Around Maryland

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office is seeking an even split between the state and local jurisdictions for an upcoming opioid settlement with the grocery chain Kroger, marking a change from how previous opioid settlements were divided. The office proposed a 50/50 split for the settlement, which would include $1.2 billion for state and local governments over 11 years that would be divided among 33 states where Kroger has stores.

A Burtonsville, Maryland, woman and a Montgomery County 911 call taker credit each other with lifesaving actions that led to a joyous family reunion. They both have vivid memories of the evening of May 11. “It was just like any other day,” said Henry Estrada, a 911 call taker and dispatcher at Montgomery County’s Emergency Communications Center (ECC).

Caitlin Moroney came to New Market, Md., four years ago for the historic house she found in the good school district. She has learned to appreciate the Frederick County town for much more than that. “I love the location. … When we have people coming in from out of town, people love to come here because we go to the battlefields, we see a gazillion museums, we pop into Baltimore to go to the Walters Art Museum — we’re really well located,” Moroney said.

Baltimore faces an increasing threat of coastal flooding from rising sea levels, worsened by storms like Debby. To help manage that risk, the U.S. Army of Corps Engineers announced this week it would recommend Congress fund about $77 million to build floodwalls to protect two of the city’s major thoroughfares, the Fort McHenry and Harbor tunnels.

Ashley McAree isn’t on Facebook, but she doesn’t have to be to keep up-to-date on viral stories about human trafficking spreading on the platform. Her friends often text her posts written by people who think they were the target of a trafficking scheme because they found a zip tie or a pair of sunglasses on their car in a parking lot.

Maryland’s favorite seafood dish may one day help the produce you buy at the grocery store taste better and last longer. New research conducted at the University of Maryland has found a new solution that can get rid of pesticides and functions as a better preservative. The researchers with the A. James Clark School of Engineering at U.Md. designed a food wash that contains chitosan nanocrystals that were derived from Maryland blue crab shells.

Another night, another gathering where Maryland property owners were expressing alarm over a proposed 500,000-volt, 70-mile power transmission line that could run through their properties. This was a meeting last week of the Baltimore County Farm Bureau, at the state fairgrounds in Timonium, where dozens of farmers, business operators and homeowners came together to decry a project that hasn’t even been formally proposed yet.

Baltimore City Schools has hired a new police chief away from the city’s force. Jeffrey Shorter, previously of the Baltimore Police Department for 28 years, will take office starting Aug. 26, the district said in a news release Tuesday. “The youth of today are not only our future. They are our now. We must be the guiding light to lead them into a successful and safe tomorrow. If not now then when? If not us, then who?” Shorter said in a news release.