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Around Maryland

Service organizations, community members make a difference on Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Martin Luther King Jr. Day, observed annually on the third Monday in January, is widely known as a day of remembrance for the late civil rights activist and faith leader. For some in Frederick County, the federal holiday is also known as a call to service. This year, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on North Place in Frederick hosted around 350 volunteers eager to put their day off to good use.

A new look and energy at East Baltimore’s Johnston Square

Johnston Square in East Baltimore has scored another victory. It may seem small, but it’s telling. A three-story home that had been vacant for 40 years has found a buyer. The property, a rowhouse with marble steps, new baths and kitchen, stands at East Biddle near Forrest Street. The selling price was $325,000. “We are now confident we’ll strike our asking prices,” said DeVonya Jones, a development manager with ReBuild Metro, the nonprofit leading the neighborhood’s revival.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Protective masks, normally used for surgery, are now in use to fight the Corona Virus SARS-nCov-19.
Masks are back: Maryland hospitals, doctor offices require face coverings again

Johns Hopkins hospitals and doctor offices will require everyone to return to wearing masks because COVID-19 and flu cases are high and vaccinations levels are low, officials wrote in a letter to patients Thursday. The system follows others, including LifeBridge Health and the University of Maryland Medical System, directing patients, staff and visitors to mask up in patient areas. “We anticipate this requirement to be in effect on a short-term basis while influenza-like illness rates are high,” Hopkins officials wrote.

Full federal appeals court will hear Maryland handgun case

A federal appeals court announced Thursday that it will reconsider a 2016 case challenging Maryland’s handgun qualification law, which the majority of a three-judge panel ruled in November was unconstitutional. The case before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals will be heard en banc, or in front of the full court. According to the court’s order, the case is tentatively scheduled for the oral argument session between March 19 and 22 in Richmond, Virginia.

 

Maryland Board of Education to host virtual town halls on state superintendent search

The Maryland State Board of Education will host a series of virtual town halls to obtain feedback from families, educators, administrators and community members on the State Superintendent of Schools selection process. The town halls will be conducted by executive search firm Hazard, Young and Attea via Zoom on the following dates: Tuesday, Jan. 16 — 9 a.m.; Wednesday, Jan. 17 — 1 p.m.; Thursday, Jan. 18 — 6 p.m.

Local school leaders hope for progress toward changing state funding formula

As Frederick County Public Schools grows faster than any other district in the state, officials are hoping for legislative progress on a persistent sticking point: how schools are funded. Districts receive a certain amount of state funding per student each year. But the state issues that funding based on the district’s enrollment from Sept. 30 of the previous year. So, as FCPS enters next school year, it will only have funding for the number of students who were enrolled in the system on Sept. 30, 2023. Any students enrolled since then will not be accounted for.

 

 

Baltimore parents, students ‘devastated’ by possibility of elementary virtual learning program closing

Parents and students who attend a virtual learning program rallied outside Baltimore City Public School headquarters Thursday night in protest of the program ending for elementary students. Charm City Virtual — a program started during the coronavirus pandemic that some students and families have continued to use for its flexibility — relies on federal funds and will expire this summer.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Making history: Yvette Davids becomes first woman and person of color to lead Naval Academy

It took 178 years, but a woman has taken the helm of the U.S. Naval Academy for the first time. At a Thursday ceremony, Vice Adm. Yvette M. Davids assumed command of the Annapolis military college from Vice Adm. Fred Kacher, the interim superintendent. Davids becomes not only the first woman but, as a Mexican-American, the first person of color to lead the school.

 

Why Md. agency overseeing school safety got more reports to tip line last year

The Maryland Center for School Safety’s annual report found it got a lot more tips and reports to its anonymous tip line during the last school year than it did in the previous school year. But leaders in that small state agency said that’s not necessarily indicative of growing problems and safety issues in schools — but rather the success of its messaging and efforts to raise awareness of what the center does.

Read More: WTOP
Maryland doctors are loosening sickle cell’s painful grip on patients worldwide

When Simone Day was in the ambulance taking her to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in 2016, she looked into the bright lights and thought “I had died.” Like other patients with sickle cell disease, the 27-year-old Baltimorean had made many trips to the emergency room for pain crises and worsening organ damage. This time, she ended up in a hospital bed for more than a month and hooked up to a life-saving ECMO machine that was circulating blood through her body.

 

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