Around Maryland

With his Type 2 diabetes unchecked, Donald Brown’s health deteriorated while serving time for armed robbery at Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland. Vivian Penda said her son was a good person — intelligent, happy-go-lucky and mild-mannered. But at 15, he started using heroin and became wrapped up in addiction and petty crime, she said. Thirty-five years into his sentence, Brown fell in the prison infirmary, fracturing a hip and suffering a brain bleed. He also endured a stroke. And doctors amputated his leg due to an infection.

Everyone seems to have an opinion about jury duty in Baltimore. Among the most common — it’s inconvenient, expensive for almost everybody involved tedious, taxing and oh, so boring. But is change possible? In shrinking cities like Baltimore, jury duty has become an almost annual obligation for some residents. The city’s jury pool is typically small — last year it amounted to 247,840 potential jurors, less than half its population, according to a Maryland Judiciary spokeswoman. The total number of jurors who show up for service is even smaller.

The U.S. Department of Commerce awarded Coppin State University a $3.9 million grant that will support the expansion of broadband internet access in West Baltimore, where it’s less common. “From health care to homework, having a reliable internet connection has become critical in our everyday lives,” said U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin at a Monday news conference. “This program will provide everyone — regardless of ZIP code — the access they need to excel.”

Baltimore’s employees will be banned from using the social media app TikTok as a result of cybersecurity concerns surrounding the platform, which is tied to the Chinese government. The ban, which was announced last week via a memo from the Baltimore City Information Technology Department, is being enacted due to concerns over TikTok’s harvesting of “extensive amounts of sensitive data” from users. The app — widely used to share short, catchy videos — collects user search and browsing history, keystroke patterns, location data and biometrics, including faceprints and voiceprints.

Montgomery County, Maryland, police are working on an update to the way they handle calls for people experiencing a mental health crisis. Police Capt. Jordan Satinsky told members of two Montgomery County Council committees Monday that he’s working on a pilot program that would expand the work of the department’s Crisis Intervention Team. He said that there have been discussions with the county’s Department of Health and Human Services about pairing up a clinician with a police officer.

An unofficial spokesman for account holders of Maryland 529, the state’s troubled college tuition payment fund, told the agency board Monday that its recent explanation about problems with the program to the Maryland General Assembly fell short of being completely accurate. Brian Savoie, one of more than 30,000 account holders in the Maryland Prepaid College Trust, told the board that errors in their account balances were not merely an “earnings calculation issue,” as described to lawmakers, but the result of a board-approved policy change in June 2021 to pay additional “earnings” to accounts and then a subsequent reversal.

A passenger ferry from Crisfield across the Chesapeake Bay to the western shore could boost tourism as five Maryland counties explore the possibility. “It’s not just about connecting destinations. It’s about being connected to the Chesapeake Bay,” said Visit Annapolis & Anne Arundel County Executive Director Kristen Pironis. The five-county tourism consortium, which includes Calvert, Queen Anne’s, Somerset and St. Mary’s counties, is spearheaded by Visit Annapolis & Anne Arundel County.

An incident last week at the Carroll County Health Department where a person overdosed in the facility’s restroom demonstrated the importance of community members being trained to use and carry naloxone, according to health department staff. On Wednesday, health department staff members were in the middle of teaching a life skills training class at the department’s facility on Center Street in Westminster when they were told a person had overdosed in the restroom.