Around Maryland

A recreational water quality advisory remains in effect at Cox’s Point Park after samples revealed moderately high levels of E. coli by the boat ramp. Baltimore County’s Department of Health Division of Environmental Health Services posted warning signs at the park on Riverside Drive in Essex. The recreational water quality advisory states that water-related activities may pose an increased health risk and suggests following certain precautions, including avoiding and minimizing contact with natural waters whenever cloudy. “We are certainly looking into what might be causing it,” Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski, Jr. “Large rain events are always a contributing factor and we’re looking at all other potential contributors as well.”

For Londyn Smith-De Richelieu, the new director of LGBTQ Affairs for Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, the rate which Black transgender women are being killed is unacceptable. Her job is to change that, she said. For example, Bailey Reeves, 17, who is Black, was shot in the torso in Northeast Baltimore, The Sun reported in 2019; Reeves, of Rockville, later died at a nearby hospital.

Protests continue more than a week after the U.S. Supreme Court decided to overturn Roe v. Wade., even outside the houses of the justices who voted to strike the precedent down.  Pro-abortion rights protesters have brought their outrage outside the private homes of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts in Chevy Chase, Maryland, sparking some security concerns. The Marshal of the United States Supreme Court has asked the governors of Maryland and Virginia to enforce local and state laws that “prohibit picketing at the homes of” the justices.

On July 5, 1852, the day after Independence Day, abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass delivered a speech in Rochester, New York, called “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Nearly 170 years after his blistering indictment of slavery in America, following the swearing-in of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson onto an embattled Supreme Court, the question remains top of mind for one Prince George’s County resident: retired Maryland Circuit Court Judge Ingrid Turner.

In March of 2021, Mayor Brandon Scott announced Jason Hardebeck as the director of the newly-created Mayor’s Office of Broadband and Digital Equity. The appointment and office’s creation were seen as major steps forward, as well as proof of the city’s commitment to closing the digital divide. A year and a few months later, as part of our third Racial Equity in Tech Month, we circled back to ask community stakeholders — and Hardebeck himself — how much progress the office has made.

The former head of fiscal services for the Baltimore Police Department, who was fired in April after officials realized he was a person of interest in a homicide investigation, has been federally indicted for wire fraud and money laundering related to COVID relief loans. Dana Hayes, 37, was arrested Wednesday night after a federal grand jury handed up the indictment last week. In addition to COVID relief fraud, Hayes is also charged with stealing the identity of a tax preparer.

The dimly lit room on the top floor of the brick building in Southwest Baltimore hums with sounds of clacking keyboards and the slow, low voices of the call center operators. It’s early Monday morning and already the calls to Baltimore Crisis Response, Inc. are flowing in at a steady clip. “Baltimore Crisis Response: here to help,” the counselors say into the phone.