Around Maryland

The cost of clearing the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge from the Patapsco River in Baltimore has risen roughly 42% since July, to more than $71 million. Maryland officials initially awarded a $50 million contract to Skanska, a Swedish construction company with a U.S. headquarters in New York, for clearing large sections of highway bridge trusses, steel girders, the main bridge deck and concrete parapets. (Photo: AP Photo/Matt Rourke via The Daily Record)

For sailors, the Francis Scott Key Bridge has always been a waypoint, marking the beginning — or the end — of journeys. It is the symbolic entrance to, and exit from, Baltimore, its waterborne threshold. Even as wreckage, it still is. Six months ago, the span collapsed as the Dali cargo ship lost power and struck a support pier. But the Key Bridge’s powerful symbolism to sailors remains.

With students back in the classroom, and fall and winter ahead of us, Baltimore health leaders are urging children to get vaccinated from COVID-19 and the flu. Baltimore City's health department has the latest updated COVID-19 booster shots available for residents. "There's a new dominant strain, and this particular vaccine is going to prevent that from being apart of your household, if you get it done today," said Rebecca Dineen, the assistant commissioner of the Baltimore City Health Department.

The D.C. area boasts one of the largest populations of African immigrants in the U.S., leading Maryland Gov. Wes Moore to proclaim September as African Heritage Month — something that’s been celebrated for the last few years in Prince George’s County. According to the Census Bureau, the D.C. region has the fourth-largest African population in the country, though locally there’s an anecdotal belief that it’s a very undercounted segment of the population.

There isn’t much changing at the top of this list. Princeton University in New Jersey retained its spot as the best college in the country, according to the U.S. News and World Report 2025 Best Colleges Ranking. MIT came in at No. 2, followed by Harvard University, Stanford University and Yale. There’s not a lot of shifting in this year’s rankings, especially in the top 10, according to LaMont Jones, managing editor for education at U.S. News.

Every Thursday afternoon like clockwork, a group of teens in orange aprons huddles around a collection of brightly colored bikes next to a skate park at the city’s Inner Harbor. Two of them are snapping the front derailleur of a blue two-wheeler back into place so the rider can change gears. Another group is swapping a torn brown leather seat for a freshly covered black one.

I was lost in a thicket of pawpaws and towering bittersweet vines at South River Farm Park. Lisa Arrasmith and Mike Lofton were walking me to the water’s edge, picking a path through public land across the South River from Annapolis. It was overgrown and littered with flotsam from hundreds of surging storms. His knee was dodgy but holding up.