Around Maryland

The Johns Hopkins University named Branville Bard Jr., who currently serves as the school’s vice president of public safety, as the inaugural chief of the university’s police department. Bar, who has worked with Hopkins since August 2021, will lead efforts to establish JHPD policies and procedures, as well as oversee staffing of the armed police force.

Only one Maryland jurisdiction ranked favorably on a new report into pollution. One in four Americans live in an area with air pollution that’s harmful to their health and can even shorten their lives, according to the American Lung Association’s “State of the Air” report. The report focuses on ozone and particle pollution. Although the Clean Air Act is credited with improving air quality, pollution remains a big problem for much of the country.

The historic Oldfields School, a small all-girls boarding school in Sparks Glencoe, will close at the end of this academic year. The school, which became the first girls boarding school in Maryland when it was founded in 1867, said in a Wednesday news release the decision to close is due to “recent trends and obstacles” that have challenged independent schools nationwide.

More than 200 construction workers took park in a “unity ride” Wednesday to raise awareness about work zone safety, nearly a month after six people were killed at a site in the median of the Baltimore Beltway. Participants began their hourlong afternoon ride at noon at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport and ended at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium, traveling on I-97, I-695 and I-83. Workers made a point to drive the posted speed limit along the route.

The Baltimore County Public Schools Board of Education discussed closing Golden Ring Middle School, lowered graduation rates and increased dropout rates at its regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday evening. This is the first meeting of the academic year where new appointed board members Tiara Booker-Dwyer, Tiffany Frempong and Emory Young have taken their seats. The trio, all selected by Gov. Wes Moore’s office, were sworn into their positions Friday and Monday.

Baltimore police Commissioner Michael Harrison said enforcing the city’s youth curfew is a work in progress. During the C4 and Bryan Nehman show on Tuesday, Harrison explained how to enforce the youth curfew and what the police department’s role in it will be is up for discussion. “We’ve been meeting several times a week,” Harrison said regarding the pending curfew regulations.

The Montgomery County Council voted unanimously last week to enact an expedited bill to create the Friendship Heights Urban District that will, among other things, create an advisory committee with the aim of strengthen the commercial and public spaces in the Friendship Heights area of the county. Friendship Heights straddles Montgomery County and the District of Columbia, and the county bill dovetails with legislation introduced by D.C. Ward 3 councilmember Matt Frumin to create a business improvement district for the D.C. side of Friendship Heights.