Thursday, November 14, 2024 | Baltimore, MD
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Around Maryland

A wooden gavel on a white marble backdrop.
‘Enough of the killing’: Retired Baltimore crime scene technician dodges testimony in another murder trial

Flanked by his partner, a Baltimore sheriff’s deputy pressed a doorbell camera in Northeast Baltimore around 6 a.m. He rapped the door — thump! thump! thump! — more than a dozen times. “Sheriff’s Office,” he yelled. “You need to come to the door now.” But the homeowner, Nancy Morse, wouldn’t come to the door Nov. 10. Not for this deputy or any officer thereafter who came to haul her into court.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
‘Keepers’ survivors file court motion to seek full release of Maryland AG report on Catholic Church abuse

Abuse survivors who were featured in “The Keepers,” a widely viewed 2017 Netflix documentary about clergy sexual misconduct at a Baltimore Catholic girls’ school in the 1960s and ’70s, have filed a court motion calling for the full release of a report by the Maryland attorney general on sexual abuse by clergy and other employees in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Former Maryland gubernatorial candidate and Education Secretary John King named SUNY chancellor

Former Maryland Democratic gubernatorial hopeful and U.S. Education Secretary John King Jr. has been appointed chancellor of the State University of New York, the nation’s largest university system, SUNY announced Monday. King finished in the middle of the pack in the July primary, losing to Wes Moore who was elected to governor in November.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Montgomery County Council appoints interim planning board following former board’s mass resignation

The Montgomery County Council unanimously selected five new planning board commissioners — powerful political appointees who oversee planning and land-use functions — to serve in a temporary capacity until the soon-to-be-elected next council assigns permanent members. The move fills an unprecedented gap left in the county government’s machinery by the former planning board’s mass resignation earlier this month. Their resignation followed allegations of misconduct and a toxic work environment, which led to a no-confidence declaration from the council.

taking sinovac covid-19 vaccination injection
When can we get a universal flu vaccine? A flu-COVID-19 vaccine? A scientist weighs in.

For years, scientists have sought a universal flu vaccine — one that defends against all known types of the nasty virus — and recently there has been progress. University of Pennsylvania scientists reported they used the same mRNA platform from the COVID-19 vaccines to develop a shot that produced antibodies in animals against 20 subtypes of influenza — far more than the two or four in the seasonal vaccine. So what might people expect from such a vaccine in humans eventually, and in the meantime, as cases of the flu, plus RSV and COVID-19 swamp emergency departments and doctors’ offices? Here are some answers from Andrew Pekosz, a Johns Hopkins University flu researcher and professor in the department of molecular microbiology and immunology.

Hopkins and BPD sign operating agreement, paving the way for the hiring of private police force

The Johns Hopkins University on Friday evening released a memorandum of understanding between the university system and the Baltimore Police Department, a crucial step in the school’s years-long quest to field a private armed police department for its three city campuses. The final document, signed by Police Commissioner Michael Harrison and Hopkins Vice President for Public Safety Branville Bard Jr., spells out how the BPD will work with private police force officers to respond to crimes on campus. Its release comes after Hopkins presented an initial draft of the document for community feedback in September. Protesters opposing the private force disrupted two of Hopkins’ public meetings on the plan, citing concerns about accountability and over-policing of students of color and residents near campuses, as well as the boundaries of the force’s operations.

Patterson Bowling Center, a duckpin mainstay, closing after 95 years of operation in Baltimore, owner says

Patterson Bowling Center, a Baltimore institution and longtime home to duckpin bowling, has closed, owner Ken Staub confirmed Saturday. That afternoon, groups with bowling reservations at the 95-year-old lanes found the building shuttered and a closed sign on the door. I am heartbroken; this is the oldest duckpin house in existence, but there is nothing I can do about it,” said Staub, 70. He said the owner of the two-story building, at 2105 Eastern Ave., will finalize its sale this week and that the structure will be converted to 15 apartments.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Sheriff Sam Cogen ends practice of posting eviction notices in apartment common spaces

Baltimore’s new sheriff Sam Cogen has instructed deputies to end the department’s longtime policy of posting eviction notices in common spaces of apartment buildings when deputies are unable to access individual units. Cogen announced the new policy on Thursday, his first full day in office. It went into effect Friday. “This is not something that’s difficult for anyone to understand,” he said. “Why wouldn’t we want to give everyone as much notice as we possibly could?” His predecessor and former boss John Anderson, who held office for more than three decades, did not assist him in the transition, he said. So Cogen studied local laws, read old newspaper clippings and eventually learned he needed to obtain a “sheriff’s bond” and present it to the clerk of court in order to be sworn in.

John Waters releases a new record, unveils his Best Films of 2022 list in Artforum

As if he doesn’t have enough going on, writer and filmmaker John Waters and the Sub Pop record label on Friday released a new recording, entitled “It’s In The Book/”Proud New Father.” The release comes one day after Artforum magazine published Waters’ Best Films of 2022 list, which includes “Bones and All;” “EO,” a film about a donkey that wanders Europe; and “Detainee 001,” a documentary about John Walker Lindh, the “American Taliban.” Waters’ new audio-only release, available digitally and on a seven-inch single pressed on gold vinyl, features Waters covering a stand-up routine recorded in 1952 by Johnny Standley, a comedian, actor and musician who was born in Milwaukee in 1912.

This was captured well waiting for the doctor who was busy at the time
Hospitals prepare for winter as state sees earlier-than-normal surge in RSV infections

In late September, Maryland emergency rooms began seeing a surge in children — many of them very young — struggling to breathe because of Respiratory Syncytial Virus, known as RSV. According to a Maryland Department of Health dashboard that tracks the virus, the number of hospitalizations leapt from 33 in the last week of September to 257 in the final week of October. Because Maryland typically sees its RSV numbers spike in late November and December, this year’s surge sent emergency departments, urgent care centers and pediatricians scrambling. Thankfully, the state’s RSV case rate plateaued quickly. By the end of November, hospitalizations had been cut by two-thirds, to 88.

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