Around Maryland

Officials from around Frederick County scrambled Saturday to determine how anticipated state transportation funding cuts could affect the fate of a project to widen U.S. 15 through the city of Frederick. The $121 million project to add one lane in each direction from Interstate 70 to Md. 26 has been expected to begin construction in 2026. But with the state’s Department of Transportation facing budget shortfalls and billions of dollars in cuts, the project — which has been the county’s top transportation priority for years —suddenly appeared in jeopardy Saturday.

On the eighth floor of a northern Baltimore apartment building that has lost a good bit of its luster since its ornate 1920s revival heyday, things haven’t been going well for the Razie family. Samim, 23, had his car stolen at 8 in the morning in Mount Vernon. He was delivering a package as part of a job with Amazon Flex, which provided a badly needed income stream for this family of nine, when he stepped out of the doorway and saw an empty space where his car used to be.

Reclaim the Records, a nonprofit organization focused on using the law to acquire vital records, began the work to file a Maryland Public Information Act request in October 2022. Their goal was to obtain and digitize over a 100 years of Maryland birth, marriage, death and naturalization documents, a project they dubbed The Maryland Motherlode. The records can now be viewed on the Internet Archive.

Ahead of a much anticipated match-up next week that both sides were girding for, the Zoning Board hearing on a proposed Royal Farms store and gas station in northeast Baltimore has been postponed. Residents got word today that a lawyer for the convenience store chain asked for the postponement because a sign advertising the time and place of the December 5 hearing was never posted on the property, at 5901-21 Harford Road.

An outbreak of an unknown respiratory illness is affecting dogs in at least 14 states, including Maryland. Illness has been reported in Oregon, Colorado, California, Illinois, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Washington, Vermont, Maryland, Idaho, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). The illness has been classified as a canine infectious respiratory disease, or CIRD, which is a general term for known bacterial and viral causes of lung, trachea (throat), and nasal disease.

Stephanie Shonekan vividly remembers the moment she unwittingly violated an unspoken social norm of the art form she loved. It was 1996, and Shonekan, who grew up in Nigeria, had just attended her first classical music concert at Indiana University, where she was a graduate student. “The first piece was so amazing that I stood up and started clapping,” Shonekan told an audience last month at the University of Maryland’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, where she is dean of the College of Arts & Humanities.

Don’t be alarmed if you see airmen wearing gas masks and chemical warfare gear around the Martin State Air National Guard Base in Middle River. The Airmen of the Maryland Air National Guard’s 175th Wing is participating in “Operation Frosty Strike,” a readiness exercise. “I think the big thing folks in the local area will hear is the giant voice sound yelling out ‘exercise, exercise, exercise’ and they’ll hear sirens and tones, and you might see flashing lights from simulated exercises, with our emergency services,” Major Ben Hughes said.