Around Maryland

Three years after Jarrod Ramos burst into the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland, and shot and killed five people, a jury is set to decide whether Ramos is criminally responsible for the attack. The trial began June 29 in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court. Ramos already pleaded guilty in October 2019 to 23 counts related to the June 2018 slayings of Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiassen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters.

MedStar Union Memorial Hospital reached a big milestone with the 1,000th transcatheter aortic valve replacement without open-heart surgery. The team recently replaced the aortic valve of Ken Rogers, 67, of Dundalk. Instead of open-heart surgery, physicians access the heart with a replacement valve attached to the end of a catheter that’s then inserted through the groin.

Excessive heat and humidity are in the forecast for part of the week in Maryland, so Baltimore-area cooling centers are opening to provide relief from the heat. Temperatures were forecast to reach the upper 90s all week. WBAL-TV 11 News recently spoke with Northwest Hospital’s emergency department chair, Dr. Angela Watkins, who said heat can take a toll on people.

Starting Monday, Baltimoreans will have several new places to drop off food scraps for composting, according to the city’s Department of Public Works. Food scraps were already accepted at two city farmer’s markets — one under the Jones Falls Expressway on Sunday mornings and another at 32nd Street and Barclay Street on Saturday mornings. But now, residents can also drop off food waste at five city landfill and trash collection sites.

From his Columbia home, Theo Lazarou is making a difference in the lives of children in his community. A recent Long Reach High School graduate, Lazarou, 18, has figured out a way to use his love of video games as a way to raise support for pediatric leukemia research. Using Twitch, a livestreaming platform for gamers, he has held two 24-hour virtual gaming marathons where viewers can donate to support Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.

Angela Seal was down to her last resort. She’d worked to save money, applied for loans and grants and tried to establish strong credit. But it just wasn’t enough. Insert Frederick’s local music scene, which, through a series of Facebook live streams and a GoFundMe page, helped Seal’s family secure a life-altering item: a wheelchair-accessible van. The van will open a “whole new world” for Seal’s 12-year-old daughter, Imani Parker, who has cerebral palsy.

After last year’s abrupt shutdown of schools due to the coronavirus pandemic, increasing numbers of students returned to in-person learning. But a new study shows that racial and geographic gaps persisted as K-12 students went back to their classrooms—with non-Hispanic white kids more often the ones attending a brick-and-mortar school full-time in most states.