Around Maryland

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals on Monday scheduled oral argument for Feb. 2 to consider an appeal from the family of Hae Min Lee seeking a redo of a hearing at which a judge threw out the conviction of Adnan Syed for her killing — a case that received worldwide attention in the podcast “Serial.” Steve Kelly, an attorney representing Young Lee, Hae Min Lee’s brother, contends that his client neither received adequate notice nor an opportunity to meaningfully participate in the hearing — in violation of his rights as a victim of crime in Maryland.

An annual audit of Baltimore’s finances found instances of serious fault with how well the city adheres to rules governing federal contracts. City Comptroller Bill Henry noted Monday that a company that contracts with the city to review city finances had found four “significant deficiencies” concerning contracts with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development during fiscal year 2021.

The family of a man whose body was found hours after a building fire is seeking answers as to why Baltimore firefighters failed to find and rescue him. Firefighters on Dec. 3 responded about 11:30 p.m. to the 2500 block of West Lexington Street in West Baltimore for a two-story, commercial building fire with heavy fire and smoke, according to officials.

Student Strong, a new student designed app offering mental health and crisis resources, is on the way to Montgomery County Public Schools students. The app includes safe reporting options for students who experienced sexual assault and harassment. The idea for the app was brought up by three students who graduated from Montgomery Blair High School and were passionate about supporting victims returning to in-person learning in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Three voters who filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Baltimore Police Department from signing an agreement with the Johns Hopkins University that’s necessary for the school to develop its own private, armed police force have dropped the legal action. Donald Gresham, Kushan Ratnayake and Joan Floyd on Dec. 7 voluntarily moved in Baltimore Circuit Court to dismiss the case. They live near where the Johns Hopkins Police Department would have jurisdiction to patrol certain areas and make arrests for some crimes.

A federal judge has handed a victory to a group of journalists and advocates who argued that Maryland’s ban on broadcasting legally obtained recordings of court hearings violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Senior U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett granted summary judgment in favor of the group late last week and ruled that the Maryland ban failed to pass strict scrutiny. “The State of Maryland remains free to prohibit live broadcasting from the courtroom, and to regulate the release of shielded records and video recordings under the Maryland Rules,” Bennett wrote in his 48-page opinion.

One day before she was scheduled to have coronary bypass surgery at University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center after suffering a heart attack at 52, Danielle Giles focused her attention on painting a picture of a sandy beach. Watching an instructional video that played in her hospital room in early August, the parishioner of Church of the Nativity in Timonium carefully applied bright colors to her paper canvas. “It’s not very beautiful or anything,” Giles said with a laugh, “but just the act of touching the brush to paper is the relaxing part. It’s a good way to be distracted when you have heavy stuff going on.” Beginning in Summer 2021, University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center, Towson, has offered patients such as Giles the chance to relax and express themselves creatively through the hospital’s “Heart Cart” outreach.

Norma Reyes stopped giving her children lots of soda and juice, allowing all four of them to split one small bottle on rare occasions. She lost 10 pounds and serves smaller meals at home. But the struggle continues with her husband and brother-in-law, who she said are both prediabetic and need reminding that, nutritionally, one beer equals two cups of rice. Reyes, 37, learned techniques to improve her family’s wellness through healthy eating and exercise in a lecture and Zumba series run by Luminis Health which serves a heavily Latino population in Prince George’s County, an area hit hard by coronavirus. At the height of the pandemic, the hospital system recruited churches to host education sessions and vaccine clinics, forging relationships helped them learn more about the needs of the community — a model providers aim to replicate in underserved areas.

University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center opened a new wing of its critical care unit Tuesday. The renovation, which will include 22 new intensive care beds, will allow the Glen Burnie hospital to potentially more than double its capacity if it can hire additional workers to staff the unit, hospital officials said. The new ICU wing was converted over the course of more than a year from a telemetry unit, which was moved to another space in the hospital. The renovation of the 17,000-square-foot space was funded by a $3 million grant from the state of Maryland and other private and public funding, said hospital spokesperson Holly Basta.