Around Maryland

The Carroll County Board of Education is scheduled to vote on a measure Wednesday that would approve construction of new kindergarten and pre-kindergarten classrooms at Cranberry Station, Friendship Valley, Sandymount and Taneytown elementary schools. The school board’s monthly meeting is set to begin at 5 p.m., Wednesday, at 125 N. Court St. in Westminster.

A newly proposed construction schedule from Frederick County Public Schools would accelerate the timeline for replacing Brunswick High School — a move residents say is long overdue. Students and parents from Brunswick have showed up en masse to school board meetings in recent months, urging officials to take action on what they argue are unacceptable conditions in the building.

The City of Taneytown has temporarily slowed its search for a new police chief after a leading candidate pulled himself out of consideration, City Manager Jim Wieprecht said. “Since the prior candidate withdrew his application, we have not re-advertised nor accepted more applications, so nothing’s changed there since the last search,” Wieprecht said.

The U.S. is nowhere near out of the woods from the dangers of smoke billowing from hundreds of wildfires burning throughout Canada. A grayish haze continued to linger over much of the Northeast on Monday, nearly a week after the air quality emergency in the region began to confine millions of people indoors. Philadelphia’s Air Quality Index measured at 101 on Monday morning, or “Code Orange,” which is unhealthy for sensitive groups such as young children, the elderly, pregnant women and those with pre-existing lung and heart conditions, according to AirNow.gov.

The U.S. Office for Civil Rights is investigating 17 recent data breaches at Maryland businesses that affected more than 100,000 people, the 11 News I-Team has learned. The OCR, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, opens investigations into all “breaches of unsecured protected health information affecting 500 or more individuals,” according to its website.

At 275 years of age, Frederick County looks good, Maryland State Delegate Christopher Eric Bouchat said on Saturday. Bouchat was among several government and elected officials who spoke at a jubilee at Utica District Park, a festive celebration marking the county’s 275th anniversary of June 10, 1748.

The Maryland Department of Health said nearly 25,000 Marylanders — or 21% of the 120,000 up for renewal in April — lost their Medicaid coverage as of June 1 as part of the massive redetermination process the state is undertaking due to the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency. These are the first enrollees to lose benefits as part of this effort.