Around Maryland

The center will house several workforce development opportunities, including financial literacy sessions by Bank of America and other skills and job training. (Photos courtesy of the Baltimore Office of the Mayor / J.J. McQueen)

The impact of housing shortages across the U.S. has jurisdictions in the D.C. area taking a look at tossing restrictions on multifamily homes in neighborhoods previously zoned for single-family properties. In Alexandria, Virginia, that resulted in residents filing a lawsuit earlier this year asking a zoning change to be voided. In Arlington County, homeowners lodged a legal challenge in 2023, opposing changing zoning laws in their neighborhood

Legendary singer Chaka Khan, music’s “Queen of Funk,” will headline Baltimore’s Artscape next month, Mayor Brandon Scott announced Monday night. Khan, winner of 10 Grammy Awards, is known for her hits “I’m Every Woman,” “Tell Me Something Good” (with Rufus), “Sweet Thing” and “Do You Love What You Feel,” among others.

A community in Prince George’s County is not content to throw in the towel to climate change. Instead, the Town of Fairmount Heights has converted a little-used public open space into an intentionally designed heat refuge to combat the heat island effect of surrounding urbanized areas. The park, which has no official name, and which most residents call "The Ravine," used to be best known for occasionally flooding and for the cost of mowing the sun-scorched grass in the summer.

Much of Maryland — including Baltimore, Frederick, Columbia, Annapolis, Gaithersburg and Bel Air — is under a heat advisory from the National Weather Service from 12-8 p.m. on Monday. Heat indexes of around 105 degrees are expected around the region, according to the NWS. In Baltimore, temperatures could reach as high as 98 degrees with a heat index around 102, according to the forecast.

When the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed into the Patapsco River, it destroyed a central passage for transporting hazardous materials up and down the East Coast. Soon, fears surfaced online that hazmat trucks are now using Baltimore’s underwater tunnels instead, despite state law largely prohibiting them from doing so.

Maryland has joined 21 states, the District of Columbia and the Northern Mariana Islands urging the Supreme Court to uphold federal restrictions on “ghost guns,” unregistered and untraceable weapons that can be assembled at home from kits. The brief, filed Wednesday by attorneys general from the 24 jurisdictions, argues that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives did not exceed its authority when it passed a rule requiring that gun manufacturers and dealers treat ghost gun kits like firearms: adding serial numbers, keeping records on their sale and conducting background checks on buyers.

The Maryland Department of Health has announced a partnership designed to establish a road map for improving the state’s youth behavioral health. The department’s partnership with the Maryland Coalition of Families and Manatt Health will make new school-based initiatives and investments in youth crisis services, Maryland Health Secretary Laura Herrera Scott said in a news release Wednesday.

The container ship Dali is gone. So, too, is the bulk of the 50,000 tons of wreckage that tumbled into the Patapsco River when the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed on March 26. Some of the last vestiges of the Key Bridge and its demise are the two existing ramps — which led to the bridge’s main span — still standing in the water. They, too, will be gone soon as authorities make way for a rebuilt Key Bridge by October 2028.