A hundred employees with the Baltimore City Fire Department are called back to work overtime each day because of the agency’s staffing crisis, fire officials said at a Board of Fire Commissioners meeting this month. Those employees are often firefighters asked to man shifts as paramedics or emergency medical technicians, positions that have been beset by vacancies for years.

Frederick County’s student athletes put on quite a show in the spring sports state championships this year, with great team efforts and outstanding individual achievements. Our newspaper and website have been filled with stories and photos of victory after victory, achievement after incredible achievement. The athletes’ beaming smiles at the many victory celebrations are a reminder of the pure joy of sports competition.

 

The holiday weekend debt ceiling deal struck by President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) creates, in part, new work requirements for some food stamp recipients but with exceptions for certain populations, including veterans. The agreement released late Saturday night showed concessions from both sides — from GOP members, who wanted to tighten eligibility for not just food stamps but also for low-income health care, and from the Democrats, who called such restrictions a nonstarter.

As students working to address climate and environmental issues and preparing to join the Maryland workforce, we were excited to have a climate event on our UMBC campus earlier this month, which was co-sponsored by Maryland Matters. The panel included leaders from multiple agencies across the Moore-Miller administration, highlighting a trans-sectoral commitment to climate action and a real embrace of comprehensive policy implementation to respond to our pressing climates issues.

It’s not difficult for Democrats and Republicans alike to list multiple reasons to hate the debt limit agreement reached over the weekend by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden. The irony, of course, is that the partisans are often clucking about the same issues, just opposite takes on them. Expanded work requirements for those who are eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Temporary Aid for Needy Families program is a particularly galling imposition given how experience shows it won’t help recipients get jobs but will increase government bureaucracy.

Nearly a year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion after almost 50 years. Our patients in Maryland experienced uncertainty and concern after the ruling as other states began to enact a myriad of abortion restrictions. Meanwhile, reproductive health care providers scrambled to establish a network of referrals to help patients get care in states where abortion remained legal.

As head of technical support for a Baltimore software company, Paul David works a busy schedule overseeing a team of employees and a slate of customers who might need help at any given time. Despite those demands, David has plenty of time to decompress. Thanks to regular three-day weekends, the Severna Park resident said he has more time to spend with his wife, landscape his yard and tackle other projects around the house.

Employees at the Starbucks on U.S. Route 40 in Ellicott City have filed to unionize with an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), becoming the fifth location in Greater Baltimore to do so in roughly a year. Workers at the location filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board on May 25 stating their intent to join the Mid-Atlantic Regional Joint Board, an affiliate of SEIU that has been behind the national Starbucks Workers United organization effort.

“Pop-ups” have been a Baltimore thing since before that phrase existed. For a century or more, vendors have hustled Baltimore’s streets to sell snowballs, crab cakes, oysters and more. This year, the number of pop-ups in Baltimore is truly eye-popping. They are reinvigorating the city’s vacant spaces and serving everything from buttermilk biscuits to Neapolitan pizza.

Carroll County will induct 16 lieutenants into the new Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services Thursday during a commissioning ceremony that county officials are calling historic. The induction comes three years after the county created its first combination fire and EMS department. “It’s extremely important,” District 5 Commissioner Ed Rothstein said.