Around Maryland

A civilian employee of the Baltimore Police Department was fired after a background investigation failed to turn up a past gun charge and the employee was identified as a “person of interest” in a homicide investigation, Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said Wednesday. The incident prompted Mayor Brandon Scott to call for a “comprehensive review of BPD’s civilian hiring practices,” just a week after his administration and Harrison announced plans to expand the number of civilians within a department that has struggled to hire enough new officers.

Baltimore’s spending board voted Wednesday to approve a $345,000 settlement payment to the family of late high school football player Elijah Gorham, who died about a month after suffering a traumatic brain injury during a game last September. In the settlement agreement with Gorham’s family, city schools vowed to hire athletic trainers at every high school that offers interscholastic athletics by the 2024-2025 school year, to collaborate with the city fire department to enhance emergency response times at school athletic events, and to expand emergency response training for coaches, volunteers and students.

Funding from a regional transportation group will go toward a Frederick County project to create a bike trail from Frederick to the C&O Canal.The  National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board voted Wednesday to approve $35,000 for a study on preliminary cost estimates and schematic drawings for a segment of New Design Road that will be part of a bike trail from the city of Frederick to the C&O Canal National Historical Park in southern Frederick County.

After hours of public input, county officials voted 4-3 to move forward with purchasing land west of Stephen Decatur High School for a sports complex. The Worcester County Commissioners voted 4-3 Tuesday to proceed with buying 95 acres for a sports complex and to bond $11.2 million for the project. The decision came after more than 50 people — roughly half in favor of the proposal and half opposed — shared comments during a three-hour public hearing.

For the first time in more than two years, travelers at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, and many other airports nationwide, are no longer required to wear masks. A decision by a federal judge in Florida to throw out a national mask mandate for public transportation across the U.S., giving airports, mass transit systems, airlines and ride-hailing services the option to keep mask rules or ditch them entirely, resulting in rules that vary by city and mode of transportation.

Each summer for more than a decade, Baltimore artist Ernest Shaw Jr. sold his paintings from a stand at Artscape, the city’s free arts festival. Through the years, booth fees rose from around $25 to a whopping $700. During that time, Shaw said, out-of-town vendors supplanted local ones and the art seemed to become secondary to Ferris wheels and turkey legs. He eventually made his exit.

Baltimore’s summer entertainment is heating up with a sizzling lineup for the 45th annual AFRAM Festival. After a cancellation in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a hybrid experience in 2021, Mayor Brandon Scott and Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks announced AFRAM Festival will return to Druid Hill Park for a two-day in-person event Saturday, June 18 and Sunday, June 19.