Around Maryland

In his first response to being indicted by a federal grand jury, Frederick County Sheriff Charles “Chuck” Jenkins denied having “any financial incentive or fraudulent intent” when he helped a gun dealer obtain machine guns to rent out to the public. “Sheriff Jenkins’ entire role in this alleged conspiracy, was to sign the letters put before him,” his attorneys wrote in a new court filing.

A hundred employees with the Baltimore City Fire Department are called back to work overtime each day because of the agency’s staffing crisis, fire officials said at a Board of Fire Commissioners meeting this month. Those employees are often firefighters asked to man shifts as paramedics or emergency medical technicians, positions that have been beset by vacancies for years.

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office filed twin lawsuits Tuesday against several manufacturers that used PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” in firefighting foam and a host of other consumer products. Filed in Baltimore City Circuit Court, the lawsuits allege that companies such as 3M and E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company were aware of the dangers of PFAS chemicals but continued to sell them to consumers for decades.

Carroll County will induct 16 lieutenants into the new Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services Thursday during a commissioning ceremony that county officials are calling historic. The induction comes three years after the county created its first combination fire and EMS department. “It’s extremely important,” District 5 Commissioner Ed Rothstein said.

A Baltimore County Police trial board found last week that an officer used reasonable force when, according to a county attorney prosecuting the case, he struck an unruly suspect in the head 15 to 20 times while the man was on the floor in 2020. Earlier last week, the same county attorney dismissed a separate use-of-force allegation against the same police officer, David J. Folderauer Jr., who struck a man in the head with a flashlight during an incident in 2021, according to the officer’s defense lawyer.

Frederick County Public Libraries welcomes back readers and explorers of all ages for its annual summer reading program, being held June 1 to Aug. 15. As in years past, this summer, FCPL is challenging you to read books and visit community destinations. Read for at least 20 days this summer, and you’ll not only build a healthy new habit, you will earn rewards.

Jose Argueta ran his knife along the spine of a Northern snakehead, pulling the meat from the body of one of the Chesapeake Bay’s most threatening invasive fish. An inspector stood over his shoulder in a white lab coat, embroidered with the letters “USDA.” But she paid little mind to the snakehead on the table, inside the kitchen-sized slicing room at BSA Seafood in Queen Anne’s County’s Grasonville.