all sworn she’s helped change their lives. Green is the creator of Pooch Please, a fitness accessory and apparel brand whose hero product, an insulated stomach wrap used for weight loss, has sold in the thousands. The reason? TikTok Shop.

A rabbi called for “hope, love and light” in the wake of the terror attacks in Israel that “shook us to our very foundation.” Maryland’s governor encouraged listeners to summon “the courage to reach across boundaries” and “remember their humanity to others.” A Baltimore teen voiced her hope that ongoing violence in the Middle East won’t prevent a planned trip to Israel next summer.

Just hours before he was killed last week, a Maryland judge known for being fair and even-keeled calmly explained his ruling in a divorce case following hours of emotional testimony. On the losing end of the ruling was the man suspected of fatally shooting Washington County Circuit Court Judge Andrew Wilkinson later that day in the driveway outside the judge’s home. For Wilkinson’s family, friends and colleagues, it’s an unfathomable end to an exceptional life.