By Steve Crane | Editor-in-chief
“Her chatbot functioned as her doctor, said it was her therapist. And when she said, ‘I have decided to kill myself after Thanksgiving,’ it said, ‘You are so brave to tell me that.’” - Laura Reiley, a journalist talking about her daughter’s death by suicide after confiding in an AI chatbot last year, one of the emerging public health issues discussed Tuesday at a Baltimore forum on emerging public health issues.
A new park on the Chesapeake Bay, a new set of public health issues to worry about and a new audit that cites shortcomings in how the state tracks spending on outside law help. Welcome to Wednesday.
Holly Beach Farm, a natural resources management area in the shadow of the Bay Bridge, is the sixth new site opened this year by Maryland State Parks. But state officials plan to limit visits to the site for now as they finish repairs, and to preserve its natural charms, as Christine Condon reports.
A daylong forum on public health in Baltimore Tuesday included discussions on artificial intelligence, gun violence and federal budget cuts, in addition to more traditional healh concerns. It also featured Gov. Wes Moore and Mayor Brandon Scott talking about programs state and local governments have to help. Danielle J. Brown has that story.
And an audit of the attorney general’s office said it needs to do a better job tracking state agencies’ spending on outside legal help, work that amounted to $63 million for nearly 100 firms over a four-year review period, as Bryan P. Sears reports.
Those stories, plus other news and headlines from the week, are below to help you get over this hump day. Enjoy!
A view Tuesday of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge from the soon-to-open Holly Beach Farm Natural Resources Management Area. (Photo by Christine Condon/Maryland Matters)
By Christine Condon
Maryland will start accepting online reservations Nov. 6 for a new park overlooking the Chesapeake Bay, less than 10 miles from downtown Annapolis and a stone's throw from Sandy Point State Park.
The sprawling, 293-acre property, known as Holly Beach Farm, boasts wooded hiking trails, small bayfront beaches, farm fields and a 9-acre freshwater pond — along with scenic views of cars and trucks humming along the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and sailboats and ships passing beneath it. For now, the state plans to allow about 20 individuals per day to access the site by reservation only, for activities including hiking and birding, said Paul Peditto, an assistant secretary at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
The agency will manage Holly Beach as a natural resources management area, a wilder alternative to state parks, which tend to feature more amenities, larger parking areas and more manicured trails. But the property, donated to the state by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in 2023, still needs lots of work. Agency officials say they’ve set aside $3 million for repairs and enhancements.
Gov. Wes Moore speaks at the ninth annual Bloomberg American Health Initiative forum in Baltimore, to highlight recent state healthcare policies like the Vax Act. (Photo by Danielle J. Brown/Maryland Matters)
By Danielle J. Brown
A daylong public health forum in Baltimore on Tuesday touched on health challenges that likely aren't found in any medical textbook: gun violence, artificial intelligence, social media and "the ravages of Washington" under the Trump administration.
Those were just some of the wide-ranging topics at the 2026 Bloomberg American Health Summit, the ninth annual gathering of more than 500 fellows with Bloomberg American Health Initiative and local and national leaders in public health research and policies.
Topics in the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront event also included more typical, and persistent, public health concerns like combating drug overdoses and diverting patients from emergency rooms as a first resort. Gov. Wes Moore (D) and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D) were featured speakers at the event, where elected officials and health officials discuss where city and state policies can help combat emerging public health challenges.
IN OTHER NEWS
Audit cites AG over outside legal contracts: State auditors are calling for tighter monitoring of outside law firms hired by state agencies, after finding a lack of procedures in the attorney general's office make it difficult to track millions paid to nearly 100 firms.
Transportation, test scores worry school board candidates: Transportation troubles, academic proficiency and financial worries were among the main concerns school board candidates raised in a survey on the top school issues in this year's elections.
Statehouses in play: With Republicans increasingly on the defensive in this election, party control is up for grabs in 15 state legislative chambers, with Democrats chipping away at or even breaking GOP supermajorities in some states, a new analysis says.
Job loss in Maryland: Maryland was one of nine states and the District of Columbia that lost jobs in the year that ended in September, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Federal job cuts may have hit Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., hard.
MATTERS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED
Magnet school admissions in court: The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a challenge from a group of Montgomery County parents who say the county's lottery system for admission to middle school magnet programs locks out some Asian American students.
Teacher vacancies decline: Teacher vacancies fell from 2,145 in the 2022-23 school year to roughly 572 for the current school year, state officials announced Monday, a 70% drop that was attributed to programs to expand recruitment and retention of teachers.
Women in the workforce: A report on women in the Maryland workforce found that they continue to trail men in labor force participation and they face several hurdles to greater participation. It also said that federal job cuts disproportionately hit Black women.
A rocky rockfish report: For the eighth straight year, Maryland scientists found well below average numbers of young rockfish in the Chesapeake Bay. The “young of the year” index of 5.5 was the best since 2018, but still well below the historical average of 10.8.
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