Around Maryland

The Baltimore Fire Department is making adjustments to how it fights fires. The new procedures were sent out in a memo to staff on Tuesday, WJZ-TV reported. It says effective immediately firefighters must fight fires from outside the building unless they’re told to do otherwise by a battalion chief. Firefighters will now only attack fires from the inside of occupied dwellings after they have completed several checks of the building.

Over the last few months, a handful of city residents tasked with reviewing the Baltimore Police Department’s internal misconduct investigations have been scouring nearly two dozen cases per week, flagging issues with missing video footage, incomplete reports and policy discrepancies. Since its first meeting in mid-June, the five-member “administrative charging committee” of the city’s Police Accountability Board has reviewed more than 370 cases, according to the city’s Office of Equity and Civil Rights, which oversees its work. Of those cases, the committee has differed from the department’s internal conclusions in seven instances, the civil rights office said.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown co-led a coalition of 19 attorneys general who submitted an amicus brief supporting the Montgomery County Board of Education in its decision to include LGBTQ+ books in its language arts curriculum A group of parents sued the Montgomery County school board after it allowed elementary schools to read books about LGBTQ+ people.

Karla Silvestre, the president of the Board of Education, joined the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Democratic Breakfast club on Oct. 23 to discuss issues that the school system is facing and answered community member’s questions and comments. Silvestre touched on the investigation of allegations of sexual misconduct by a Montgomery County Public Schools principal, how to support students and schools during the Israel-Hamas war, the school district’s climate initiatives, the electric school bus program and some budget details.

African American studies will be offered to high schoolers in Anne Arundel County starting next fall. The class will be offered as an advanced placement course. The decision became official following Wednesday morning’s board of education meeting. Students in grades 9-12 will have the option of taking the course. It will examine, in part, the diversity of African American experiences.

As of three weeks ago, Sigal Ariely’s plans for late October were set: She’d fly from her hometown of Ashkelon, Israel, to Baltimore to help the Jewish service organization she works for celebrate a major milestone. The Baltimore-Ashkelon Partnership — a program that fosters personal, cultural and educational ties between Central Maryland’s Jewish community and the residents of Ashkelon, a city of about 170,000 in Israel — turns 20 this month.

Baltimore agencies have been put on notice: They could soon face a lawsuit over the Brooklyn Homes mass shooting from July. The families of the two young people killed at the gathering, along with two gunshot survivors, intend to make claims of negligence and intentional wrongdoing, according to notices of claim filed on Thursday by attorneys.

It’s getting more expensive to buy a home in Greater Baltimore’s most expensive ZIP codes. That’s according to an analysis of data from Zillow Group Inc. and Bankrate LLC by The Business Journals. Nationally, median home prices inched up by an average of 0.67% between 2022 and 2023 — emblematic of a housing market that has retreated from the lofty gains seen during and immediately after the pandemic.

Annapolis’ Double T Diner, with its metallic exterior and neon lights, was closed for a night in early September to regular customers, instead welcoming a TikTok film crew and a performer who has over half a million followers on the video-sharing app. Inside, a few dozen family, friends and fans of Annapolis-born singer and TikTok breakout star Isabel LaRosa sat at tables with menus advertising a special performance.