The new chief of the Prince George’s County Police Department is expected to be announced Friday afternoon. County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D) is expected to make the announcement at a news conference scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m. The county police department, which employs about 1,500 sworn officers and 300 civilians in the Washington suburb of nearly 1 million, has been without a permanent leader for nine months. Department veteran Hector Velez has been acting as interim chief.
A one-month test of government agencies in Maryland revealed a patchwork of approaches in how public records are tracked and how requests for access are filled. The Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association filed requests in February for public information with 31 state agencies, counties, municipalities and school systems. The idea was to look at trends in the number of public records requests they received over a three-year period and what effect the COVID-19 pandemic had, if any, on their responses.
On episode 9 of The Conference Call, Damian is joined by Delaware royalty Rob Buccini of The Buccini/Pollin Group. Join us for a conversation about navigating the family business, economic development in Wilmington, and the value of sports.
Music by Dillion O’Brian
Shortly after the shutdown began, her daughter hosted a friend for a sleepover — via a video call on her iPad, which she rested on a pillow next to her own head. As the months passed, one of her sons began starting the school day with a blanket over his head, unable to face yet another day in front of his computer. “I feel like we lost a year of our lives,” said Jenn Ambrosiano-Reedholm, a mother of three in Cockeysville. “And it feels extra-long.” It was March 12 last year that Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan ordered public schools to close in four days, just the start of a shutdown that would also shutter bars, restaurants, movie theaters, malls, houses of worship and other gathering places to help curtail the spread of the then-now coronavirus.
After losing its prime subcontractor in a dispute over cost-overruns, the consortium building the Purple Line is one step closer to finding a replacement. Five construction companies expressed interest in picking up where Purple Line Transit Constructors left off when it quit the light rail project in September. Purple Line Transit Partners, the Riverdale-based consortium responsible for the project, has deemed three of them qualified to submit a formal bid.
Leslie Simmons of LifeBridge Health joins Bob Atlas of the Maryland Hospital Association to discuss ways every local hospital has adjusted during the pandemic.
Maryland is administering more doses of coronavirus vaccine per week than it has at any point since the disease-preventing inoculations first became available in December. Better yet, more appear to be on the way, with 50,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson’s recently approved vaccine being allocated in Maryland this week. Maryland has administered about 37,000 doses a day over the past week.
A jobs program in Prince George’s County, Maryland, is offering free health care training and connecting job seekers with future employers. “Employ Prince George’s is the bridge between job seekers and businesses,” said Walter Simmons, the organization’s president and CEO. One of the initiatives under the organization’s COVID-19 Workforce Development Recovery Program is providing county job seekers with free virtual training and support to become a certified medical assistant.
Whether you’re a patient with routine medical needs or a mom having a baby, the past year of battling COVID has created complexity and anxiety at local hospitals for everyone.
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