Around Maryland

Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins appeared at a local gun firing range on multiple occasions and had opportunities to see demonstrations of the machine guns at the center of a federal indictment, according to a motion from his co-defendant’s attorney. Jenkins’ attorneys, however, said last week in their own motion that there was no evidence he ever saw the machine guns.

Over two weekends under a reinstated youth curfew, only two kids have come into Baltimore’s city-managed youth centers so far, a result that officials from Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration touted Monday night as evidence of the controversial policy’s effectiveness. Neither of the two kids who have come into the city-managed centers since enforcement began on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend have been transported in the city’s shuttle service, Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement Director Shantay Jackson told council members nearing the end of an almost three-hour budget hearing Monday night.

The Maryland State Department of Education released an interim report last month to assess what hundreds of thousands of state students did months after graduating high school. The 154-page report from the American Institute of Research headquartered in Arlington, Va., shows that about 54% of Maryland’s students who graduated between 2017 to 2021 attended a two-year or four-year college or university the same year after completing four years of high school.

Naomi Cohen recalled taking part in a women’s health care march 20 years ago in Washington, D.C. Looking back at that time, she never would have dreamed that in 2023 there would be a need to fight for women’s reproductive rights, including access to legal and safe abortion. Then again, today she’s also astounded at the growing need to advocate for civil rights — a plight she undertook as a high school student.

Prince George’s County lawmakers have formally kicked off a high-altitude planning process that will guide major future redevelopment at the Washington Commanders’ FedEx Field in Landover, as well as along Metro’s Blue Line, a top economic development priority for local public officials. The county council voted unanimously Tuesday to initiate the Central Avenue-Blue/Silver Line Sector Plan and Sectional Map Amendment process, which will probably take around two years to complete.

A large boom that shook houses in the Annapolis area Sunday and was heard elsewhere in Maryland was caused by military fighter jets following an “unresponsive” aircraft that later crashed in Virginia, according to defense officials. The noise came from F-16 fighter aircraft that “were authorized to travel at supersonic speeds” as they pursued a civilian business jet over D.C. and Virginia after 3 p.m. Sunday, according to a news release from the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

Maryland environmental officials are restarting a controversial permitting process that would eventually enable Constellation Energy to continue operating the Conowingo Dam for another half century. The future of the dam along the Susquehanna River, considered a significant source of Chesapeake Bay pollution, has been the object of regulatory wrangling and litigation for several years.