Around Maryland

The U.S. drug epidemic reached another terrible milestone Wednesday when the government announced that more than 100,000 people had died of overdoses between April 2020 and April 2021. It is the first time that drug-related deaths have reached six figures in any 12-month period. The people who died — 275 every day — would fill the stadium where the University of Alabama plays football. Together, they equal the population of Roanoke, Va.

States, cities and counties that excelled at distributing emergency federal aid to renters struggling during the pandemic may soon be rewarded — with yet more cash. Their new funding would be drawn from sluggish states and localities that didn’t move as swiftly to help people facing eviction and homelessness, who were targeted for billions in assistance in relief legislation passed by Congress. The potential redistribution comes during a year in which Americans who risked losing their housing looked to government for help and a federal eviction ban expired.

For Ellen and William Craft, two people escaping their enslaver in 1848, all was going according to plan. That is, until they reached Baltimore. At the ticket counter of the B&O Railroad’s historic Mount Clare Station, William was told he’d need the bond of a White man deemed respectable enough to certify his voyage. But the couple was well-prepared. Ellen, a Black woman with a light complexion, had chopped her hair and donned a fashionable suit.

Even as public health officials push for more vaccinations to achieve herd immunity against COVID-19, 9% of Marylanders questioned in a new Goucher College Poll say they’ll refuse to get vaccinated — a persistent obstacle as officials work to stem the tide of the pandemic. Of 700 adults surveyed by the college, 78% said they’d already gotten at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine.

In anticipation of federal regulators soon authorizing vaccines for children ages 5 to 11, state and local health officials in Maryland are preparing to launch school-based vaccination clinics and specialty sites for this age group in addition to offering shots at existing clinics. A U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel will meet next week to discuss the safety and effectiveness of administering the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines to young children, then a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention committee will meet in November.

Baltimore County public school leaders pledged this month to address numerous recommendations made by an outside consultant in an effort to cut costs within the state’s third largest school system. Superintendent Darryl Williams and school board chairwoman Makeda Scott delivered separate updates for the public Tuesday on plans to address the recommendations in a more than 750-page report produced by consultant Public Works LLC. Baltimore County officials hired the firm in February to review both county government and the school system in hopes of identifying cost savings.

In 2016, Nicholas Fletcher said, he was in the process of moving out of his Baltimore home when several bats migrating from his neighbor’s bat-infested house swept in through the chimney and into his basement. As Fletcher was ushering the winged creatures from his home, he was bitten on his left foot leaving a faint but potentially life-threatening red mark. With little hesitation, Fletcher decided to get treated at the nearest emergency room.