Around Maryland

Every morning Julie Hummer brings as many students as she can with her on the journey to Meade High School, making sure they arrive on time so they don’t miss instruction. She can’t depend on the Anne Arundel County school bus to get the kids there in time for the bell, she says. To make the new bus schedule for her neighborhood work, Hummer said, the system would need to hire the fictional teacher Ms. Frizzle, a cartoon character who took students on flying adventures in the ‘90s TV show “The Magic School Bus.”

The Baltimore City Department of Transportation is looking for ways to ease traffic along the busy and congested Orleans Street corridor after years of complaints from residents.Liam Davis, the legislative affairs manager for the department, said the city is committed to implementing some traffic calming measures and conducting a six-month study of the corridor. The study, which will focus on traffic patterns from Washington Street to Ellwood  Avenue, is set to start in either late October or early November, according to the department.

A new apartment complex geared specifically to police officers, firefighters and other first responders is coming to downtown Baltimore. Jon Pannoni, president of Landmark Partners, said his firm is investing roughly $25 million to transform four dilapidated buildings in the 100 block of South Gay Street into Guardian House.

It seems the boil water advisory centered in west Baltimore is starting to take a toll on one of the most vulnerable populations. On the third day of the advisory that was issued after E. coli was detected in routine water samples over the weekend, many senior housing residents are having issues getting fresh, clean water while others are too fearful to boil their water to use it as frustrations mount.

Two days after the city first announced that E. coli had been found in tap water samples taken in West Baltimore, two of the three sites where the bacteria were first found now show negative results, officials said Wednesday. The city Department of Public Works first discovered the bacteria in water samples taken from Sandtown-Winchester and Harlem Park over Labor Day weekend. On Monday, Public Works told residents across a large swath of West Baltimore and southwestern Baltimore County to boil their water.

Dr. Thomas M. Scalea has had spent much of his long career as a trauma doctor witnessing the emotional toll on families from the city’s unrelenting violence. “The walk down to a set of parents to tell them their kid’s not coming home again … I can almost tell you the number of steps because I have had to do it way too many times,” said Scalea, physician in chief at the University of Maryland R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center. Dr. Thomas M. Scalea has had spent much of his long career as a trauma doctor witnessing the emotional toll on families from the city’s unrelenting violence.

A series of local grants will expand access to swim lessons and other aquatic facilities for people with disabilities at the Severna Park Community Center starting this fall. Thanks to three donations totally $50,000 from the Fund for Anne Arundel ($25,000), Anne Arundel County ($20,000) and the John J. Leidy Foundation ($5,000), the SEALS (Social, Educational, All Welcome, Limitless, Swimming) Program will be free to people from all over the state this fall after launching as a pilot program last year with about two dozen families. Free swim lessons will be available from September to June to adults and children with disabilities.