Laurel Park’s horse racing future hinges on a proposal to be made to the Maryland General Assembly next month that could alter Thoroughbred racing in the state as we know it. A determination will come from the Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority, a commission established by Senate Bill 720 in the 2023 legislative session, to make recommendations on the redevelopment of Laurel Park and Pimlico racecourses – the two most prominent, historic, but aging, Thoroughbred racetracks in the state.

Families in one east Baltimore neighborhood are taking a stand against crime. The Belair-Edison neighborhood already has a community improvement association. Now, they want a neighborhood watch with signs posted throughout the area and neighbors working together to prevent crime. Sherell Sellers said she and her neighbors are tired of the crime. They met Thursday to develop the watch group. Even before the meeting, she said she and a neighbor stopped teenagers from stealing an Amazon delivery truck.

Maryland roads include more than 700 historical markers commemorating famous battles and buildings. Some, like the one introducing Kent Island to motorists, hark back to the years before Catholic settlers even founded the colony in 1634. Others, like the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory that was dedicated on Solomons Island in 1925, are more recent. What they share is that many fail to convey the whole story. They’re not supposed to; at 70 words apiece, the idea is to whet an appetite to learn more. Yet a motorist might well learn the wrong information.

As Maryland rolls out the 2021 landmark education reform law called the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, many school administrators are unsure what the plan means for their schools. At the annual School Leaders Conference held Nov. 2-4 in Ocean City, state officials and school principals reviewed the details of the Blueprint and discussed how it will be implemented in each school district.

At a Wednesday meeting of Maryland Higher Education Commission, officials discussed how the implementation of Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, an education overhaul passed by the 2021 Maryland General Assembly, may drastically change how students are assessed for college and career readiness, among other topics.

 

The walls of the tiny office shared by Bryan Butler and Frank Jones are filled with success stories. Every kid who comes through the Springhill Lake Recreation Center — every child whose lives were touched by homework help, basketball and the guidance of strong Black men — gets to put a photo on those walls. There are thousands of them.

Frederick County Division of Fire and Rescue Services personnel and other county government employees could soon see better retirement plans under two bills before the County Council. At a workshop on Tuesday, Council President Brad Young brought forth both bills on behalf of County Executive Jessica Fitzwater. The first bill emerged from an agreement between Fitzwater and the Career Firefighters Association of Frederick County — a local branch of the International Association of Firefighters that represents more than 400 DFRS employees.

 

Moving one step closer to the realization of the construction of a state-of-the-art facility to house science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs, Morgan State University on Thursday revealed designs for its new estimated $342 million Science and Research Complex, slated to open in fall 2027. The Architect of Record (AOR) is Moody Nolan Inc., the nation’s largest Black-owned architecture firm, in collaboration with two associate architects, Cannon Design and K. Dixon Architecture.

Baltimore County officials will kick off the construction of a replacement for Deer Park Elementary School on Monday amid ongoing attempts to address overcrowding throughout the district. The $70.6 million replacement planned for the facility in Owings Mills will be the county’s first net-zero elementary school, meaning it will create as much energy as it uses annually, officials said in a news release.

Baltimore City leaders are touting the Clean Corps program, saying it has removed tons of trash from vacant lots and alleys. One crew worked on West Lafayette Avenue Wednesday after receiving a 311 call that someone had dumped trash in the backyard of a vacant house. The crew could not enter the private property, so instead, they worked on the nearby alley.