Around Maryland

The University of Maryland School of Medicine announced the launch of a new training program to address the urgent physician shortages on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The University of Maryland School of Medicine announced on Wednesday that they are launching a new training program in ‘Rural Health’ for medical students.

Starting this weekend, Montgomery County residents can drop off decomposing jack-o-lanterns and other food scraps in bins at three local farmers markets thanks to a new composting program offered by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

Proposed legislation born out of Frederick County Executive Jessica Fitzwater’s data center workgroup could change the approval process for new data center projects. It also could require developers of lots previously approved for critical digital infrastructure (CDI) use to seek a new zoning designation before expanding.

Whatever destruction Hurricane Milton brings, there will be big decisions ahead about how to rebuild and even what places might need to be abandoned. Some damage predictions already exceed $200 billion in combined losses for Milton and Hurricane Helene, which crashed into the Southeast 13 days ago. Officials in Ellicott City are offering words of encouragement to battered communities in Florida and North Carolina as they hold their historic Maryland community as an example of the recovery that’s possible in the future.

Affordable housing, small business revitalization and food insecurity took center stage in Carroll County this week, with a two-day visit from Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development Secretary Jake Day. Day continued his initiative to tour counties across the state with stops in Carroll County on Tuesday and Wednesday. Day, along with his senior staff, spent Tuesday touring the City of Westminster, and Wednesday visiting Taneytown and other parts of the county.

The 66-year-old man is already face down, motionless, when the surveillance video clip starts. One of the assailants jumps and stomps on his head. Another punches him in the back, and a third rifles through the man’s pants pockets before they all take off. As it rocketed across Baltimore social media accounts, the 30-second video first sparked anger, and then outrage, when people heard that the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services had released the youngest of two people arrested in connection with the South Madeira Street attack to a guardian.

The D.C. region continues to answer the call for hurricane help in the South. In Montgomery County, a specialized rescue team known as Maryland Task Force 1 is sending a new 45-member team to North Carolina to relieve the first team sent to help with the recovery from Hurricane Helene. The team will take over those who have been helping check on people and bring in supplies, but Montgomery County Fire and EMS Chief Corey Smedley said this outgoing group could end their deployment in Florida, depending on how much damage Hurricane Milton does.

The Anne Arundel County Council passed a bill Monday that will require developers to allocate a portion of new units for moderate-income residents and create more diverse housing types in certain areas, in spite of environmental concerns raised by community members. Known as the Housing Attainability Act, the bill would require new housing developments with 20 or more units to designate 10% of for-sale units and 15% of rental units to be affordable.