State senator calls for probe of Baltimore’s sprawling tax break system
For decades, Baltimore promoted tax incentives to promote growth and reverse depopulation, but new evidence indicates the system worsened inequality by funneling public funds into private pockets.
One reason why The Real News Network calls Baltimore home is because we know that the struggles that the people in this majority-minority city face (unequitable access to resources like education, clean air, and transportation, for example) are the struggles people face all over the globe. By reporting from the Baltimore trenches, we hope to keep our friends and neighbors abreast of what’s going on in our city, but also hope these stories will resonate with people united in the struggle everywhere.
As a nonprofit newsroom, we depend on your support. If you’d like to see more reporting on and from Baltimore, please consider making a tax-deductible donation or becoming a monthly sustainer.
The grassroots fight for housing justice in Baltimore
Tired of waiting for the city to address housing justice, Baltimore’s constellation of grassroots activists and institutions are charging forward to keep residents in their homes and increase availability of affordable housing.
Family of beloved Baltimore soccer coach killed by private security guard demands justice
Soccer coach and father Kevin Torres was out celebrating his team’s victory with friends and family. A sudden altercation with a security guard left him dead. His family is demanding justice.
Making the painful history of Maryland lynchings more visible
The Maryland Lynching Memorial Project aims to recognize sites where racial terror lynchings took place in this state—to make them visible with sign markers, and to honor the victims through ceremonial practices.
New details in mysterious death of Baltimore Detective Sean Suiter revealed in Maryland State Police probe
A previously unreleased report from the Maryland State Police ruled Suiter’s death a suicide, yet questions and suspicions remain from the community.
The latest theories on how Rey Rivera died don’t point to the rooftop
As Netflix releases a new season of ‘Unsolved Mysteries,’ Jayne Miller, Taya Graham, and Stephen Janis break down the latest evidence in the mysterious death of Rey Rivera.
Walters Art Museum sends public Labor Day email criticizing staff for not unionizing quickly, yet refuses to recognize union
Organizers say the Walters could recognize the union at any time, but instead is delaying a union vote over a legal question that could exclude security personnel who are mostly people of color.
Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library workers move to unionize
All 22 locations of the Pratt Library system are included in the union drive, which is just the latest in a string of union campaigns sweeping Baltimore.
MOM’s Organic Market workers vote to unionize Baltimore-area store
Workers say the grocery retailer’s progressive branding belies understaffing, substandard wages, and dangerous COVID-19 policies.
Land Grab: Why Baltimore kept desperately cutting deals with a developer who didn’t deliver
For nearly two decades, many longtime residents of the West Baltimore neighborhood of Poppleton have been displaced from their homes for the sake of redevelopment plans that have yet to materialize.
‘We’re Doing This Purely Out Of Love’
An overdose prevention site installation provided Baltimoreans with a sense of what places where people use drugs without fear of arrest—or death—would actually look like.
Announcing a new criminal justice journalism fellowship in Baltimore
The Real News Network and Just Media are partnering to launch a new fellowship program that empowers Baltimore writers that are passionate about reporting on criminal justice issues from their communities’ lived experiences.
How Maryland is preventing prisoners from getting college degrees
“Atiba” Demetrius Brown is taking correspondence courses while incarcerated in Maryland, but because of a new decree by the Department of Public Safety & Correctional Services, he can’t take his exams.
Baltimore Police Sergeant sued for civil rights violations was accused of rape in 2010
Documents obtained by Battleground Baltimore show that Baltimore Police veteran Welton Simpson Jr. allegedly sexually assaulted his wife and threatened her with his police weapon.
Training Days: Leaked disciplinary records of a Baltimore cop hired ‘post-Freddie Gray’ exemplify the limits of police reform
Documents investigating Officer Luke Shelley, once touted by local news as the future of the department, shows years of questionable searches, mishandled evidence, alleged ‘profiling,’ and more.
‘It could happen any day now’: Maryland abortion providers prepare for end of Roe v. Wade
Even though Maryland has strong abortion protections, healthcare providers and organizers are bracing for a huge influx of out-of-state abortion seekers if and when the Supreme Court overturns Roe.
‘More vicious without a badge’: Leaked disciplinary records reveal a notorious Baltimore cop’s shocking behavior
Marilyn Mosby’s list of 300 police with ‘credibility issues’ includes Melvin Hill. Battleground Baltimore investigates this former cop with dozens of allegations against him, including ‘criminal misconduct’ and making a ‘false statement.’
Johns Hopkins students commemorate 74 years since the Nakba
“For us as Hopkins students and students in America in general, we try to disconnect and not normalize the State of Israel—not offer it legitimacy,” one organizer said.
Workers at Maryland’s first unionized Starbucks describe their fight for workplace democracy
On the day they became the first unionized store in Maryland, we spoke with four Starbucks partners about their fight for an inclusive, safe, and democratic workplace.
Seven years since Baltimore Police killed Freddie Gray, five years into the consent decree
While those in charge talk up technocratic change and ‘progress,’ police corruption and dysfunction continues.
Maryland Gubernatorial Transportation Forum
Join us at The Real News Network studio and live online to hear from leading gubernatorial candidates about their visions for Maryland’s transportation future.
In Baltimore’s backlogged courts, defendants pay for their own home detention or risk years in jail pretrial
‘E-carceration’ was expanded during the pandemic as a stop-gap solution to prevent people charged with crimes from languishing in unsafe conditions. Advocates want it to be permanent—and free.
Cannabis closer to legalization, ‘Defund BPD’ is back
A week of battling billboards and debates about overspending on the cops, as legal weed in Maryland just became a little more likely.
Battleground Baltimore: The police killing of Donnell Rochester
In this month’s roundup of Baltimore news, Baltimore Museum of Art workers want their union recognized, reckoning with ‘zero tolerance,’ and more.
Workers demand Baltimore Museum of Art live up to ‘progressive’ bonafides and let them unionize
An exhibition recognizing security guards’ contributions to the museum is about to open, but the BMA’s director won’t recognize museum staff’s wall-to-wall union.
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