On a warm late-summer afternoon at the GameOn bar+arcade in Columbia, ‘90s music was bumping while roughly 100 young local residents wearing white-and-blue name tags mingled and played games like pinball and skeeball. They were there for a monthly event hosted by Columbia Social, a local organization that builds connections among the planned community’s young professionals.

Baltimore is expanding a program to monitor students commuting home to areas near 10 schools, officials said at a City Council committee meeting Wednesday. Last summer, Mayor Brandon Scott launched the Safe Passage Baltimore initiative as a pilot, describing it as a program meant to make students traveling home from school safer.

The new Frederick Police Department headquarters near Carroll Creek is on track to open at the end of the first quarter of 2025 and will be completed under budget, the city said. Speaking on behalf of the police department at Thursday’s Board of Aldermen public meeting, Marc DeOcampo, director of strategic planning and executive projects for the city, said that a series of discounts available to the city will allow the project to come in under budget.

After years of sitting on money from school mitigation fees the city of Frederick charges to residential developers who build in the city, the Board of Aldermen has voted to use $4.5 million to expand pre-kindergarten education programs at two elementary schools. It’s about time. The city mitigation fees are intended to reduce the impact of new development in city neighborhoods.

Lexington Lofts apartments could fit easily into one of downtown Baltimore’s trendier areas. Units come with soaring ceilings and windows, granite finishes, free Wi-Fi and Under Armour gym memberships. The glass-front building with sleek professional offices on the street level sits about a mile from the Inner Harbor. But the renovated six-story building occupies a block in downtown’s west side, where anticipated redevelopment has met with false starts for decades.

The second year of Gov. Wes Moore’s signature public service and jobs program for mostly young Marylanders started Wednesday much like its first — an enthusiastic pep talk, a marching band and hundreds of participants wearing matching red shirts, eager for a new opportunity. Over 600 people are part of the program’s second class and will spend most of the next year earning at least minimum wage while working for a nonprofit organization, company or government agency.

It was common, in those days, for the Morgan State University choir to assemble on short notice. In a time before widespread cellphones, the scattered vocalists had pagers — a 911 message from choir director Nathan Carter meant to get ready to perform quickly. Thaddeus Price can’t remember the exact sequence that led him and the choir to Camden Yards on July 13, 1993.

Sorry to burst your bubble, everyone. Despite what some circulating messages might say, there is no free admission to the Maryland Zoo next week, zoo officials said Wednesday. The message, which zoo officials said is from an unaffiliated Facebook page, claims the zoo is free for all visitors from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Sept. 18 — but, to be clear, it is not.

In the days after the cargo ship Dali toppled Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, the financial toll on the city was incalculable and overwhelming. All water traffic to and from the city’s bustling port was halted, disrupting the shipments that typically come and go via trucks and trains. Baltimore’s emergency officials were occupied with complicated rescue and recovery efforts that stretched on for weeks.

We’re getting uplifted from the good coming from unexpected places. There are a billion active users on social media platform TikTok. They usually check it out to laugh, for the latest popular trends and challenges or maybe for advice and a positive word of encouragement. But it might surprise and inspire people to hear that TikTok has donated thousands of dollars to our local schools.