Around Maryland

In the coming months, Tayla McCray — a fifth grade student who attends Furley Elementary School in Baltimore City — will watch her soon-to-be old school transform into a new place. But McCray said she wants to remember the "great times,” like when she and her dad dressed up for the father-daughter dance. She’s excited for her peers, because she’s already continuing her educational journey by attending middle school next year. “I hope all of the future Furley Foxes [the school’s mascot], have the same rich experience,” she said. Baltimore City officials, public school leaders, and community members gathered in the Frankford neighborhood to celebrate the start of the Furley Elementary School construction on Monday morning.

As Maryland moves tentatively toward meeting aggressive goals over the next several years to combat climate change, the state will have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to retrofit homes and apartment buildings occupied by low- and middle-income residents. That’s the conclusion of a report issued this month by a coalition of national and state-based environmental groups. If the state doesn’t make the necessary investments to convert the homes of its poorest residents away from fossil fuels, Maryland will fall well short of its climate goals, the study found — and could accelerate a public health crisis in low-income dwellings.

The 15 students in Damien Ford’s class at the Baltimore School for the Arts were glued to the clip of the late Toni Morrison artfully discussing the “white gaze” — the assumption that a reader is white and writing from a Black perspective. None of the teens had been born when the 1998 interview with broadcast journalist Charlie Rose aired, but the author’s words still resonated with them .“I think she ate him up,” said Sydney Tugnor, a 15-year-old sophomore in the African American Literature class. “She wasn’t aggressive or rude. She said what she had to say and he didn’t say anything back.”

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.

Brigitte Jacobson was comfortable in the sky. The wind beneath her metal wings as she soared between clouds brought her peace. She didn’t expect to become a lover of planes, yet it became one of the biggest catalysts in her life – and even in death. After Brigitte passed away in 2019, her friends and family founded Empowerment Through Aviation as a tribute to her memory. The program mentors Baltimore girls and young women with the skills they need to become pilots and aims to diversify the aviation industry.

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.”