Around Maryland

The gates opened Saturday on the 75th Montgomery County Agricultural Fair at the fairgrounds in Gaithersburg, Maryland. In the cattle pavilion, young 4-H members paraded their Heifers, which they’ve been raising since last fall, before judges and a wide-eyed audience of suburbanites and city dwellers. “The shows and the judging are fun to watch — you don’t get a lot of exposure to farm animals in Chevy Chase, it’s good to be able to see,” said Tom Walton, who visited the fair with his wife and two children.

Perched on a nest atop a green navigation marker in Maryland’s Harris Creek, the osprey glared, spread its wings and started hopping as a boatload of people drew near. “That’s a pretty big nestling standing up,” observed Barnett Rattner, a veteran scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Eastern Ecological Science Center. “Last week, there were two.”

Baltimore has reached a $45 million settlement with the pharmaceutical distributor CVS as part of a lawsuit the city is pursuing over its opioid epidemic, Mayor Brandon Scott announced late Friday afternoon. The settlement adds to $45 million the city had already secured from a separate drug supplier earlier this year. The decision comes as Baltimore is barely a month out from a scheduled trial date with opioid companies and manufacturers after six years of litigation.

Young Marylanders with severe mental health needs are being “inappropriately” sent to detention settings that are struggling to help them, according to the state’s Juvenile Justice Monitoring Unit. And it’s possible those environments, including the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center, are worsening the young people’s conditions, the monitoring unit said in a recent report.

After Cesar Diaz’s daughter Melanie died in a fire at the Arrive Silver Spring apartment complex in February 2023, he made a promise to her that he would do everything in his power to prevent any other lives from being taken in fires. That’s why he made sure to be present Thursday as County Executive Marc Elrich signed legislation relating to fire safety protections for renters.

Remnants of Hurricane Debby brought soggy conditions to Maryland on Thursday with more rain expected Friday and a tornado watch in effect until Friday morning. Light and moderate showers soaked parts of the state Thursday, according to the National Weather Service. Forecasters anticipate off-and-on showers and thunderstorms throughout the evening and into Friday, keeping temperatures around the upper 70s to low 80s.

Wanda Knotts is a physical education and health teacher at Crossland High School in Temple Hills, Maryland. For the fourth year in a row, she’s spearheading a backpack giveaway at the school for any student in need on Aug. 17. The backpacks, for pre-K through high school students, will be filled with school supplies including notebooks, pencils, erasers and pens.

Since Baltimore asked residents in December to test their home’s water line for lead and submit the results to the city, nearly 4,500 have done so. Meanwhile, about 173,000 properties still have unknown water service pipe materials, said Paul Sayan, acting bureau chief of water and wastewater for the Baltimore City Department of Public Works.