Around Maryland

After Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott announced Wednesday that the city would cut ties with the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, the news reverberated throughout the local art world. Turbulence over BOPA’s financial troubles had come to a head in recent weeks, but the announcement still appeared to be a surprise to some.

This summer, around 150 people jumped into the Inner Harbor for the first Harbor Splash. The Waterfront Partnership's Healthy Harbor report shows many areas of the harbor are safe for swimming. A majority of sites have good or improving bacteria scores. The report found the Inner Harbor is safe for swimming 80% of the time.

The city of Baltimore will seek to terminate its contractual relationship with the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, the mayor's office announced Wednesday evening. BOPA is the organizer of some of the city's largest events, including Artscape and the New Year's Eve fireworks. In a letter to BOPA leadership, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott announced the city's severing its ties with the organization based on its "current financial situation and operational challenges."

In the future, Maryland consumers in Montgomery County could forget about plastic bags at the grocery store. Those will be banned — with some exceptions — if a new bill passes the council this week. Under the “Bring Your Own Bag” bill, if customers want a paper bag, they’ll pay 10 cents per bag — double the rate they now pay if they don’t opt to bring their own reusable bags to the store.

The Baltimore County Council is poised to pass a resolution opposing a proposed $424 million, 70-mile energy transmission line. The Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project would cut through Baltimore, Carroll and Frederick counties. All seven members of the council voiced support for the resolution during a public hearing Tuesday.

The state of Maryland has unleashed a team of computer experts and enthusiasts on a number of the state’s websites. The mission: to see if they could find weak spots in the state’s domains that end in “maryland.gov,” “us.md.gov” or “state.md.us.” “We found more than 40 vulnerabilities,” said Chris Krawiec, senior director of cyber resilience with the Maryland Department of Information Technology.