Around Maryland

Following a three-year pandemic hiatus, Baltimore’s Artscape free arts festival set for Sept. 22-24 will feature Kelly Rowland as the headline artist. In addition to the Grammy-winning Destiny’s Child alum, Angelo Moore of Fishbone will perform with his band Dr. Madd Vibe on Saturday night. Iconic ‘70s superstar guitarist and producer Nile Rodgers & Chic will perform Saturday afternoon, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will headline on Sunday, officials announced Monday.

The mere mention of “artificial intelligence” inspires a lot of dread and wonder in the general populace. Yet it’s an overbroad subject. AI can mean anything from self-driving cars to facial recognition technology. Robots that perform unenviable tasks to new mashups of popular songs. Enhanced fraud detection at banks to deep video fakes meant to dupe the public.

Maryland Ensemble Theatre is ready to unveil its newest program, The Teen Ensemble, a pre-professional theatrical experience specially designed for aspiring young performers. This innovative initiative aims to nurture and cultivate the talents of young artists through a series of rehearsals, show stopping performances, Ensemble School courses and master classes. Frederick’s Arts & Entertainment district has grown substantially with audiences coming from across the Mid-Atlantic region.

While top United Nations climate scientists indicated last month could be the hottest ever recorded, University of Maryland Center for Global Sustainability Director Nathan Hultman has been working for years to help keep the planet cool. As the White House’s Deputy Associate Director for Energy & Climate Change during the Obama administration, he had a front row seat to the Paris Climate Agreement agreed to by over 190 countries in 2015 and 2016.

Over the summer, Maryland county coffers will grow by a collective $13.6 million — their second annual payout from last year’s landmark national court settlement against opioid industry giants — companies whose drugs, plaintiffs contended, helped fuel a nationwide addiction crisis. But Baltimore City won’t get a dime.

The Baltimore City Board of Estimates unanimously approved a contract Wednesday for Roberta’s House, a local grief support center, to continue working with the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement under its SideStep Pre-Arrest Youth Diversion Pilot program. As part of the SideStep program, this $50,000 award will be used to assist Roberta’s House with its Changing the Game program, designed to serve at-risk youth who have suffered losses within a six-month period by helping them find productive ways of coping with grief and trauma, said Jack French, MONSE’s spokesperson.

Nicole Fabricant seemed like a natural guide. A professor of anthropology at Towson University, she’d spent years researching historically marginalized communities, like South Baltimore. Together with fellow academics from the Johns Hopkins University, she served on the advisory board of a project called Right to the City.

Can artificial intelligence be used to boost natural knowledge? That’s what the new Prince George’s County Public Schools superintendent is pushing this upcoming school year. Millard House II told Good Morning America Saturday morning that the school district is embracing what he believes is the next emerging technology.

Two advocacy groups are pushing for a state version of the federal Community Reinvestment Act to ensure more equitable treatment of people of color by home lenders. In Maryland, Black and Latino applicants were denied home loans at a rate 1.6 times higher than white applicants, according to data from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition from 2018 to 2020. In the city of Baltimore, Black applicants were rejected 2.1 times more than white applicants.