Grilled chicken hot dogs with fresh strawberries, feta cheese and spicy arugula, folded in a fluffy bun. Sweet potato cheesecake topped with a toasted marshmallow topping. A rich banana pudding with cinnamon and snickerdoodle swirls. Is your mouth watering yet? That’s the hope of the owners participating in Black Restaurant Week, which returned this month with its fourth iteration in the Greater Washington, D.C., and Baltimore area.

If you read The Banner’s data work, you know the Black Butterfly — the majority Black area of Baltimore. You may not know, though, that it’s gotten smaller. The landmass known as the Black Butterfly shrunk, just slightly, for the first time in 2020, while becoming more prominent in Baltimore County. We’ve written a fair bit about the Black Butterfly here at The Banner. It’s appeared repeatedly in our data stories, and we recently published a roundup of different datasets where we’ve found it.

The Frederick County government invited people with disabilities to Walkersville on Wednesday for a day of play. This was the first time the county honored Disability Pride Month, said Frederick County Executive Jessica Fitzwater. Disability Pride Month commemorates the July 1990 signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which outlaws discrimination on the basis of ability.

 

 

The portrait of former Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) won’t be gathering dust in the governor’s mansion awaiting its installation in the State House. O’Malley and his wife, retired Baltimore City District Court Judge Katie Curran O’Malley, attended a private unveiling ceremony Wednesday night hosted by Gov. Wes Moore (D) and his wife, Dawn, at the governor’s mansion.

An arts program held in cooperation with summer academy is expanding the reach of the Worcester County Arts Council. With the help of the Worcester County Arts Council (WCAC), summer academy programs in local schools feature “Summer Arts Camp.” The program gives summer school students the chance to work with artists on a variety of projects linked to the academy theme.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency “did not fully embrace its leadership role” in the 2025 Chesapeake Bay cleanup effort, contributing to its failure, according to a report released Tuesday by the agency’s inspector general. The report comes in the wake of a painful consensus on the bay cleanup: The states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed won’t meet their promised goals to reduce pollution by 2025.

There’s no question that the Baltimore Police Department failed to prepare for the Brooklyn Day festival, an oversight that may have enabled the early morning mass shooting at the Brooklyn Homes public housing complex July 2 that killed two young people and wounded 28 others. Acting Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley has admitted as much: Police should have known about the long-held, annual event in advance, he said, in response to heated questioning from the City Councils’ Public Safety and Government Operations committee last week, and once the party was discovered, officers should have better mobilized to monitor the situation.

1 E. Pratt St. has sold for $55.1 million less than it last traded for — marking the second office tower in Baltimore’s central business district to change hands this summer at a steep discount as the troubled local office market resets. MCB Real Estate shelled out $25 million for the 10-story office and retail development at Pratt and Light streets, according to three sources familiar with the transaction that is not yet recorded in state property records. The tower last sold in March 2018 to a subsidiary of Banyan Street Capital for $80.1 million, records show.

A local educator is looking to give children and their families the tools they need for development through a new consulting service. Last year, Gina Russell launched Tiny Sparks, a private coaching and consulting service for childhood development. Serving children ages 18 months to five years, she said her company aims to help young kids with unique needs reach their full potential.

The Montgomery County Council voted to pass permanent rent stabilization in a landmark decision Tuesday. Dozens of rent control advocates who waited over nine hours in council chambers cheered as the vote came, while at least one worried councilmember warned of “a cascading negative effect for generations.” Bill 15-23 will cap annual increases at the region’s consumer price index (CPI) plus 3% , with a hard cap of 6% of the base rent.