Around Maryland

As students return to schools Aug. 29 for the start of the 2022-23 academic year, Montgomery County Public Schools will largely return to pre-pandemic procedures, keeping mask-wearing optional, ending some quarantine requirements and stopping COVID-19 screening testing. MCPS on Thursday announced its guidelines for the fall, which largely align with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Plans for a new apartment building in downtown Bethesda have been updated to include about 75 more units than originally proposed, according to documents filed with the Montgomery County Planning Board. Developer Foulger-Pratt in 2019 received approval from the Planning Board to build a 22-story, 260-unit multifamily building on three parcels along Wisconsin and Miller avenues. Since then, the company has acquired another adjacent property, on Bethesda Avenue, that has allowed the project to expand to include 335 units, according to plans filed with the Planning Board.

A public hearing is scheduled in Thurmont next week to discuss a proposal to expand the town’s boundaries to include a 16.7-acre property encircled by Apples Church and Graceham roads. The parcel is zoned for agricultural use by the county. If the town votes to annex the land — and the county approves the change — it would become zoned for high-density residential use.

Former WBAL-TV reporter Omar Jimenez will co-anchor the CNN show Early Start beginning Monday, Jimenez announced Sunday on Twitter. Early Start begins at 5 a.m. on weekdays. Jimenez will be joined by co-anchor Christine Romans in his first time anchoring for CNN. Jimenez was a reporter at WBAL-TV, Baltimore’s NBC affiliate, from 2015 to 2017, according to the station’s website. At WBAL-TV, he received an individual Emmy nomination for his general assignment coverage and covered the trials of the police officers charged with Freddie Gray’s death, according to CNN’s website. Jimenez joined CNN affiliate Newsource in 2017 and became a CNN correspondent in 2019.

The sounds rang out like shotgun blasts in Bowleys Quarters Friday morning, before the iconic towers of the C.P. Crane Generating Station toppled to the earth. From hundreds of feet away, crews detonated 688 linear-shaped charges placed strategically throughout the old power plant, said Mark Loizeaux, owner of Controlled Demolition Inc. The explosives generated about 3 million pounds of pressure per square inch, he said, and in under 20 seconds, the structure fell to the ground in a cloud of dust and debris.

Experts say the best thing people can do to help after a natural disaster is to donate money that will be distributed by a responsible, local nonprofit. Hours after a tornado spun through tiny Smith Island on Aug. 4, hitting 17 buildings and severely damaging three, that’s exactly what began to happen. Jay Fleming, a photographer and frequenter of the island, started a GoFundMe campaign the night the tornadic waterspout struck. So far, about 1,200 people have donated that way to the island’s relief efforts. The money will soon be controlled by Smith Island United, a tax-exempt charity on the remote island in the Chesapeake Bay.