Around Maryland

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.

When Bree Jones was a financial analyst in New York City, her visits home to nearby New Rochelle, N.Y., distressed her. Neighborhoods were changing fast, displacing many who had lived there for decades, Jones said. Luxury apartment buildings were popping up where homeowners and renters scraped by. She organized a group of concerned citizens to pressure the developer and the city government to keep some of the buildings’ units affordable, but it was too late.

The gunman responsible for the 2018 murders of Capital Gazette employees Gerald Fischman, Robert Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole Tuesday — three years and three months after the deadly attack. “The impact of this case is just simply immense,” Judge Michael Wachs said moments before delivering Jarrod Ramos’ sentence. “To say that the defendant exhibited a callous and complete disregard for the sanctity of human life is simply a high understatement.”