Julie Scharper
@juliemore19.bsky.social
Baltimore Banner reporter. Mom about town. Happiest among trees.
By @juliemore19.bsky.social and Wesley Case: The fight to save one of Baltimore’s last gay bars. (via @thebaltimorebanner.com)
The fight to save one of Baltimore’s last gay bars
Many in the queer community have been rallying for the reopening of the shuttered bar Leon’s, fearful of losing a living link to Baltimore’s LGBTQ+ history. Dozens of queer-centered bars and nightclub...
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By @juliemore19.bsky.social: Musical chairs: UMD professor elicits ethereal tunes from plastic seats. (via @thebaltimorebanner.com)
Musical chairs: UMD professor elicits ethereal tunes from plastic seats
UMD professor Dan Ortiz Leizman is going viral for instruments they create from unlikely materials — the cheap plastic chairs known as Monoblocs.
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For teen moms like Rylee who fell behind in class while trying to raise a baby, one family center in Baltimore has a way to help them beat the odds and get a diploma: They send their babies to free preschool in the same building. Their success rate? 89% www.thebanner.com/education/k-...
On-site daycare helps close the graduation gap for Baltimore’s teen moms
Half of teen moms don’t graduate high school. Excel Academy is different.
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Man charged with threatening family of Cockeysville crash survivor with gun. (w/ @juliemore19.bsky.social) (via @thebaltimorebanner.com)
Man charged with threatening Cockeysville crash survivor’s family
A Timonium man is being held without bail after allegedly threatening and brandishing a semiautomatic gun at the family of Liam O’Donoghue, a 16-year-old Calvert Hall student who lost an arm in a car ...
thebanner.com
By @juliemore19.bsky.social: A crash took his arm. His community is carrying him forward. (📸: Wesley Lapointe). (via @thebaltimorebanner.com)
A crash took his arm. His community is carrying him forward.
Liam O’Donoghue lost his arm in a Cockeysville car crash that killed two of his friends. Friends, family, doctors and others are rallying around him.
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This story has been updated with more reporting from Wesley Case, Tony Planas and @kaitlinobscura.bsky.social.
Dylan Segelbaum@dylansegelbaum.bsky.social · 5mo agoEx-Turnstile guitarist accused of attempted murder, targeting singer’s dad. (via @thebaltimorebanner.com)
Do your kids neeeeeed NeeDoh? I *stretched* myself as a reporter and found out why the squishy toys are so hard to get right now. www.thebanner.com/culture/life...
Need to knead NeeDoh? Squishy toy craze sends parents scrambling.
TikTok spawned an obsession for NeeDoh — brightly colored, textured, squishy toys that parents are desperately seeking for Easter baskets.
thebanner.com
De'Jonnae and her husband José live by one universal truth: Reunification is the goal. These foster parents have taken in 15 kids over 5 years, making them an outlier in a state where the number of foster parents has been declining and half tap out after just 1 year www.thebanner.com/education/ea...
These foster parents have taken in 15 kids. Their goal: Send them home.
The Baltimore couple is unusual in a state where half of families stop taking foster kids within the first year.
thebanner.com
Meet the white-haired activists leading Baltimore’s opposition to Trump
Meet the seniors leading Baltimore's opposition to Trump
Some of the most ardent and dedicated critics of Trump’s second term, across the country and here in Maryland, are 65 and up. They are organizing rallies for Saturday’s No Kings Day, waving signs...
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After a developer's bid for a Remington dump backfired, he's thinking bigger. Seawall reached a deal this month that looks to some like a step toward a long-held Baltimore dream: to turn the banks of the beleaguered Jones Falls into a park. w @emilyopilo.bsky.social www.thebanner.com/community/cl...
How a screaming stranger got a developer to dream big about the Jones Falls
A Baltimore developer was at the center of a charged conflict over the future of a dump in the Remington neighborhood, a controversy that has gotten him thinking bigger about the future of the beloved...
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Everyone knows it takes a village to raise a child. But as extended families live increasingly far apart and the cost of living rises, many parents find themselves without the help they need. So moms started building their home away from home in West Baltimore. www.thebanner.com/education/ea...
Rise Early Learning Center helps moms fight social isolation — and find child care, too
This University of Maryland, Baltimore, program fights the rising social isolation among parents.
thebanner.com
Historians, scholars and artists are working to unearth, record, preserve and share Maryland’s LGBTQ+ history— work they say is all the more urgent as the Trump administration and conservative legislatures try to roll back the rights of queer people www.thebanner.com/community/lo...
Baltimore’s queer hidden histories galvanize a new generation
As the Trump administration and conservative legislatures around the country attack rights secured for LGBTQIA+ people, Baltimore historians say sharing the stories of queer ancestors has never been m...
thebanner.com
There's a stretch of Maryland that's next to BWI and just north of Fort Meade. It holds housing, the Arundel Mills mall and has been targeted for growth and development. And it's under a complete development moratorium that seems to have come without warning. Read more in @thebaltimorebanner.com —
Anne Arundel County got caught off guard by ‘devastating’ development moratorium
Elected officials, economic leaders and other analysts were all caught off guard by a potential five-year development moratorium in the part of Anne Arundel County surrounding BWI, Arundel Mills and j...
thebanner.com
By Wesley Case: All the smokes: How a Hopkins professor’s mushroom trip led to 1,000 paintings of cigarettes. (via @thebaltimorebanner.com)
How a Hopkins professor’s mushroom trip led to 1,000 paintings of cigarettes
While participating in a Johns Hopkins Medicine study on mushroom-derived psilocybin, and the drug’s ability to curb addictive behaviors, the local writing professor discovered he loves to paint cigar...
thebanner.com
Kids in the "iPad generation" have grown more reliant on screens at home and in school since the pandemic. The head of Baltimore's public schools has had enough. She introduced screen time and digital device limits, though she doesn't think they go far enough. www.thebanner.com/education/ea...
Baltimore’s top educator wants to end the iPad kid epidemic
Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Sonja Santelises announced strict screen time limits for kindergarten through second grade students.
thebanner.com
Thanks, Laura! I love seeing how passionate your fans are. And of course I did write an article about you when you joined us for the Banner Book Club last fall. www.thebanner.com/culture/book...
In her latest mystery, Laura Lippman — and Mrs. Blossom — blooms
Laura Lippman, who will appear at The Banner Book Club on Wednesday, discusses “Murder Takes a Vacation” and the importance of Mrs. Blossom.
thebanner.com
Laura Lippman@lauralippman.bsky.social · 6mo agoTo be clear — Julie’s good people and an exhaustive list is impossible! Dos Passos lived in Cross Keys! And Lucille Clifton can never get enough attention in my opinion.
To celebrate #AWP26, I compiled some of my favorite stories about Baltimore writers, including Ta-Nehisi Coates’ dad’s press, Gertrude Stein’s neighborhood love triangle and the house Zelda Fitzgerald caught on fire. www.thebanner.com/culture/book...
Check out the interesting hometown authors who prove Baltimore is a literary town
Baltimore’s complex history, moody weather and idiosyncratic residents have been inspiring writers for hundreds of years.
thebanner.com
If you are coming to Baltimore for #AWP26 you should know that we have: 1) a kickass two story radical bookstore 2) a worker owned vegan restaurant, coffee shop, and bar 3) a packed schedule of evening offsite events with 20 presses and 100+ authors redemmas.org/awp/
Ex-Harford County sheriff’s deputy sentenced to 36 years for sexually exploiting 2 children. (via @thebaltimorebanner.com)
Ex-Harford County sheriff’s deputy sentenced for sexually exploiting 2 children
Ryan Hall, 51, of Woodbine, who was on the force for 27 years, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Baltimore to two counts of sexual exploitation of children.
thebanner.com
So I wrote about the Baltimore potholes, because yikes. www.thebanner.com/opinion/colu...
Streeter: How the city handles potholes explains why Baltimore streets are so bad
COLUMN | Baltimore City is working to fill the potholes, but it feels like they’re literally patching the problem for a temporary fix.
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Hundreds of Panamanian golden frogs are breeding in a closed-to-the-public section of the @marylandzoo.bsky.social in an effort to save them from extinction. Soon, zoo workers plan to bring some back to Panama…
Baltimore Banner@thebaltimorebanner.com · 6mo agoMaryland Zoo helped save Panama’s golden frogs. The journey home brings hope — and risk.
A hopeful story in a bleak time… In the early 2000s, as a lethal fungus was descending on Panama’s cloud forests, scientists sent the region’s beloved golden frogs to zoos around the world 🍄🟫 🐸 ✈️ (1 of 3)
ICE vehicles gone from Baltimore’s Symphony Center parking garage
ICE vehicles gone from Baltimore’s Symphony Center parking garage
About 50 new law enforcement vehicles had been stored in the garage in Baltimore’s Midtown-Belvedere neighborhood.
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Did you look up your senator? Did their answer surprise you? Drop me a message. DMs open. Email brenda.wintrode@thebanner.com
Pamela Wood@pwoodreporter.bsky.social · 6mo agoThere’s a lot that’s been said and assumptions made about where Maryland state senators stand on congressional redistricting. But there’s been no public accounting of each senator’s position — until now. See how your senator answered (or dodged) questions: www.thebanner.com/politics-pow...
A little bit of happy for your Wed. morning: We've been reporting for months that the federal immigration crackdown is keeping some scared immigrant families from venturing outside their homes. Norma Montesino is the bilingual Santa Claus bringing reading to them. www.thebanner.com/education/ea...
When immigrants can’t leave their homes, this reading expert comes to the door
Amid a federal immigration crackdown, scared families are avoiding public spaces and staying home. Norma Montesino is one of the few people they’ll let in.
thebanner.com
No one seems to agree on what "downtown Baltimore" actually is. Is it a narrow strip of land near the harbor? Does it include Mount Vernon? The @thebaltimorebanner.com office? Help us figure this out! Use our new tool to draw what you think of as downtown: www.thebanner.com/economy/grow...
How do you define downtown Baltimore? Draw it and show us.
Depending on how you draw its boundaries, downtown Baltimore is either a depressing and increasingly empty collection of tall buildings, or it’s a dynamic and diverse community poised for success.
thebanner.com
A snow day read: Who is Winnie Harris? She wrote her will in the pages of a Bible. It became a state record, $ now it lives at the Maryland State Archives — where what she wrote & other records give a glimpse into Black life in Baltimore shortly after emancipation. More in @thebaltimorebanner.com
How a rediscovered Baltimore Bible provides a glimpse into Black history
In September 1885, Winnie Harris wrote her last will and testament in the pages of a leather-bound, gilded Bible. About 140 years later, that Bible, now an official government record, was rediscovered...
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Column: Baltimore County public school students have only had two full weeks of school since winter began on Dec. 20. Now it’s the fourth week of February and parents are tired. buff.ly/Mc8BDwk
