More than 43.5 million people visited Maryland in 2022, spending $19.4 billion, 18.4% more than 2021, according to the Maryland Department of Commerce’s Office of Tourism. Last year’s tourist spending also topped pre-pandemic, 2019 levels by more than $1 billion.
Alex Haley’s bronze shoes were dry Thursday afternoon, safely above the 2-foot flood tide that slipped over the dinghy landing at City Dock in Annapolis. The statue of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author is an unofficial flood gauge in America’s capital of climate change, where rising seas pose a threat to the future of a historic seat of government. The city is embarking on a $90 million remake of its downtown waterfront to protect its most vulnerable neighborhoods.
On a warm Friday morning in early September, a small group of people gathered in Fells Point to do what some consider unthinkable: jump into the Baltimore harbor. With pool noodles and inner tubes in hand, 20 or so harbor advocates and researchers organized by Baltimore’s Waterfront Partnership leapt into the water from a pier at Bond Street Wharf.
Maryland officials expressed confidence Thursday that the FBI’s new headquarters will, indeed, be built in Prince George’s County — even as the head of the FBI blasted the selection process. “The FBI building is coming to the state of Maryland,” Gov. Wes Moore said confidently — and repeatedly — when asked by reporters about the fate of the project.
Federal officials have chosen a site in the Maryland suburbs to replace the FBI’s iconic but decaying national headquarters in downtown Washington, the General Services Administration and multiple people familiar with the decision said Wednesday. The decision follows years of pointed arguments about where the multibillion-dollar project should land.
Juvenile justice stakeholders told state lawmakers Wednesday to hold the line on reforms they passed one year ago amid public concern and amplified media attention on rising youth gun violence and a spike in auto thefts. During the second in a series of briefings, the powerful House Judiciary Committee opened the year-old Juvenile Justice Reform Act to dissection.
Morgan State, Coppin State and the Johns Hopkins universities are partnering with the Baltimore City Public School System to provide pediatric nursing services in city schools, the school system confirmed Wednesday. The programs aim to help alleviate a nursing shortage. Previously, BCPSS has worked with the city health department to provide nursing assistants and licensed practical nurses in schools.
Maryland officials have approved a $235,000 settlement to resolve all claims in a lawsuit over how the state medical examiner’s office handled the autopsy of Anton Black — a 19-year-old whose death after being restrained by police on the Eastern Shore led to calls for police reforms and a new state law. The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland called it a “landmark settlement” that will also require the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to implement policies that will, for the first time, outline how medical examiners handle deaths in police custody and how transparent they are about the results.
Three researchers at Johns Hopkins University and one at the University of Maryland, College Park were awarded a total of $759,733 as part of a landmark $100 million investment by the Alzheimer’s Association into research initiatives. The award is largest single-year investment since the organization’s founding in 1980.
The city’s new skatepark is expected to be built this spring. Connecticut-based Rampage, LLC, a skatepark design firm, has been consulted about the project, which probably won’t include a bowl-shaped component because some skaters indicated they’re not interested in the feature, Cumberland Administrator Jeff Silka told the mayor and City Council at a work session Tuesday.
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