We both grew up attending predominantly white public schools. As minority students, we felt isolated in classrooms with few other students who looked like us. Sometimes it seemed like we were living through a single lens — and it became clear that we were missing a variety of perspectives, and suffering for it. That’s why over many other schools, we each chose the University of Maryland, where minority students make up more than 50% of the undergraduate population. Our campus is a rare example of diversity among higher education institutions.

The Baltimore Police Department is preparing to solicit community feedback on a new policy that would allow it to operate small unmanned aircraft, or drones, for aerial surveillance during SWAT missions and to help collect evidence at crime scenes. A draft policy provided to The Baltimore Banner detailed the situations in which the Police Department might use drones.

Frederick County’s Transit Services reached its goal of 700,000 riders for fiscal year 2023, marking a slight bounceback from low ridership levels during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fiscal year 2023, which ran from July 1, 2022, through the end of June, was the first since 2015 during which Transit Services of Frederick County reached its ridership target. Official numbers for the fiscal year are still being compiled, but the department met its goal by fewer than 100 riders, according to Mary Dennis, a communications manager for the transit service.

 

Almost all Federal Reserve officials at their June meeting indicated further tightening is likely, if at a slower pace than the rapid-fire rate increases that had characterized monetary policy since early 2022, according to minutes released Wednesday. Policymakers decided against a rate rise amid concerns over economic growth, even though most members think further hikes are on the way. Citing the lagged impact of policy and other concerns, they saw room to skip the June meeting after enacting 10 straight rate increases.

Every year in September, Tracey Malone hosts an event filled with free food, giveaways, games and music in Sandtown-Winchester in honor of her brother who was shot and killed in the West Baltimore neighborhood in 2013. Last summer, a young kid came up to her at the event and said it was the most fun he had all year. He even brought nearly two dozen other kids to enjoy the event.

A week ago, we ran an op-ed written by outgoing Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison, saying the job he was hired to do four years ago was done: transitioning the city department away from a “warrior and enforcement-only” model of policing toward a “‘guardian’ model as protectors of the community.”

There’s no doubt that polarization dominates today’s headlines. Despite the focus on contentiousness, however, the fact remains that, even today, big things happen when we work together. President Joe Biden visited Baltimore in late January to kick off the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel replacement project for the city’s Howard Street Tunnel.

In the spirit of the July 4th holiday, we take a break from the daily grind to focus on the past and Marylands’s historic role on the country’s road to independence. Within months of the first shots of what was to become America’s Revolutionary War, Maryland mustered troops to join the Continental Army and help newly appointed general George Washington drive the British from Boston.

Early Saturday, as a live reggae band sampled songs like “Lovely Day” by Bill Withers and “September” by Earth, Wind and Fire, Rise Dispensary, a Silver Spring, Md., medical cannabis retailer, opened its doors to a line of customers eagerly waiting under a green tent. Khiry Mayberry, a 27-year-old working security detail at the dispensary, greeted them, asking about their days and what products they were looking for.

As the warm weather alternated with the rain down in Middle Branch Park, Baltimoreans slowly trickled down to the seventh annual Cherry Hill Arts and Music Waterfront Festival on Tuesday afternoon, where people ate, drank and danced as they waited for fireworks. Despite a weekend that has shaken the city, people showed up to a day of festivities in South Baltimore and the Inner Harbor.