Around Maryland

The American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM) Monday announced it will host its Educating Leaders 2023 Conference Wednesday through Friday at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel. Gov. Wes Moore will open the conference Wednesday morning. Osteopathic medicine is the fastest growing sector of medical education with two new proposed medical schools in Maryland, including the proposed Maryland College of Osteopathic Medicine at Morgan State University.

The Westminster-based nonprofit Together We Own It has terminated all youth programs and begun laying off staff as of April 6, after Carroll County Public Schools, the county commissioners and the county’s Department of Citizen Services canceled contracts with the group late last month. The organization’s founder and former executive director, Katie Speert, 26, was the subject of a police investigation in February involving alleged sexual solicitation of a 17-year-old minor, according to Carroll County State’s Attorney Haven Shoemaker, but no charges were filed.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a jurisdictional question from oil companies fighting a multimillion-dollar lawsuit brought by the city of Baltimore over climate change. The Supreme Court’s denial is a victory for Baltimore and for other state and local governments that have repeatedly asked to keep their climate change lawsuits in state courts, where both sides agree the governments stand a better chance of winning large damages than in federal court.

As federal deadlines to spend Baltimore’s windfall of pandemic aid creep closer, a pivotal question hangs in the balance: Will the city, with its notoriously slow gears and occasional troubles with federal funds, be able to land its broad and flashy slate of new projects? The city’s plans to deploy $641 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to tackle an array of entrenched problems — from vacant homes to violent crime to helping low-income residents access internet — have chugged along gradually.

After a 17-year stint in prison for attempted murder, Brandon Wilson joined the Mayor’s Office of African American Male Engagement in 2019 to help young Baltimore men find resources that could help them avoid the mistakes he made. Later that year, he joined the nonprofit group We Our Us, where he now is one of five men who answer phone calls for the nonprofit’s Stop the Beef Hotline.

Baltimore County’s director of corrections defended conditions at the Baltimore County Detention Center on Friday, refuting allegations by the Maryland Office of the Public Defender of poor treatment of youth inmates at the adult facility. However, the corrections director, Walt Pesterfield, also acknowledged in a publicly released letter that the county “shares concerns regarding appropriate placement for juvenile offenders at a facility that was not designed to house juveniles.”

Carroll County wants to continue helping its most needy residents with help from grants from the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development’s Homelessness Solutions Program. Staff in the county’s Department of Citizen Services requested permission to apply for a grant in the amount of $617,997. That funding, along with an additional county match of $544,507, will give the Human Services Programs of Carroll County, Inc., a total of $1,162,504 to continue services such as homeless prevention, rental assistance, and outreach to those living without shelter.

When Vanessa Hiemenz walked her children into Silver Spring International Middle School for a back-to-school night last fall, she was stunned by the building’s outdated conditions. The third floor had no working central air conditioning, so there were loud portable units in the middle of the rooms, said Hiemenz, who has a sixth- and eighth-grader at the middle school.