Around Maryland

The Howard County Public School System (HCPSS) awarded a five-year contract to transportation company Zum to provide 250 carbon-neutral buses for the district’s fleet. Zum will provide HCPSS with 250 new school buses and the most advanced technology solution geared toward student safety. Through the Zum app, HCPSS parents will be able to view the complete profile of their child’s driver, along with real-time tracking and notifications about their school bus location and their child’s pickup or dropoff status.

Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins appeared at a local gun firing range on multiple occasions and had opportunities to see demonstrations of the machine guns at the center of a federal indictment, according to a motion from his co-defendant’s attorney. Jenkins’ attorneys, however, said last week in their own motion that there was no evidence he ever saw the machine guns.

Over two weekends under a reinstated youth curfew, only two kids have come into Baltimore’s city-managed youth centers so far, a result that officials from Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration touted Monday night as evidence of the controversial policy’s effectiveness. Neither of the two kids who have come into the city-managed centers since enforcement began on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend have been transported in the city’s shuttle service, Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement Director Shantay Jackson told council members nearing the end of an almost three-hour budget hearing Monday night.

The Maryland State Department of Education released an interim report last month to assess what hundreds of thousands of state students did months after graduating high school. The 154-page report from the American Institute of Research headquartered in Arlington, Va., shows that about 54% of Maryland’s students who graduated between 2017 to 2021 attended a two-year or four-year college or university the same year after completing four years of high school.

Naomi Cohen recalled taking part in a women’s health care march 20 years ago in Washington, D.C. Looking back at that time, she never would have dreamed that in 2023 there would be a need to fight for women’s reproductive rights, including access to legal and safe abortion. Then again, today she’s also astounded at the growing need to advocate for civil rights — a plight she undertook as a high school student.

Prince George’s County lawmakers have formally kicked off a high-altitude planning process that will guide major future redevelopment at the Washington Commanders’ FedEx Field in Landover, as well as along Metro’s Blue Line, a top economic development priority for local public officials. The county council voted unanimously Tuesday to initiate the Central Avenue-Blue/Silver Line Sector Plan and Sectional Map Amendment process, which will probably take around two years to complete.