Around Maryland

Tiya Otugo had just finished playing basketball in Montebello Park on a sweltering night in July. He was hanging out with his brother and a group of friends the next block over, on East 29th Street, when gunshots rang out. As he and other teenagers fled, Otugo was struck by a single bullet and fell to the ground. By the time his mother, Erica Otugo, arrived, he was being treated inside an idling ambulance. Tiya was transported to Johns Hopkins hospital, but his heart stopped before he arrived.

Maryland’s new Emmett Till Alert System released a “severe” warning Sunday night that involves threats of possible violence against Black child care centers. Providing more information at a news conference Monday afternoon, African American leaders sounded an alarm intended to heighten awareness and increase vigilance in Maryland and across the country.

The judge overseeing the Baltimore Police Department’s federal consent decree called police on Sunday afternoon to report a brief and nonviolent encounter with two squeegee workers in the Bolton Hill area. He said one of the workers gave him the middle finger and spat on his vehicle, while another used used soap suds to call him racist, according to a police report obtained by The Baltimore Banner. The incident comes just two months after Judge James Bredar was discussing the city’s tactics when it comes to policing squeegee work at a federal consent decree hearing. 

The Howard County teachers union and public school system reached an agreement earlier this month to provide paid administrative leave to staff who test positive for COVID-19 this school year, marking the continuation of a key pandemic-era support policy. The previous leave policy was discontinued at the end of the 2021-2022 school year, as both the school system and union waited to see if there was a change in COVID conditions during the summer.

Several residents evacuated an Annapolis retirement home early Monday morning after a fifth-floor unit caught fire, causing $300,000 worth of damage, according to the Annapolis Fire Department. Fire crews responded to Baywoods of Annapolis at about 3:05 a.m. and were met with heavy smoke conditions when they reached the fifth floor to extinguish a fire affecting one unit at the continuing care facility, according to a news release from the department.

The aftermath of the tornado that struck Smith Island is still visible two months after it carved a destructive path through the sparsely populated Chesapeake Bay archipelago. The EF1 tornado began as a waterspout that continued on land, damaged a number of piers and homes despite not seriously injuring any residents. With winds of 73-112 mph, the most severe damage was to power lines; the home of elderly resident Doris Lee Bradshaw, who was injured while she slept inside; and a bed-and-breakfast, which lost its entire third floor. For Pastor Everett Landon, growing up on the island meant dealing with swift and possibly dangerous inclement weather. He can still see the rubble of the Bradshaw house that has yet to be removed or rebuilt.

As the coronavirus pandemic was upending daily life across the globe in early 2020, government officials challenged scientists to swiftly develop accurate and easy-to-use tests for COVID-19. It was a break in the traditional slog from idea to marketable medical tool. The effort, which included funding and support, proved so successful that it’s now a format for a new initiative funded by the National Institutes of Health. This time, it’s focused on tests and treatments for neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases and migraines. NIH chose the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Howard University in Washington to lead a new incubator where scientific innovators can receive funding and mentoring from a diverse set of expert scientists and engineers for ideas that are at such an early stage that the government wouldn’t normally take the risk.