WYPR News

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra musicians have voted overwhelmingly to reject what a union spokesman called an “unacceptable” contract. As a result, the musician’s work stoppage will continue and management will have to cancel upcoming shows. 

Baltimore County is looking to raise the legal age to buy cigarettes or any other tobacco product from 18 to 21.

Legislation being proposed by County Executive Johnny Olszewski also would ban the sale of e-cigarette devices to anyone in Baltimore County under the age of 21.

Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski said Thursday he has found seed money for two new high schools for Towson and Dulaney. 

Even with that, there are no guarantees those schools will be built for years.

If you read the Baltimore Sun this week, you may notice its local journalists’ names are missing. Instead, articles and photos are attributed to “Baltimore Sun staff.” 

The Sun’s journalists are on a byline strike amid ongoing contract negotiations with Tribune Publishing, the Chicago-based media conglomerate that owns the Sun as well as the Capital Gazette, the Carroll County Times and other newspapers throughout the country.

The joke in Towson is that its town bird is the construction crane. More than a half dozen of them are part of the skyline, as Towson transforms into what one developer said will rival College Park as Maryland’s best college town. 

There is excitement about what Towson is becoming, as well as concern about what all of those changes will mean for Baltimore County’s county seat.

The number of students participating in a program that offers free tuition at the Community College of Baltimore County has nearly tripled this year. 

School officials hope even more students will get the College Promise scholarship, which is beginning its second year this month.

City and state officials convened in Baltimore on Tuesday to discuss ways to prevent and treat childhood trauma, which affects more than half of the city’s children.

The city has put a busy business corridor in northeast Baltimore on a “road diet” — reducing the number of lanes for cars and installing floating bus stops and bike lanes. The goal is to make the stretch of Harford Road between Echodale and White Avenues safer not just for pedestrians, bus riders and bikers, but also for cars.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, road diets like this one can reduce crashes by an average of 29 percent.

Legislators in Baltimore have tried and failed to ban or highly reduce plastic bag use eight times in the last decade. A plastic bag ban bill appeared on the City Council’s docket for the ninth time this summer, and because of a progressive council it could finally pass, according to Councilman Bill Henry, the bill’s lead sponsor.

Counties usually stay out of each other’s business, but the Baltimore County Council voted unanimously on Monday night to oppose a Harford County megachurch’s plans to build a wastewater treatment plant.

For the last three years, a herd of wild ponies that live at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, have been under attack by a deadly microorganism usually found in tropical and subtropical climates. So far, eight female ponies have died. 

U.S. District Court Judge Catherine Blake heard arguments Thursday in a case challenging an executive order Gov. Larry Hogan signed in 2017 that requires state contractors to sign an affidavit certifying that they do not and will not boycott Israel.

At the Guinness brewery, beer is on the move.

Kegs of beer are kept in cold storage, below the bar and its 92 taps. The bartender pulls a tap, and the beer is pumped from the keg through tubing to the tap, then to the glass.

A mysterious microorganism that was once only found in tropical and subtropical regions is living in fresh water ponds at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, which sits within the Assateague Island National Seashore.

President Donald Trump’s tweets over the weekend calling Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings’ district a “rat and rodent infested disaster,” have sparked a conversation about poverty and the policies that have failed to alleviate it.

The district, which includes most of Baltimore, is majority black and heavily Democratic, voting overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton in 2016. According to the Census Bureau, nearly 17 percent of residents have incomes below the poverty level, about 5 percentage points higher than the national average.

"Instead of bad-mouthing Baltimore, and instead of engaging in these racist diatribes, the president could help us with the challenges we face in the city," said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat.

Baltimore City Council President Brandon Scott is pitching a wide-ranging plan designed to change the shape of city government. The proposal lays out a roadmap full of policy changes the council and other government officials can take to “deliver for Baltimore’s residents and bring greater transparency to the way we operate,” Scott said Wednesday.

According to the president of the United States, the city of Baltimore is a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess,” a place that “no human being would want to live.” 

Can You REALLY Be Seen at the MVA in 15 Minutes or Less To Verify Your Real ID? 

As the clock starts ticking, WYPR reporter John Lee takes up the challenge. 

Bryonna Harris, Jaionna Santos and Damani Thomas were eating lunch at Frederick Douglass High School when a hall monitor was shot.

The students, who are now rising seniors at the West Baltimore school, later testified at City Hall about the February incident, as well as about the trauma they have experienced both inside and outside their homes in their short lives. 

Mountain Christian Church has four locations in Harford County. Church leaders estimate that on any given Sunday, about 6,000 people attend services, half of them at the main location in Joppa.

Despite the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s financial straits, Baltimore County is reducing the amount of money it usually gives to the orchestra. 

Nevertheless, County Executive Johnny Olszewski said the BSO still has the county’s full support.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison released his new sweeping crime reduction plan Thursday that calls for improved response time and distributing more patrol officers in high-crime “micro zones” and includes visions for reforming community-police relationships.

Two men were killed during a shooting inside a Charles North substance abuse clinic Monday morning, including the suspected shooter. Two others, including a Baltimore Police officer, were injured.

City police said they received a call at 7:09 a.m. from the Man Alive treatment center in the 2100 block of Maryland Ave. 

Mountain Christian Church is in Harford County. But it is just over the line from Baltimore County, where officials say they were not properly notified about the church’s plan to build a wastewater treatment plant. The discharge from that plant would make its way into Baltimore County via the Gunpowder River.

There is a public hearing on that proposal Tuesday night in Perry Hall. It's being held by the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE.) WYPR’s John Lee joined Morning Edition host Nathan Sterner in the studio to talk about it.