Category: Baltimore News

Despite controversy surrounding his nomination and City Hall’s vacancy filling process, the Baltimore City Council selected William “Pete” Welch to replace his mother as councilperson for the ninth district. The council voted 10-3 in his favor at a public meeting Jan. 11. Immediately following the vote, Welch took the oath of office, flanked by Council veteran […]

Irene Bennett Reid, a retired city Department of Social Services employee and mother of former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, succumbed to lung cancer and died at Sinai Hospital on Jan. 11. She was 78. Reared in the south, Reid worked much of her life as a city social worker, aiming to improve the lives of […]

Baltimore City residents elected a new candidate to the city’s Orphan’s Court in November, but under orders of the Maryland governor, she may not take office. While city voters selected Laudette Ramona Moore Baker for an uncontested slot on the three-judge bench, state voters in the same election approved a referendum barring non-lawyers, like Baker, […]

Maryland State Police are investigating two explosive devices that injured at least two employees in Annapolis and Hanover state buildings on Jan. 6. Annapolis fire crews responded shortly before 1 p.m. to an incident at the Jeffrey building on Francis Street, where an unidentified mailroom employee sustained minor burns to his fingers after opening a […]

The city’s new top prosecutor Gregg Bernstein, who proposed tougher legal treatment of violent offenders while on the campaign trail, was sworn in Jan. 3 during a private official event. Bernstein, who is White, won the city’s state’s attorney position after unseating longtime Black incumbent Patricia Jessemy in the heated Democratic primary. He went unopposed […]

Baltimore Police say they are “enormously concerned” about a 16-year-old girl from North Carolina visiting family in Baltimore, who has not been seen or heard from since Dec. 28. And they have requested the FBI aid in the search for the missing teen. “We have serious concerns about this case,” said Police Commissioner Frederick H. […]

Members of a local Black grassroots organization say Marylanders need a new type of political party that advocates for the working class. The “community-controlled” Ujima People’s Progressive Party supports a living wage, the reregulation of electricity and other laws that support poor, working residents, says director Nnamdi Lumumba. Lumumba, 40, and a solid core of […]

The city will continue testing biofuels as a way to heat municipal buildings in a bid community leaders hope will lead to a cleaner and cheaper alternative to heating oil for residents. The Board of Estimates approved an agreement to spend up to $1.32 million for a second phase of burn tests in three city […]

From an historic blizzard, a convicted mayor, taunting robocalls, the 2010 census and a string of fires, the year culminating the first decade of the 2000s was a memorable one in Baltimore. January brought the political fall of Baltimore’s first Black female mayor Sheila Dixon, who resigned after a two-month trial resulted in her conviction […]

Despite Baltimore’s list of socioeconomic issues and challenges, April Yvonne Garrett, founder and president of the national nonprofit organization Civic Frame, believes the city retains a silver lining. “Every city has something absolutely exquisite about it and I think that there are so many things exquisite about Baltimore,” Garret said during a recent interview with […]

Two men are expected to speak at City Hall Jan. 4 in a showdown to claim the Baltimore City Council’s empty 9th District seat. William “Pete” Welch and Michael Eugene Johnson will vie for the position vacated by councilwoman veteran Agnes Welch after her recent retirement. The chosen candidate will serve the remainder of her […]