Around Maryland

Marylanders are expected to vote in 2024 on whether to enshrine access to abortion in the state constitution, following the House of Delegates’ passage of legislation championed by Speaker Adrienne A. Jones. The House voted 98-38 Thursday to pass Senate Bill 798, which was drafted to provide voters the chance to guarantee “every person ... the fundamental right to reproductive freedom,” including the ability to “prevent, continue or end one’s own pregnancy” without interference from the state.

Michael Silver says he began to observe antisemitic behavior almost immediately after moving to Baltimore five years ago. He said he hasn’t encountered violence personally, but remembered hearing a conversation in a Station North bar where college students were trivializing the Holocaust. “They were saying there was too much emphasis put on it,” the 33-year-old Pigtown resident recalled. “Two weeks ago, I had a manager [at work] say, ‘Jews are really cheap.’ … It is a big deal, and it is a racial thing. I’ve had a lot of people say things that are bombastic and incendiary.”

It’s tedious having to always update your phone, but it may be worth it thanks to a nod to Baltimore in the form of a new emoji — a black bird that could work as a raven. The icon was one of 21 emojis the iOS 16.4 update introduced this week. As if people needed more emoji options to use instead of their words. The black bird option started making the rounds on Twitter, naturally, and people are calling it a raven. It could pass for one, depending on how you look at it.

A three-judge panel on Maryland's Court of Appeals Tuesday reinstated the murder conviction of Adnan Syed.  The judges have asked the Circuit Court of Baltimore City for a do-over in the hearing on whether Syed should be released. Syed was accused of killing Hae Min Lee. Lee in 1999 and was subject of the popular podcast, "Serial." His first trial ended in a mistrial. A jury convicted him in a second trial. Syed had been in jail since his arrest in February 1999.

The University of Maryland Medical System and several other Baltimore-area hospital systems have begun lifting masking requirements for public areas that have been in place since April 2020, shortly after the coronavirus pandemic struck. At UMMS’ 11 hospitals and other facilities, masks still will be required for employees and visitors when they are in contact with patients, but not in waiting rooms, lobbies and hallways, a spokesperson for UMMS said in a statement.

A new state-by-state analysis of COVID-19 death rates showed Maryland had the fifth fewest deaths in the country per 100,000 residents, while D.C. had the second-highest rate in the nation. The study, published in the medical journal The Lancet, showed death rates varied dramatically by state, in analyzing the rates of COVID deaths in the U.S. between January 2020 and July 2022.