Around Maryland

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Thursday announced a $1 million gift from philanthropists Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker as a dedicated endowment for the OrchKids Program and support its community-based performances. The OrchKids Program started with 30 students at one school and has grown to serve more than 1,850 students across seven embedded sites in Baltimore plus a summer home at Goucher College.

Justin Thurmond and his family in Alma, Ark., will keep their thermostat set at a balmy 78 degrees this summer to save money. They’re ending their weekly meals out, juggling streaming services and cutting back on groceries and other spending. It’s still not enough to offset the $460 he’ll need each month to pay down $42,000 in student loans come Oct. 1. That’s when Thurmond and 43.6 million other borrowers will have to resume monthly payments on a collective $1.6 trillion in college debt, according to the Department of Education, ending a three-year pause.

As birds chirped and the sun set at Gathland State Park near Burkittsville on Wednesday evening, about 200 candles flickered in front of the park's War Correspondents Memorial Arch. The illumination at the park, held in front of the oldest-known monument in the world dedicated to journalists killed in combat, was part of an annual statewide observation of the importance of press freedom.

An ordinance introduced this week would allow the Town of Berlin to install speed cameras near schools. A first reading of an ordinance that would establish the use of speed cameras in designated school zones was held during Monday’s meeting of the Berlin Town Council. Citizens will have a chance to weigh in on the proposed ordnance next month. “A public hearing will be held on Monday, July 10, 2023, at 7 p.m.,” Mayor Zack Tyndall said.

Sunday marks the 115th year since Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was born in West Baltimore. Beloved Community Services Corporation, a Baltimore nonprofit, is hosting a celebration of Marshall’s birthday on Sunday at the Baltimore Art Museum. The legendary civil rights lawyer and first Black Supreme Court justice died in 1993 at age 84.

Maryland’s Supreme Court sidestepped the question of whether dismissal is required when a prosecutor intentionally fails to disclose extensive exculpatory evidence to the defense in a criminal case. In an opinion issued last week, the high court declined to wade into the evidentiary issues at the heart of Jonathan D. Smith’s 2001 murder conviction in Talbot County, though both the state and the defense agreed on appeal that the case should be dismissed.

Baltimore City Circuit Court has issued a 10-day restraining order against the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company, siding with residents who have said the utility company does not have the legal grounds to terminate gas service. It is the latest chapter in a months-long saga between the utility company and residents who have called out BGE for its project to replace more than 11,200 indoor gas regulators with external ones by the end of 2031.

The U.S. Department of Transportation awarded a $25 million Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant to a regional partnership in Maryland investing in trails. The grant, submitted by Prince George’s County Office of the County Executive on behalf of M-NCPPC Prince George’s County Department of Parks & Recreation, Montgomery Parks and the District Department of Transportation, will drive massive investments in the regional paved trail network across underserved communities in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties and the District of Columbia.

The acting Baltimore Police commissioner who’s been nominated for the permanent job has been working his way up the department’s ranks since 1998 — a 25-year history expected to be a key factor in his confirmation process. Supporters have praised Richard Worley’s track record, calling him someone who knows the department inside and out, while community activists have urged close scrutiny of those decades of policing within a force that has a documented history of unconstitutional policing.