Around Maryland

UPMC Western Maryland officials announced Friday the donation of $250,000 to five community organizations. The funding was made possible through the support of Maryland Physicians Care, which administers Maryland Medicaid in communities across the state. UPMC has a 25% ownership stake in MPC, said Michele Martz, UPMC Western Maryland president.

Peabody Conservatory graduates will hear addresses from music legend Stevie Wonder and trailblazing ballerina Misty Copeland during the May 22 commencement ceremonies. The Johns Hopkins University announced this week that Copeland, the first African American principal dancer in the American Ballet Theatre, will address undergraduates at the morning ceremony. Wonder, a 25-time Grammy Award winner, will speak at the afternoon ceremony for graduate students, according to a university news release.

Frederick County’s Board of Education on Wednesday considered ways the school district can cut costs — such as athletics and extracurriculars, class sizes and transportation — to address a nearly $49 million budget deficit. The board also discussed and debated potential changes to how much charter schools could receive out of the funds they’re eligible for, which could slightly decrease Frederick County Public Schools’ budget.

Johns Hopkins University President Ron Daniels is calling on protesters to end their encampment on the campus. The president wrote in a letter that the university will “take additional steps as necessary,” including disciplinary and legal actions. The Hopkins Justice Collective, among other organizations, has taken responsibility for leading the charge in calling on the university administration to divest from Israel as the death toll in Gaza rises, according to the Health Ministry.

Baltimore Water Taxi season is underway, and for people looking for a way to get around the Inner Harbor, there’s a new route and more options. “It’s a good enhancer to anyone’s experience in Baltimore,” said Michael McDaniel, the president and CEO of Baltimore Water Taxi. The company that owns the water taxi also operates the Charm City Circulators Harbor Connector, which is the city’s free maritime public transit option.

A group of Reservoir Hill residents are seeking to halt the construction of a proposed Amtrak tunnel that would curve beneath the historic West Baltimore neighborhood in a new civil rights complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Transportation. The complaint claims the placement of the $6 billion Frederick Douglass Tunnel would harm Black and low-income communities disproportionately and that Amtrak has not done enough to gather community feedback.

The body of a fifth person killed in the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse was recovered Wednesday. The Key Bridge Unified Command recovered the body of 49-year-old Miguel Luna, of Glen Burnie, from inside a red truck found by salvage teams, the unified command said in a news release late Wednesday night. The bodies of five of six victims have now been recovered. José Mynor López, a father of four who was originally from Guatemala and lived in Dundalk, is still missing.