Around Maryland

As Maryland’s sports betting market expands, a center that assists those suffering from a gambling problem has struggled to keep pace with a growing demand for help and an increase in pro-betting advertising. On Thursday, the online retailer and betting company Fanatics, which has a sportsbook facility inside the Washington Commanders’ FedEx Field, became Maryland’s 10th active mobile sportsbook.

Potomac Edison’s effort to make an early buyout of its contract with AES Warrior Run is getting pushback from a utility watchdog agency. Potomac Edison, a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp., announced in April that it submitted a proposal to the Maryland Public Service Commission to buy out the contract with AES seven years early for $357 million.

Some members of the Baltimore County School Board Nominating Commission say the organization has “deviated” from its intended role of presenting eligible candidates to help lead the school system. At a news conference Thursday morning, members Eugene Clark and Marietta English said that the commission’s three officers did not follow policy in deciding which applicants get the opportunity to be interviewed and thus submitted to Gov. Wes Moore for potential appointment to the Baltimore County Public Schools Board of Education. Cindy Sexton, chair of the nominating commission, said policy was followed.

With a Maryland hate crimes task force funded by a federal grant set to expire next year, legislation to make it a permanent group goes into effect Thursday. The task force, now called the Commission on Hate Crime Response and Prevention, will continue to be managed by the state attorney general’s office. About $114,400 from the U.S. Department of Justice will cover a one-year contract next fiscal year for the office to hire an assistant attorney general to manage the commission.

In a parking lot off the Jones Falls Expressway, my eyes started to water from staring into the sun. I could hear it better than I could see it. At five-minute intervals, a low hum sounded and a small Cessna airplane, roughly a mile from the ground, passed overhead. Throughout April, I’d heard from several Baltimore Banner readers that a surveillance plane was flying over West Baltimore.

Citing “financial challenges … faced in recent times,” the owners of Pimlico Race Course notified employees Saturday that they are shutting down the track’s off-track betting (OTB) facility by June 30 — the same date a key agreement for racing operations in Maryland is due to expire. In an e-mail to employees of the Maryland Jockey Club — subsidiary owner of the Pimlico and Laurel Park tracks — Mike Rogers, the company’s’ acting president, wrote that “this decision was not made lightly.”

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.