Around Maryland

A sweeping vision to revitalize south Baltimore’s shoreline and 19 adjacent communities has been officially endorsed by the city. Baltimore’s Planning Commission voted 7 to 0 on Thursday to adopt a master plan developed to improve 11 miles of shoreline along the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River in south Baltimore. The commission meeting was the culmination of a multi-year effort led by a consortium of stakeholders from the public and private sectors. Its vote means the Reimagine Middle Branch Plan now has the formal backing of Baltimore’s government, affirmation that will assist in both funding and implementation. No other public body has to vote on the plan, and no legislation must be signed into law for it to take effect.

A woman accused of plotting an attack on Baltimore’s power grid wanted to draw attention to the white supremacist ideology she embraced during years spent in prison, where she acquired a swastika tattoo and increasingly radical, racist views, her family said. Sarah Beth Clendaniel, who believed her days were numbered because of serious health conditions, is accused of conspiring with a Florida-based neo-Nazi leader, planning to shoot out several electrical substations around Baltimore and create chaos in the majority-Black city.

About two decades before the sweeping educational reform known as the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, there was a different commission that laid the foundation. This was even before what was known as Kirwan. It was the Maryland’s Commission on Education Finance, Equity, and Excellence also known as the Thornton Commission, named after chair Alvin Thornton. In a recent interview with WYPR, Thornton shared how the Blueprint’s funding formula was created.

Baltimore’s Board of Estimates will consider a $6 million settlement next week to end a federal lawsuit over the 2010 death of a man who was struck by a driver being chased by members of the corrupt Gun Trace Task Force. The settlement will close one of the most notorious incidents that involved the Baltimore Police Department task force, in which plainclothes officers pursued two men who fled in their vehicle and struck another car, killing the driver, Elbert Davis Sr.

Jen Corbin and Steve Thomas drove into Washington on Tuesday. She got to see President Joe Biden deliver the State of the Union address and the unruly Republican response. Thomas, an Anne Arundel County police lieutenant, checked in on U.S. Capitol Police officers as part of a peer support group. Corbin, director of crisis response for Anne Arundel County, introduced herself to Maryland’s new governor, Wes Moore, also a guest in the gallery. She preached the value of the county’s collaborative approach to mental health, addiction and crisis response, which brings together judges, prosecutors, public defenders, police, firefighters, medical experts, hospitals and nonprofits.