Around Maryland

Carroll County government staff and the sheriff’s office have formulated a countywide noise ordinance to update language in a 2005 law that largely addresses only noise from all-terrain vehicles. The next step is a public hearing to allow residents to comment and make suggestions. In 2005, the Maryland Department of the Environment’s noise control program was defunded by action of the state legislature. As a result, noise complaints started to be referred to local governments. Carroll County officials formed a committee to formulate a noise control document, and, at the time, the noisiest offenders in Carroll County were all-terrain vehicles in residential areas.

Loyola University Maryland’s Sellinger School of Business recently opened a new data analytics visualization lab, a classroom outfitted with technology to help students interpret, manipulate and present large amounts of data. Students from a range of academic majors, including accounting and information systems, will learn skills crucial to the future of business. The data analytics visualization lab will offer more powerful computing, projectors with touch capability on a 12-foot smartboard, seven large display monitors for huddle areas, integrated Zoom video conferencing with a high-resolution camera that can track subjects and movable, modular classroom furniture.

Environmental groups like the Center for Progressive Reform have been watching the story unfold for years, said policy analyst Katlyn Schmitt. Over the past two decades, the number of water pollution inspections in Maryland have trended downward, as have the number of corrective actions taken against facilities that broke the rules — by dumping excess contaminants into state waterways, for instance. But during the last several years, under Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration, the groups were noticing some “dramatic” declines.

Marylanders are definitely feeling the pain at the pump as gas prices have soared past $4 a gallon, reaching record highs. As of Tuesday morning, data from AAA shows Maryland's average price per gallon for regular unleaded gas sits at $4.19 — above the national average of $4.17 per gallon. These state and national averages have broken previous records set in 2008 around the Great Recession.

Parents, students and members of the community have their first chance to weigh in on what they would like to see in a new superintendent of Anne Arundel County Public Schools through an online survey. The survey can be found at www.aacps.org/superintendentsearch. It opened Monday, and will close at 4 p.m. on March 21. Last week the Board of Education committee spear-heading the search announced that it has selected a firm to assist in the search, Illinois-based Hazard, Young, Attea Associates.

After previously announcing on Feb. 25 that it would maintain its indoor masking requirements, Johns Hopkins University has revised its COVID-19 protocols. Effective immediately, masks will now be optional for all students, staff, faculty and visitors who have received both their COVID-19 vaccination and booster shot, except in classrooms and other instructional spaces. Members of the campus community who are exempt from the school’s vaccine and booster policy must continue wearing masks, as will affiliates of the School of Medicine, who need to follow Johns Hopkins Medicine’s protocols.

As a grassroots, volunteer-based organization that connects home-schoolers across the state, the Maryland Homeschool Association has tracked data collected by the state education department on home-schooling rates for nearly 20 years. It always tended to fluctuate seemingly randomly, said founder Alessa Keener, never changing by more than 9%. “Some years, it goes down. Some years, it goes up,” she said. “There’s never really been, I think, a good explanation (as to) why.”

As spring approaches, Harford County remains at a low community level as the number of new cases and the testing positivity rate continue to decline, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Harford County reported 113 new cases from Feb. 28 to March 7, a 23.13% decline over the previous week, according to CDC data. There were 18 new hospitalizations in the new seven-day reporting period, a 34% increase over the previous week. Also, the test positivity rate stood at 2.75, a 0.58% decline.