Around Maryland

The Taylor family has roots at least one century deep in Ellicott City — and its brand can be seen all over town. The family’s holdings include 1,000 residential units on 700 upland acres known as Taylor Villages. Nearby is Taylor Manor, an abandoned psychiatric hospital on 65 hilltop acres they hope to further redevelop. Ross Taylor, president of the family company, Taylor Place Development Corporation, and general manager of Taylor Property Group, wants to replace the hospital campus with Taylor Highlands, a residential development project with 252 luxury townhouses, apartments and condos.

When it came time to choose a Baltimore City high school last year, Angie Castro explored her options. Teachers and guidance counselors introduced each school, and she researched them online, too. One stood out to Castro, an eighth grader at Holabird Academy at the time: Digital Harbor High School. Castro said she was drawn to the school’s courses in engineering, a field that appealed to her after being exposed to her parents’ construction work.

Firefighter John Lann knew as he arrived at the scene that the rescue would be a once-in-a-career experience. About 100 feet above him in the soggy Sunday evening darkness, a small plane was wedged into a high-voltage power line tower with two people stuck inside. “Cool … we’re going to get to show our skills,” Lann, a lieutenant with the Montgomery County Fire Department’s Technical Rescue Team, said Wednesday while recounting the rescue. “We’re going to get to show what we can do.”

The Montgomery County Council unanimously passed The Comprehensive Building Decarbonization Bill yesterday. The bill describes decarbonization as “the process of powering building appliances and systems with electricity instead of fossil fuels.” The rules also apply to major renovations and new additions, granting exceptions to commercial kitchens, crematoriums, and manufacturing buildings. The DC Council passed a similar bill in July.

The Maryland Transportation Authority on Wednesday extended the grace period for unpaid toll penalties. Officials voted on the extension by two weeks during a board meeting. The meeting happened hours before the grace period was originally scheduled to end. The state launched the program in February. It allowed drivers to pay late fees associated with video tolls without paying any penalties.

Two women featured in the Netflix series “The Keepers” are joining the legal fight to expose accused priests and complicit church leaders named in an investigation into child sexual abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Lawyers for the women featured in the 2017 documentary series filed a motion Wednesday in Baltimore Circuit Court to support the disclosure of a 456-page state investigation into the Catholic church’s history of child sexual abuse.

Starting this week, the Maryland Transportation Authority is shifting northbound Interstate 95 at the Maryland Route 152 interchange (Exit 74) in a new traffic pattern as part of its ongoing $1.1 billion program to relieve congestion and improve travel along the highway between Baltimore and Harford counties, according to a news release. This shift is expected to begin Thursday and continue through June 2023. Traffic will split with two lanes to the left and two lanes to the right of the work zone separated by a barrier on northbound I-95 between mile marker 73 and mile marker 75.

Towson University is committing to help students who are dealing with food insecurities. Estimates indicate almost 30% of college students don’t have enough food to get by in a single week. At Towson University, that translates to one in four students who are potentially food insecure. The university is reinstating its swipe donation program early next year. Students who end the week with a balance on their OneCards can choose to donate what’s left to classmates who are facing hunger issues.