Maryland will receive $820,156 as part of a nearly $50 million data breach settlement, the Maryland Attorney General announced Thursday. Blackbaud, a software company headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina, settled with 49 states and the District of Columbia, excluding California, to resolve allegations that the company violated Maryland’s Consumer Protection Act and the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) when the company failed to protect consumers’ personal information during a 2020 data breach.

Residents and business owners in Mount Airy will have the opportunity to comment on a proposed ordinance that would prohibit the smoking of cannabis at a business that sells it in the municipality. There are two dispensaries in Carroll County that sell recreational cannabis. Both are in Westminster and both are under the city’s jurisdiction. There are none in Mount Airy. The Mount Airy Town Council will hold a public hearing on legislation that would ban the consumption of cannabis at any future dispensaries that would open or at vape shops already doing business in town.

Amtrak will begin demolishing properties that it acquired along West North Avenue and North Payson Street in West Baltimore in mid-November as part of its work to build a new $6 billion passenger rail tunnel to serve the city. Representatives of the private passenger rail company, which is subsidized by the federal government, shared the news at an open house-style meeting at Carver Vocational-Technical High School last month.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown (D) joined 16 other attorneys general in an amicus brief this week to support the state of Hawaii’s effort to ban butterfly knives. The brief requests that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit of Hawaii allow an “en banc” hearing, or reconsideration by a panel of judges, to reassess a decision made in August that invalidated the state’s ban on butterfly knives.

For two nonprofits, getting a $200,000 check isn’t exactly how they expected to start their day. It was a surprise that brought tears to the eyes. The nonprofits Parity Homes and Bio Technical Institute were the chosen recipients of the Neighborhood Builders award, a grant given by Bank of America to help those who help the community.

 

Baltimoreans across the political spectrum want solutions to crime, even if they have very different perceptions of crime levels and get their news from different outlets, data from the latest Goucher College Poll shows.It also show that Baltimoreans grappling with crime in their neighborhood have a lot more in common with 20th-century British fairgoers than you might think.

The updated COVID-19 vaccine will be available for free starting Friday for Baltimore adults without health insurance and those whose health insurance doesn’t fully cover the cost of the new shot. The Baltimore City Health Department announced Thursday that it received its first supply of the new COVID vaccine from the federal government’s Bridge Access Program, which provides shots at no-cost to the 25 to 30 million adults without health insurance.

One year ago, Maryland OSHA published a proposed rule for a standard to protect both indoor and outdoor workers from heat stress on the job. The standard was a long time coming. It was required by legislation passed by the General Assembly in March 2020, just as the legislature was shutting down due to COVID. Despite the lengthy runup to the proposal, the proposed rule was sorely inadequate, based on little input from stakeholders and practically unenforceable.

The dogs fought and died on a bloodstained piece of carpet. I was confused by the word “hooked” as I read through court documents unsealed this week detailing what federal prosecutors said was a long-running dogfighting ring. Then I realized it describes a fight and how an animal plunges its teeth into an opponent after charging onto the carpet square. Combat sometimes lasts more than an hour.

On a second floor wall of the Baltimore County Historic Courthouse, not far from the men’s restroom, visitors can view a portrait of Spiro Theodore Agnew. This is because the Republican was elected Baltimore County executive in 1962 serving one four-year term. There is no attached explanation of his time leading the county, nor of his subsequent election as Maryland’s governor in 1966 and certainly not of his time as vice president of the United States under Richard Nixon.