Around Maryland

Sorry to burst your bubble, everyone. Despite what some circulating messages might say, there is no free admission to the Maryland Zoo next week, zoo officials said Wednesday. The message, which zoo officials said is from an unaffiliated Facebook page, claims the zoo is free for all visitors from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Sept. 18 — but, to be clear, it is not.

We’re getting uplifted from the good coming from unexpected places. There are a billion active users on social media platform TikTok. They usually check it out to laugh, for the latest popular trends and challenges or maybe for advice and a positive word of encouragement. But it might surprise and inspire people to hear that TikTok has donated thousands of dollars to our local schools.

With the academic year in full swing, many public school districts in the Baltimore area are still working to address teacher vacancies, but the gaps are not nearly as large as in the past few years. Ranging from 171 vacancies in Baltimore City schools to zero in Harford County, the progress is measurable. School officials and teacher union leaders say state-mandated salary increases, apprenticeship programs and recruitment initiatives have helped several counties reduce vacancies.

Health officials in Maryland said Wednesday they will open the state’s first high-intensity inpatient addiction treatment center in years for children and young people in Baltimore, reflecting grim data showing the state’s youngest residents are not immune from the opioid epidemic. In 2014, there were four teens from ages 13 to 17 who died in the state from overdoses, a number that rose to 19 in 2023.

Ronald Silver II died of hyperthermia, according to an external autopsy report by Maryland’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. The Baltimore City Department of Public Works employee was on the clock as a sanitation worker when he collapsed on a porch on a day in early August that had a heat index of 103. The heat index is what the temperature feels like when relative humidity is taken into account.

Rev. Dr. Alvin Hathaway Sr. remembers when Upton — the historically Black West Baltimore neighborhood and cultural epicenter known for treasured landmarks like the Royal Theater — was home to the Mitchells, a family of civil rights firebrands famously dubbed “The Black Kennedys.” Hathaway, born in 1951, was a youngster in the Mitchell family’s heyday and grew up with them as neighbors. Little George was his companion on the playground. (Photo: Baltimore Beat)

Officials on Wednesday are expected to approve the nearly $9 million purchase of a rural resort in the state’s westernmost county, but a legislator representing the area said the state has left residents in the dark about its plans. Area residents who have felt that the resort, which opened in 1999, has inhibited their hunting spots or state park access may feel especially strong about what the state has in store for the land.

A few dozen electric vehicle charging stations are coming into disadvantaged communities in Maryland and Virginia, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments announced. The initiative is being funded using nearly $4 million in grant funding that the COG received from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration.

A West Baltimore clinic that treats and tests thousands of people for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections stopped seeing patients sometime in August. City health officials can’t say when it will reopen. The Druid Sexual Health Clinic is in disrepair, and the staff can only send patients off with an appointment at a clinic across town and a voucher to help pay for transportation. Treatment used to be free to everyone and now comes at a cost.