Community issues

It didn’t take long for the members of the 74th Baltimore City Council — they took their oaths of office 5 hours before Thursday night’s meeting, their first — to have a big debate.

More than 100 firefighters worked through Thursday night to surround and eventually contain a massive fire at a wood recycling center off Interstate 83 in Baltimore. The blaze shut down the interstate for hours before it was fully reopened the next morning.

Misdemeanor false imprisonment and second-degree assault charges remain for most of the defendants, and many trials are set for late January.

A large fire at a wood waste site in the city’s Woodberry neighborhood has shut down Interstate 83 in both directions, as well as Cold Spring Lane.

Joe Johnson, a Baltimore County native and retired lawyer, is amazed as anyone that a message in a bottle he tossed from a cruise ship turned up in Australia.

For the BMI’s “Echoes from the Key Bridge” project, Maria Gabriela Aldana collected oral histories from longshoremen, widows, first responders, government workers, business owners and more.

Brown’s Motel, located in Ellicott City, is set to close on Dec. 10. Residents, many whom have lived in the motel for years, have to be out of the motel by Friday, Dec. 6.

The U.S. Department of Justice is helping to transform the Baltimore Police Department. Will that continue under the second Donald Trump administration?

The massive fire at Camp Small burned into the night, leading to the shutdown of southbound I-83 near the blaze and the suspension of light rail service.

Baltimore city officials canceled a planned fireworks show at the 53rd annual Monument lighting ceremony as firefighters battled blazes in other parts of the city.

County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. launched a tree-planting campaign over three years ago.

The proposal has alarmed the affordable housing community, which fears the collapse of the industry.

John Brown III, a College Park legend who co-founded the popular bar RJ Bentley’s and also chaired the Maryland Stadium Authority, died on Nov. 9 of heart failure. He was 77.

A woman with Down syndrome is suing The Arc of Howard County alleging sexual abuse while in the organization’s care.

Legionella bacteria has been found in more government buildings in Baltimore, prompting officials to plan to flush and sanitize the water systems at two courthouses this weekend.

A single-vehicle crash of a tractor trailer that left fuel spewed across the southbound lanes of I-95 has caused the four lanes to close just before the Fort McHenry Tunnel.

Anne Arundel County has launched a new mental health court to work with those ill-suited for the criminal justice system.

The bacteria Legionella can be hard to pinpoint and harder to eradicate.

It would be too simple to characterize the dispute over the Levines’ Hanukkah lights as a neighborhood squabble.

Four teenagers were arrested in a bust of 10 exhibition driving events across Maryland.