Around Maryland

Allegany County has been named one of the “Best Places to Visit During Fall” in a USA Today 10Best poll. The county was one of 20 destinations picked by a panel of travel experts to compete in the USA Today readers poll to determine the “10Best” locations to visit for fall. Released Friday, Allegany County placed second behind Gatlinburg, Tennessee, in final voting.

Baltimore has received $4 million of federal funding to build a composting facility at the city’s Eastern Sanitation Yard, which would accept organic waste such as food scraps and turn it into a fertilizer mixture. Supporters say the East Baltimore facility would be the first of its kind to be managed by city government, calling it a meaningful step toward achieving the city’s “zero waste” goal.

The Housing Authority of the City of Hagerstown was awarded $500,000 as part of the $7 million Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grants program through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Hagerstown was one of 14 communities nationwide chosen for the grant from 28 applications. It is the largest cohort of new Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grants since 2012.

Sometimes what goes on behind the scenes is as interesting as what gets lit up by the spotlights. The 2023-’24 arts season is brimming with enticing plays and concerts and author talks and art exhibits. For a couple of hours, the best productions and exhibitions become a haven and shelter for audience members by creating miniature, self-enclosed worlds. That is the implicit promise of art.

Rita Wilkerson waited three years for the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis to fix her leaking sink. The Robinwood complex resident stocks up on mouse traps and Clorox wipes to cope with a rodent problem that leaves her stove and dining room table littered with droppings. Sun-bleached notices from February 2022, November 2022 and February 2023 on her door testify to multiple visits from the City of Annapolis when her unit failed inspection, placing HACA’s license to lease the unit into an uncertain status.

Public transportation across the state will be free on Friday, Sept. 22 through Sunday, Sept. 24, according to the Maryland Transit Administration. The free rides, offered in celebration of World Car Free Day, will include local buses, the light rail, the metro subway, MARC trains, commuter buses and mobility services. The free transit weekends will come during the Artscape street festival, a Ravens home game against the Indianapolis Colts and the Baltimore premiere of “The Wiz” at the Hippodrome Theatre.

During Mountain Maryland for ALICE, an event hosted by the United Way of Frederick County on Thursday, United Ways in Maryland came together to discuss issues that financially struggling households face and how community organizations can help with those struggles. The event, which featured keynote presentations on the 2023 ALICE Report and two panels, focused on ALICE Report statistics in Garrett, Frederick, Allegany and Washington counties.

California and Florida have become the first states to require later public school start times, a response to reams of research showing significant advantages for high school students who can get more sleep by beginning their day at 8:30 a.m. or later. But such changes come with difficult ripple effects — upended bus schedules, later starts for extracurriculars and new schedules for teachers and staff — making many other states and localities hesitant to change.

The invasive spotted lanternflies are popping up all over Maryland, and one expert says the issue is only going to get worse. After hatching in May, the bugs are now fully grown, hungry, mating and on the move, making them more noticeable. University of Maryland entomologist Michael Raupp, AKA “The Bug Guy,” knows this all too well.