Israeli ground forces crossed into southern Lebanon early Tuesday, marking a significant escalation of an offensive against Hezbollah militants and opening a new front in a yearlong war against its Iranian-backed adversaries. The incursion follows weeks of heavy blows by Israel against Hezbollah — including an airstrike that killed its longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah — and seeks to step up the pressure on the group, which began firing rockets into northern Israel after the start of the war in Gaza.

 

Baltimore faces no shortage of challenges. There is too much concentrated poverty and the fallout associated with it — from overdoses and addiction to lack of affordable housing, property crime and gun violence — remains an enormous handicap to progress. Throw in a long history of racism, job losses, the daunting burden placed on single-parent families, schools straining to try to bridge the economic and social disparities, and one might be forgiven for waking up each morning with at least some lingering feelings of despair.

U.S. 15 runs like an artery through the heart of the city of Frederick — and everybody who drives on it knows the road has a severe blockage. Every day, in the morning rush and again from 3 p.m. until at least 6 p.m., drivers encounter stop-and-go traffic — or sometimes stop and no-go. Both the northbound and southbound lanes are prone to heavy traffic, often at the same time.

The International Longshoremen’s Association and its 45,000 members from Maine to Texas went on strike Tuesday after a last-minute exchange of contract offers with the U.S. Maritime Association failed to produce a contract agreement. The strike shuts down operations at the Port of Baltimore just months after federal and state agencies managed to reopen the facility that had been closed by the March 26 collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge into the Patapsco River, blocking shipping channels in and out of marine terminals there.

Mayor Brandon Scott threatened Monday to end the city’s relationship with the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts after its CEO suggested Scott’s office was partly responsible for the nonprofit’s current financial peril. The dispute centers on a $1.5 million state grant given to the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture to help stage Artscape in 2023.

Maryland’s newly published and adopted heat standard, which goes into effect Monday, requires all workers to have access to water, shade, and rest breaks when temperatures exceed 80 degrees — it joins just a handful of other states that have standards protecting workers from extreme heat. Maryland’s heat standard, which is nearly four years in the making, could have saved someone like Ronald Silver II, a Baltimore City sanitation worker whose on the job death was first reported by WYPR.

A Montgomery County, Maryland, woman received a first-of-its-kind surgery to repair her ankle — and it was done using only plastic components. Dr. Paul Cooper, an orthopedic surgeon at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in D.C., performed the all-plastic ankle replacement surgery on the 71-year-old woman a week ago.

Striking longshoremen in Baltimore are likely to continue handling cruise ships and vessels with military cargo, according to William Doyle, the former director of the Port of Baltimore. Doyle, now the CEO of Dredging Contractors of America, says he has been in contact with local leaders on both sides of the labor dispute.

In the month since Baltimore County Public Schools buses installed cameras to catch drivers who don’t stop when they should, police have issued 3,468 warning citations. The citations have been issued to drivers who don’t stop for a school bus when its red lights are flashing. The Baltimore County Police Department said 3,468 citations had been issued between the first day of school on Aug. 26 and Sept. 23.

Amazon, which recently resumed openings of new Fresh grocery stores after a yearlong pause, held “grand reopenings” for two of its D.C.-area stores Saturday. The redesigned Amazon Fresh stores, in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and Franconia, Virginia, followed similar redesigns of Fresh stores in Chicago and Southern California.