Around Maryland

Maryland transportation officials on Tuesday received federal environmental approvals necessary for rebuilding the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. The Federal Highway Administration determined that the new Key Bridge, like the vast majority of federal-aid projects, isn’t expected to have a major impact on its surrounding environment.

The Maryland Department of Health released a new online drug overdose dashboard Tuesday that will allow visitors to delve more deeply into demographic and geographic data. The dashboard is a new iteration of the state’s previous site, which was maintained by Maryland’s Office of Overdose Response. The new dashboard will be updated monthly, rather than every 90 days, and has new features like the ability to search data by ZIP code, age, race and gender.

The first humans to lay eyes on what would eventually become Annapolis, more than 10,000 years ago, likely gazed upward and saw it as a ridge above a wide river valley that led out to the Atlantic Ocean. Over millennia, fresh water from the rivers and creeks of the coastal plain and salt water from the sea devoured the shoreline, filled in the valley and created what we know as the Chesapeake Bay.

This week, Washington County resident Chris Keane attended his commencement. Not for high school, he’s already done that. Not for college, he’s yet to cross that milestone. But for something more novel, Maryland’s Service Year Option program, which started last year. The Herald-Mail covered the launch event for the program enacted in 2023 for recent high school graduates last October, recording the remarks of Keane, an inaugural year program participant, as he spoke about his early days serving at Horizon Goodwill in Hagerstown to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who backed legislation during his first year in office to create the program.

There is nothing like a snowball to beat the heat on a Baltimore summer day. Handmade snowballs could be readily found around Baltimore as early as the 1850s and 20th century machines helped further popularize the confection of shaved ice and flavored syrup that’s often topped with marshmallow. Not to be confused with other shaved ice treats like Japan’s kakigori, Hawaii’s shave ice, Mexico’s raspados or New Orleans’ sno-balls, which use finer shavings and are more likely to be drizzled with condensed milk than marshmallow, Baltimore’s snowballs have attained a cultural importance that transcends the mere need to beat the heat. So, how did they get so big here?

A member of the Prince George’s County Board of Education was serving on the board after taking a job with a school system in Missouri at the start of the year. But District 1 representative David Murray only resigned last week — around the time a complaint was filed with Maryland’s Board of Education. Murray’s new job as the chief academic officer for the Ferguson-Florissant School District in the St. Louis area was announced in December.

Members of Maryland’s Prescription Drug Affordability Board expressed frustration Monday on the slow pace of the so-called “cost review” process to determine if six prescription drugs are unaffordable for workers on state health plans. While most of the administrative hurdles have been addressed, staff said it could still take months before the board is at a point where it can officially declare whether a half-dozen medications are unaffordable for Marylanders.

On a typical night just north of Washington, a dozen drone flights quietly take off as part of a major police trend spreading across the country. And the agency behind them — the Montgomery County Police Department — plans to double its program over the next few months. “They really have made a difference for us,” County Executive Marc Elrich (D) said Wednesday night, speaking at a community meeting in Bethesda, the latest area for coverage.