Around Maryland

The latest deadly shooting in Brooklyn unfolded April 29 outside a boarded-up vacant rowhouse on Fifth Street — where candles, flowers and empty liquor bottles memorialize the young father gunned down that night. Around the corner on Cambria Street, another blighted property has prompted complaints from residents about people trespassing, gaining access to the building through a second-floor window and leaving disabled vehicles in an adjacent lot. Across the street, an unsecured alley provides easy access and potential hiding spots.

Baltimore City leaders on Thursday promoted the launch of the B’More Summer Information Hub, a resource for opportunities for young people over the summer. The goal of the website is to provide a destination for families seeking information on summer camps through Baltimore City Recreation and Parks, the Enoch Pratt Free Library and nonprofits, summer learning activities and job opportunities.

After Baltimore firefighters entered what they thought was a vacant Southwest Baltimore rowhouse and found a man dead with gunshot wounds while flames tore through the structure, residents of Carrollton Ridge said the unexpected discovery illustrates two huge problems facing their neighborhood: a staggering concentration of blighted properties and rampant gun violence. The fire was reported around 7:20 p.m. Sunday in the 300 block of Furrow Street, which contains a handful of occupied houses and about two dozen vacant structures.

Ashley Bartlett spent many years as a renter in Baltimore City, but as the pandemic unfolded, she grew frustrated with frequent calls to her landlord to fix things. “I thought, ‘I can’t keep doing this. Just buy a house.’” Having lived in several city neighborhoods over the years, among them, Charles Village, Mt. Vernon and Mt. Washington, she kept an open mind about the location of her first home. “I saw places that I liked, but my bank account did not,” said the 33-year-old administrative specialist.

Maryland crabs could have competition when it comes to the who rules seafood platters across the Delmarva Peninsula thanks to Atlantic white shrimp inching further north. The question now, is whether the two species can coexist in the same waters. Consumers, and the few commercial fishermen allowed to take part in the planned limited fishery, stand to be the real winners if Maryland shrimp proves to be a tasty and lucrative revenue stream.