Police responded to a reported shooting at 12:55 a.m. on June 30 in the 1100 block of East Preston Street. A 33-year-old man was found with gunshot wounds and taken to a hospital, police said.
The man was pronounced dead as a result of his gunshot wounds. Homicide detectives were notified on Saturday of the death and are asking anyone with information to contact them at 410-396-2100.
Have a news tip? Contact Brendan Nordstrom at bnordstrom@baltsun.com or on X at @bnords03.
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Baltimore Police responded to the crash at 1:22 a.m. on the 800 block of North Carey Street. The passenger, a 26-year-old man, was trapped in a vehicle and extracted by the fire department. The passenger was taken to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The driver of the vehicle left on foot, according to police. The car was not reported as stolen.
The Accident Investigation Unit responded to the scene and is investigating the crash.
Have a news tip? Contact Brendan Nordstrom at bnordstrom@baltsun.com or on X at @bnords03.
]]>Magothy River Association member Bob Moyer said he went out to photograph a particularly large pistachio tide on Cattail Creek in October, and was so overwhelmed by the sulfur smell that he collapsed to his hands and knees and had to crawl off the pier.
Pistachio tides occur when bacteria in the river produce hydrogen sulfide, which depletes the oxygen in the water and creates a rotten smell. The bacteria produce a bright green color, which is where the name comes from.
Working with the river association, Johns Hopkins University is researching the bacterial booms in Cattail and Old Man creeks this summer to identify where and when they occur. Pistachio tides usually develop between August and October, and Hopkins started collecting water samples in early July to get ahead of the blooms.
Paul Spadaro, president of the Magothy River Association, is concerned about people breathing in the sulfur, especially on Cattail Creek, where recreational activity often takes place. Without any monitoring or warning system, kayakers may paddle into a pistachio tide.
“I do think people need to know that when you smell that sewer gas, it’s time to move away,” Spadaro said.
Part of Hopkins’ research this summer is to determine if there is a danger to wildlife or humans. Sulfur bacteria are naturally occurring, but stormwater and fertilizer runoff entering the creek can increase the pervasiveness of these bacteria by depleting oxygen.
In October, Spadaro said 380 fish in the Town Neck region of Cattail Creek were found dead during the pistachio tides. In September, a bloom in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor killed 24,000 fish. The Department of Natural Resources deploys continuous monitoring of these blooms in the Inner Harbor.
“It’s the sulfur bacteria’s appetite for oxygen that makes it dangerous to fish, crabs, eels, and other aquatic life that need dissolved oxygen to breathe,” said DNR program manager Cathy Wazniak.
However, Wazniak said that without long-term data on pistachio tides in the Chesapeake Bay, she could not say whether any trends exist.
“We’re in here for the pistachio tides, because they’re kind of falling under the radar,” said Sarah Preheim, an associate professor at Hopkins who is leading the research project.
Hopkins received a $312,000 grant in 2024 from the National Science Foundation to research microbial processes in the Chesapeake Bay. About $2,000 is going toward pistachio tide research on the Magothy River.
Preheim said rising overall temperatures and nutrient pollution contribute to pistachio tides because warmer water holds less oxygen, based on monitoring data from the Inner Harbor in the past decade.
Moyer, a Berrywood resident, hopes Preheim’s research will help educate residents about the blooms and encourage them to rethink where the rainwater on their property goes. In the Berrywood neighborhood, storm drains open right into the creek.
He says homeowners should fertilize their lawns late in the fall, if at all, when colder water holds more oxygen and is less susceptible to the damage caused by the fertilizer chemicals. He also wants more waterfront residents to consider putting native plants as a buffer between their lawn and the creek.
Preheim said she is focusing this summer on collecting water samples to help determine what environmental factors are causing the blooms, so that next year she can create a predictive model to help warn people when these pistachio tides might occur.
One possibility is to provide sulfur measuring strips to citizen scientists, such as those at the river association, so they can test the water themselves for sulfur levels.
“The people need to know if it’s really toxic,” Spadaro said.
Have a news tip? Contact Tori Newby at tnewby@baltsun.com.
]]>The fine dining, southern eatery won in the Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program category, and Wolf took to the stage with the restaurant’s wine director, Lindsay Willey, where the chef expressed gratitude for the recognition, Willey and the rest of her staff.
Wolf talked with The Baltimore Sun on Friday about her journey to the win, as well as the impact on Charleston in the weeks following.
Editor’s note: Questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
What about Lowcountry food first hooked you?
Growing up in North Carolina when I was little — and my parents are both from York, Pennsylvania — my mother was still doing Pennsylvania Dutch cooking. The lady across the street was from an old North Carolina family, and when we were over at their place, Mrs. Thrower would make pound cake. I just remember the first time I ate Carolina pound cake, and, wow, it was just the best dessert I’d ever had in my life.
I think my exposure to southern cooking started when I was little, but as I ended up moving to our new home in Charleston, that was when I really started to learn about Lowcountry cooking — working in restaurants and also working with local people and eating at their house and having their mom’s cooking.
Truly, southern food is food of the home. At that time, no one was doing fancy with fine dining and southern cooking. If they were, it was really much more French than anything — but they weren’t doing down-home southern cooking.
What made you want to bring that style of cooking to Baltimore?
I started it at Georgia Brown’s [restaurant] as the executive chef in Washington, D.C. The people that owned that, I had been working for their company at one of their Italian concepts. I had actually quit because I wanted to go back into fine dining, but then the VP of the company said that they were going to open a fine dining southern restaurant. I thought, “Well, this was meant to be.”
I obviously stayed with the company, and I opened the restaurant for them. Tony Foreman was the opening general manager, and that’s where I met him. A year and a half later, we were married. Tony grew up in Baltimore, and I was familiar with the city. I didn’t know I was making a lifetime decision when I said, “Sure, let’s move to Baltimore and try and open a restaurant,” And 30 years later, here I am.
I was very interested in continuing that food because it is very old, and there’s so many different cultures that affect it, from Native American and West African, particularly the people from Sierra Leone, to Western European, particularly the French, Huguenots and the English. Those influences are so important, and it’s a lot of cultures to begin to understand, so that was one of the reasons why I love Lowcountry food.
How do you inject all that history and culture into the food at Charleston?
I try to walk in the pathways of all of those southern cooks. I really try to do things as authentically as possible. One of the things that helps with doing that is that when I first started working in Charleston [South Carolina] at 19, the general manager was Glenn Roberts, who was part of bringing back Carolina Gold rice and the old heirloom variety corn that was produced in the Charleston area.
We don’t have a lot of history from the time the country became the United States of America, but we have tremendous Native American history and Indigenous peoples’ history. Grits were not a part of that, but it’s that use of corn that is so indicative of the Indigenous peoples’ culture and cooking.
I do a lot of research — I have the Carolina housewife cookbook, I have the old housewife cookbooks that are from the 1800s, I have the first African American woman’s cookbook, and I have many other Geechee and Gullah cookbooks. I found every book and public document I could possibly read about it.
Why is that research important to you?
I think it’s one of the most important cuisines in our country. I believe that the African influence is extremely important to preserve, as well as the Native American influence. Anything I could do as a chef to be a part of that, that’s super important to me. It comes back to the fact that there are French influences because I just love French cooking, you know, I was taught the basics at the Culinary Institute of America. I just love the food, and it’s not really that dissimilar to what I was raised on.
What is it like to work with Willey?
She’s just really good at what she does. I love working with her. She’s also funny. She’s a very smart person, and I love, appreciate and respect her work ethic. She’s just a really good taster, and that’s not something that comes naturally for people.
I was lucky that I grew up eating in great restaurants from the time I was a child and that family was in the food business. I’m meant to do what I do, and I believe that while [Willey] was pursuing a marketing degree and all these things that she was pursuing, and then ended up working for us as a waiter, and then ended up becoming this wine person, that was what she was meant to do. She has a natural instinct, along with the fact that she’s worked hard.
How has it felt to receive all the James Beard nominations and now to finally be recognized with the award?
Honestly, the first time I was nominated, we didn’t even know because it was so long ago, and it came into some obscure email address. The first time I was a finalist, the awards ceremony was at the Essex Hotel ballroom, and that’s how far it’s come. We were just at the Lyric Opera House [for the most recent awards], and it’s a black-tie event, but we used to sit in rowed banquet chairs.
Honestly, after being so excited about it so many times and then not winning, I go there with a pit in my stomach, certain that I’m not going to win. I support the industry wholeheartedly, but I’ll just be honest — I’ve been so disappointed every time. I mean, you hope you’ll win, and then you hear someone else’s name.
But I looked at Lindsay three minutes before they were going to announce it, and I said, “We should just have a plan.”
[For the speech,] three things that were most important to me, and one of them I didn’t do, which was to thank the James Beard Foundation. But I also wanted to thank the people who work for me and thank the immigrants in our country because we would be nothing in the restaurant business without immigration and immigrants. What’s going on in our country is so unbelievably upsetting to me, and I wanted to use my voice. It was a very heartfelt moment for me, and it meant a lot. It meant everything to me to be up there and to be chosen by my peers.
Now that you’re back in Baltimore, what has the atmosphere at Charleston been like?
We’ve been very, very busy. I’m very, very thankful for the energy that’s extremely high in the dining room. Baltimore folks are so supportive and so happy, and it’s overwhelming. They feel good, I feel good, and it’s just a happy thing.
Will there be any changes to the wine program?
We have a huge cellar, and we will continue to improve it. Lindsay will probably make me buy even more top-tier wines. One of the hardest things for a restaurant is the depth of age, and that’s another goal of mine and a bit more of a challenge.
Have you noticed your customer base change at all?
I feel like it has. We’re getting a lot of wine people in; we’re getting more chefs in. I felt like there’s been a change, frankly, immediately. At tables, I’m talking a lot about wine, and I’m talking a lot about high-end food. There is very vibrant conversation about both at the table right now, which is very cool for me because there’s not much more I’d like to talk about.
Have a news tip? Contact Jane Godiner at jgodiner@baltsun.com or on Instagram as @JaneCraves.
]]>Around 5 p.m., firefighters were alerted about a hazmat situation on the 2100 block of Wicomico Street in the Saint Paul neighborhood. After arriving, Baltimore fire crews evacuated 100 people from the building that houses Holly Poultry. Of those, 10 needed assistance, according to John Marsh, public information officer for Baltimore Fire Department.
After all 10 were evaluated, four were sent to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, according to the fire department.
The fire department and the Maryland Department of the Environment deemed the building safe Sunday evening after monitoring carbon dioxide levels, said Marsh. The departments were “unable to definitively determine the source of the elevated” carbon dioxide, he said.
Holly Poultry did not immediately return a request for comment.
Have a news tip? Contact Chevall Pryce at cpryce@baltsun.com. Contact Dan Belson at dbelson@baltsun.com, on X as @DanBelson_ or on Signal as @danbels.62.
]]>The Maryland Transit Administration announced updates to its fare policy Thursday, which went into effect Sunday for local buses, the light rail, the Metro SubwayLink and the Mobility and Call-a-Ride programs, which both serve people with disabilities.
Changes include:
- Children 12 and under may use public transit for free. Before Sunday, free rides were only offered to those 6 years old and under.
- Baltimore City Public Schools students can use their student passes at any time.
- Private school students are now included in the All Access Student Transit Pass, a discounted public transit package previously only available to those enrolled in local colleges and universities.
- The transfer window for users of the CharmPass mobile ticketing app has been expanded from 90 to 120 minutes.
- A $5 surcharge takes effect for light rail riders without a ticket during fare inspection who subsequently purchase one via CharmPass.
- Single-use, prepaid student tickets will be eliminated.
- Maryland Transit Administration tokens will be offered to schools at $15 for a 10-pack. Deposited in fareboxes, one token can be used for a single trip; two can be used for a day pass, according to the transit administration’s updated fare tariff.
- Schools and some nonprofits may now request complimentary tickets under limited circumstances.
- A low-income fare program is being introduced.
The changes were made after a 30-day public comment period following public hearings that the administration held in mid-June.
Barbara Weathers, 65, lives in West Baltimore and uses public buses as her main form of transportation. She said the bus service in Baltimore is good but that she’s concerned about an increased number of children and students on public transportation with the new policy changes.
Weathers said BCPS students crowd the buses before and after school and are often disrespectful to other city residents. She added that she’d love to see these students have their own bus or for older people like herself to have their own separate transportation in and around the city.
Thirty-four-year-old Alexander Harden, who lives in Cherry Hill and works as a bouncer at a local restaurant and bar, said the bus service is “amazing” in Baltimore. He said he hopes to see upgrades to the buses and more SubwayLink options in the future but is generally satisfied with the public transit opportunities Baltimore has now.
“I’ve been basically catching the bus my whole life,” he said on the bus Sunday. “I’ve never had any issues.”
Harden said he thinks it’s a good start for the transit administration to be helping out some of the community with these policy updates but that there’s more work to be done “all around.” He said lowering fares for college and high school students creates great opportunities for them.
“Increasing transit access benefits riders and is critical to the economic prosperity of our entire region,” Maryland Transit Administrator Holly Arnold said in a news release. “These changes are another example of our efforts to support the next generation of transit riders.”
These changes are part of the transit administration’s fall 2025 annual service plan, which aims to increase access and equity and improve reliability and travel times. Three service change plans take place each year in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement between bus operators union Local 1300, with the next service change to take place this winter.
“MTA is constantly monitoring reliability, traffic congestion, and ridership,” the service plan states, “and will continue to make minor adjustments to service to adjust for continually changing ridership and traffic conditions.”
Have a news tip? Contact K. Mauser at kmauser@baltsun.com.
]]>Mike Gimbel, a longtime advocate for drug treatment and former heroin addict himself, says the real solution is being ignored: long-term access to treatment.
“The demand for drug treatment beds is enormous,” Gimbel said. “This is where Baltimore and the state of Maryland have fallen on their face.”
Gimbel, who has been in recovery for nearly 53 years, said the current strategies being used by city and state leaders are falling short. He’s calling them out publicly for what he calls a failure in the fight against addiction.
“What you’re seeing on the city and state level, it’s not acceptable,” Gimbel said. “It’s embarrassing, actually.”
Gimbel is a familiar face to many from his time on FOX45 News’ Straight Talk with Mike Gimbel. He says open-air drug markets in Baltimore are thriving because there’s little incentive for users to change.
“Giving clean needles and Narcan and test strips does not change behavior,” he said. “If you don’t change the behavior of the addict, you may bring them back from an overdose death, but eventually, they’re going to come back.”
He argues that lasting recovery depends heavily on changing a person’s environment — including where they live and who they’re surrounded by.
Drug courts, which can provide court-ordered treatment in place of jail time, are a step in the right direction, he said. But they also face an obstacle.
“The concept of drug court has always been very successful,” Gimbel said. “The problem with drug court is there’s not enough places to send people.”
Without treatment, Gimbel said, many drug users face the same outcome of death.
According to a recent report from The Baltimore Sun, nearly 90% of Maryland’s deaths classified as “undetermined” in 2023 were drug-related. A Johns Hopkins medical director said that an estimated two-thirds of those deaths were accidental overdoses.
Baltimore City had the highest number in the state, with 442 undetermined deaths in 2023.
Spotlight on Maryland reviewed similar data from cities facing parallel struggles. In St. Louis, Missouri, there were 12 undetermined deaths reported in 2023 — only two of which involved drugs, according to the medical examiner’s office. In Oakland, California, there were just four undetermined deaths last year.
Baltimore recently received $400 million in opioid settlement funds from pharmaceutical companies. Gimbel said some of that money should be used to expand treatment options.
Spotlight on Maryland is a collaborative project by FOX45 News, WJLA in Washington, D.C., and The Baltimore Sun. Have a tip or story idea? Contact Tessa Bentulan at tbentulan@sbgtv.com.
]]>The Code Red extreme heat alert was issued by the Baltimore City Health Department in preparation for the high-90s temperatures forecast at the beginning of the workweek. The department urged locals to reduce outside activities and stay in air-conditioned locations.
[Get the latest weathercast from FOX45 News]
The Health Department also recommends people in the city drink plenty of water, avoid alcohol and caffeine, make sure to not leave children or pets alone in closed vehicles, and check on older adults or sick neighbors who might need help responding to the heat.
Monday is expected to reach a high of 95 with sunny and clear conditions. It will likely cool down to a low around 75.
Tuesday’s high is projected to reach 97 degrees with a heat index of 101 in another sunny, clear day with light wind. The heat index is a measure of how hot the air feels to the body.
Wednesday is not included in the heat advisory but will likely also see a high of 97. There’s a 20% chance of showers and thunderstorms during the day, bumping up to 40% in the evening as temperatures cool down to 75.
Thunderstorms are likely on Thursday, with an 80% chance of precipitation and a high near 87, breaking from the extreme heat.
Friday is predicted to be mostly cloudy with a high of 79 and a low of 64, as well as a chance of showers during the day.
]]>BGE bills are expected to decrease roughly $3.36 a month, thanks to some previously negotiated credits, but not until at least next June 1, an analysis by a state utility watchdog shows.
The Maryland Office of People’s Counsel on Thursday reviewed results of an annual “capacity market auction,” completed this week by PJM Interconnection, the operator of the wholesale electricity market and 13-state regional power grid. The auction, in which companies make competitive bids to offer power generation, sets the wholesale price for electricity and enables enough supply to meet the projected needs of more than 67 million people in 13 states and Washington, D.C., for a year starting June 2026.
Supply prices are separate from and in addition to the delivery fees that are paid to utilities and have rates regulated by the state’s Maryland Public Service Commission.
This year’s auction set a record high clearing price of $329 per megawatt-day, up from last year’s clearing price of $270 per megawatt day. Power generators and others offer a price per megawatt of power for each day. Each bidder is paid the clearing price times 365 days for each megawatt they bid at or below the clearing price.
Last year’s price, a nine-fold jump from the previous year, has helped send utility bills soaring this year. BGE customers are paying an average $16.49 per month more this year, as of last month, as a result of the last two auctions.
Maryland consumers are being forced to shoulder the cost of supporting the massive power needs of data centers, mostly located outside the state, Maryland People’s Counsel David S. Lapp said in the analysis. Data centers accounted for more than 5,400 megawatts of increased demand compared with last year’s level.
In several OPC filings before federal regulators, the office argues that Maryland customers must pay hundreds of millions of dollars for transmission projects driven by data center load growth occurring in Northern Virginia.
“Residential customers are not causing these excessive costs and should not be paying for them,” Lapp said in Thursday’s announcement. “Utility regulation is failing to protect residential customers, contributing to an energy affordability crisis.”
Despite the promise of slight relief by next summer, BGE customers have been squeezed by higher bills.
Annie Albert, a Fells Point resident, said she’s taken steps for several years to conserve energy and make her 235-year-old rowhome more energy efficient. She said she’s cut back on electricity usage but still finds herself paying $500 a month this year, about the same as last year. She’s cut back spending in other areas, such going out to eat less and taking fewer vacations.
“Our prices have gone up, for sure,” said Albert, who has lived in BGE territory for a decade. “We’ve also seen an increase in the unreliability of the grid. This summer we’ve lost power more times than we have in the entire time I’ve lived here.
“But what are you going to do, it’s one of those necessities you just have to pay for,” she said.
PJM said wholesale capacity accounts for a relatively small portion of electricity bills and could translate into a year-over-year increase of 1.5% to 5% in some customers bills throughout the region.
Besides data center expansion, electricity demand is soaring because of electrification and economic growth, the grid operator said. Power generation included in the recent auction included 45% natural gas, 21% nuclear, 22% coal, 4% hydro, 3% wind and 1% solar.
PJM transmission costs per megawatt hour have more than tripled when adjusted for inflation from 2007 through last year, according to the 2024 State of the Market Report for PJM.
The People’s Counsel had advocated for changes to PMJ’s market auction rules that helped boost the amount of electric supply bidding into the market this year. In one change supported by Gov. Wes Moore and other PJM governors, a cap was set on the clearing price. But even increased electric supply could not offset higher demand, Lapp said.
Customers of Maryland utilities Pepco, Delmarva Power and Potomac Edison all can expect energy bill increases next summer, ranging from $2.50 to $5.24 per megawatt hour.
For the first time in several years, the price for the BGE zone cleared at the same price as the overall PJM regional price because the auction included two Anne Arundel County power plants that are shutting down but required by PJM to stay online until reliability measures are put in place.
Those plants were excluded from last year’s auction, driving the auction results up by as much as $5 billion, according to an Office of People’s Counsel report released last August.
Have a news tip? Contact Lorraine Mirabella at lmirabella@baltsun.com, (410) 332-6672.
]]>Authorities reported that at about 8:41 p.m., officers were dispatched for a water rescue at the pool.
Officials said the Baltimore Police helicopter, known as Foxtrot, was patrolling the area and responded to the scene. Before Foxtrot landed, officials observed citizens attempting to pull the man from the water.
Realizing the urgency, officials decided to land Foxtrot at the rear of the school. The flight officer exited the helicopter and began performing CPR on the individual. The Baltimore City Fire Department then arrived and took over medical care.
Officials said the man was revived and transported to a nearby hospital for treatment.
Have a news tip? Contact Ellie Buckheit at ebuckheit@sbgtv.com.
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