Around Maryland

The Light Rail could be unavailable in your area once again, starting next month. Maryland Transit Administration officials said they will launch a planned maintenance project from May 3-24. During that time, Light Rail stops south of the North Linthicum Station will be closed, including Glen Burnie, Ferndale, Linthicum, BWI Business District and BWI.

They didn’t graduate from the police academy, they don’t get overtime, but they’re incredibly quick when it comes to getting on the scene after a 911 call. Data from the Montgomery County Police Department’s dashboard on the “drones as first responder” program shows that overall arrival times for the drones — housed in downtown Silver Spring and Wheaton — average in just over one minute.

The University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) named Christine Andrews, CPA, a veteran of nearly 30 years in medical and health care advancement, as the system’s first vice president for philanthropy shared services. In the new position, Andrews will streamline UMMS’ approach to transformational giving, allowing donors to support large-scale projects that improve health care throughout Maryland while furthering the system’s mission.

The first cargo ship passed through a newly opened deep-water channel in Baltimore on Thursday after being stuck in the harbor since the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed four weeks ago, halting most maritime traffic through the city’s port. The Balsa 94, a bulk carrier sailing under a Panama flag, passed through the new 35-foot channel headed for Saint John, Canada. Two more commercial ships followed later Thursday, including a vehicle carrier headed to Panama.

At the start of April, the hunger-relief nonprofit Maryland Food Bank noticed that there was a significant uptick in online traffic and web searches of Marylanders looking for places to secure food for their families. Carmen Del Guercio, CEO and president of the food bank, says that the organization noticed a 300% increase in activity on their website at the start of April compared to the first half of March, and he suspects that part of the interest is due to the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the early morning of March 26.

Delays in federal financial aid could prevent some Maryland students from attending college this fall. At the direction of Congress, the U.S. Department of Education simplified the Free Application for Federal Student Aid to help more families access federal aid. After a monthslong delayed rollout in December, many families in Maryland and across the country don’t yet know whether they qualify for federal student loans as the deadline for college decisions approaches.

The roof of the Randallstown Community Center is newly covered in 1,850 solar panels, giving Baltimore County its largest-ever solar project, county officials said Wednesday. The project is expected to generate around 800,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity each year, substantially lowering the cost of electricity at the community center.

Nautilus Community Solar, a Summit, New Jersey-based solar energy company, Wednesday announced the addition of solar farms in Howard and Wicomico counties totaling more than 5 megawatts (MW) of power. The farms will serve more than 500 residents within the Baltimore Gas & Electric Company (BGE) and Delmarva utility companies.

On a recent morning, the survey vessel Catlett departed South Baltimore’s Port Covington Marina with a crew of three for a 3-mile journey to the federal channel where, three weeks earlier, a freighter took down the Key Bridge. On this day, the crew’s assignment was to look for sunken cargo containers on the bottom of the Patapsco River.